Europe

MOSCOW, April 20. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated the military on the successful launch of the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), noting that this unique weapon will force everyone who tries to make threats against Russia to think twice.

Before the Sarmat launch, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told the president that the preparations to test fire the missile had been completed, and then footage of the launch was aired and watched by the president.

KYIV, April 20 (Reuters) - European Council President Charles Michel pledged European solidarity with Ukraine during a surprise visit to Kyiv on Wednesday and said justice must be done for alleged Russian war crimes.

Michel, the head of the European Council, which represents the European Union's 27 member states, visited the town of Borodianka northwest of Kyiv before holding talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the capital.

LONDON, April 20 (Reuters) - Western governments jointly warned on Wednesday about a potential threat of increased malicious cyber activity by Russia against critical infrastructure as a response to sanctions imposed as punishment for its invasion of Ukraine.

The cybersecurity agencies of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - which together form the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance - said the war could expose organisations everywhere to cyber crime.

April 20 (Reuters) - Russia's nuclear forces will start taking delivery of the new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile this year once testing is complete, Tass quoted the head of the Roscosmos space agency as saying on Wednesday.

Dmitry Rogozin said deliveries would start "in the autumn of this year," it reported. Earlier in the day Russia said it had conducted a first test launch of the missile.

April 20 (Reuters) - Ukraine is ready to hold a "special round of negotiations" with Russia in the besieged city of Mariupol without any conditions, negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted on Wednesday.

He said the talks could be "one on one. Two on two. To save our guys, (the far right) Azov (battalion), military, civilians, children, the living and the wounded".

PARIS, April 20 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron and far-right challenger Marine Le Pen battled on Wednesday over who would be best placed to improve voters' purchasing power and run France's foreign policy, in their only debate before Sunday's election.

For Le Pen, who lags Macron in voter surveys, the much awaited confrontation is a chance to persuade voters she has the stature to be president and they should not fear seeing the far-right in power.

KIEV, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine and Russia on Tuesday conducted their fifth prisoner exchange since the start of the conflict, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

As a result of the swap, 76 Ukrainian prisoners-of-war, including 16 civilians, returned home following their release by Russian forces, Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.

Of the 60 Ukrainian military personnel released, 10 were officers, she said.

Vereshchuk gave no details on how many Russian captives were exchanged during the swap.

MADRID (AP) — Spain took another step Wednesday toward a sense of normality amid the pandemic by partially ending the near two-year-long obligatory use of masks indoors.

The government decree, passed Tuesday, keeps masks mandatory for visitors and staff in medical centers and nursing homes, although patients won’t always be obliged to wear them.

Masks will also be mandatory on all forms of public transportation, but not in stations or airports.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — After spending weeks with no electricity or water in the basement of her family’s home in Ukraine, Viktoriya Savyichkina made a daring escape from the besieged city of Mariupol with her 9- and 14-year-old daughters.

Their dwelling for now is a huge convention center in Poland’s capital. Savyichkina said she saw a photo of the home in Mariupol destroyed. From a camp bed in a foreign country, the 40-year-old bookeeper thinks about restarting her and her children’s lives from square one.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces tightened the noose around diehard Ukrainian defenders holed up at a Mariupol steel plant Wednesday amid desperate new efforts to open an evacuation corridor for trapped civilians in the ruined city, a key battleground in Moscow’s drive to seize the country’s industrial east.