Europe

MAKARIV, Ukraine (AP) — The truck driver had the radio on, his daughter’s stuffed toy keeping him company, and was bouncing his lumbering vehicle down one of the innumerable dirt tracks in Ukraine that are vital thoroughfares in the country’s vast agricultural heartlands.

Then the right rear wheel hit a Soviet-era TM-62 anti-tank mine. The explosion blew Vadym Schvydchenko and his daughter’s toy clean out of the cabin. The truck, and his livelihood, went up in flames.

LONDON (AP) — Britain canceled a flight that was scheduled to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda late Tuesday after the European Court of Human Rights intervened, saying the plan carried “a real risk of irreversible harm.”

The decision to scrap the flight capped three days of frantic court challenges from immigrant rights lawyers who launched a flurry of case-by-case appeals seeking to block the deportation of everyone on the government’s list.

MOSCOW, June 14. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 2,797 over the past day to 18,382,380, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Tuesday.

In relative terms, the growth rate reached 0.02%.

As many as 708 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Russia over the past day, down 2.2% from a day earlier. The number of hospitalized patients decreased in 35 regions, while in 35 other regions the figure increased. The situation remained unchanged in 15 regions. A day earlier, 724 people were rushed to hospitals.

ROME, June 14. /TASS/: World War 3 is already here, La Stampa quoted Pope Francis as saying on Tuesday.

"A few years ago, it occurred to me to say that we are experiencing World War 3 in bits and pieces. Here, for me today World War 3 has already been declared," the pontiff said at a meeting with editors of Jesuit magazines. "And this is an aspect that should make us reflect. What is happening to humanity that has had three world wars in a century? And this is bad for humanity, it’s a calamity," the Italian newspaper quoted Francis as saying.

BELGRADE, June 14. /TASS/: From November 1, Serbia will not be able to import Russian oil due to EU sanctions, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday.

"Dozens of new problems emerge every day We consume 350 tonnes of fuel oil daily, and in winter we will spend seven times more. We need to find fuel oil, there is not enough fuel oil in the NIS (Naftna industrija Srbije - TASS). On November 1, we will no longer be able to import Russian oil under the current sanctions, and God knows what sanctions will be introduced by then," Vucic said.

BELGRADE, June 14. /TASS/: Milorad Dodik, the current Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has said he is planning to attend the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) and meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on June 17.

"I am going to St. Petersburg to attend the economic forum. President Putin traditionally takes part in the forum. A meeting with Putin will take place after the SPIEF plenary session on June 17," Radio Television of Republika Srpska quoted Dodik as saying on Tuesday.

GENEVA, June 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United Nations on Monday begged world trade ministers meeting at the WTO not to impose export restrictions on food for humanitarian purposes, amid a food security crisis.

  The UN’s human rights chief Michelle Bachelet and its trade and development head Rebeca Grynspan said Russia’s war in Ukraine was increasing the risk of hunger and famine for tens of millions of people who are already food insecure or approaching food insecurity.

LONDON, June 14 (Reuters) - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been abruptly transferred from the prison where he is serving an 11-1/2 year sentence to an undisclosed location, nearly two years since he was poisoned with what the West said was a nerve agent.

Navalny, by far Russia's most prominent opposition leader, casts President Vladimir Putin's Russia as a dystopian state run by thieves and criminals where wrong is cast as right and judges are in fact representatives of a doomed elite.

June 14 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Tuesday it was "sure" that Russian-backed separatist leaders in the Donbas would be willing to listen to an appeal from Britain over the fate of two Britons sentenced to death for fighting for Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a conference call that London had not contacted Moscow about the issue.

BERLIN, June 14 (Reuters) - The training of Ukrainian troops on German howitzers will soon be completed, paving the way for the use of the weapons in the war in Ukraine, German Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Tuesday.

Ukraine has pleaded for the West to send more and better artillery as the country runs out of ammunition for its existing Soviet-era arsenal, which is dwarfed by Russia's.

Western countries have promised NATO-standard weapons but deploying them is taking time.