Europe

KIEV, April 18. /TASS/: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky gave the head of the EU delegation in Kiev a completed questionnaire, which is a step for Ukraine to get the status of a candidate for EU membership, the Ukrainian presidential office said on Monday.

"President Vladimir Zelensky handed to Head of the EU Delegation to Ukraine Matti Maasikas a completed questionnaire for our country to obtain the status of a candidate for EU membership," according to a statement on the Ukrainian presidential website.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, April 18. /TASS/: The situation in the Russian economy is stabilizing, while the ruble’s exchange rate is returning to the levels of early February, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting on economic issues on Monday.

"Russia has withstood this unprecedented pressure. The situation is stabilizing, the ruble’s exchange rate has returned to the levels of the first half of February and is being defined by the objectively strong payment balance," he said.

ROME, April 18 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian mayor described hours of "hard" interrogations when held for almost a week by Russian forces last month and said he had appealed to the pope for help to stop a war that had wrecked swathes of his city in southern Ukraine.

"It was a dangerous six days because I understood that for Russians my life and the lives of civilians were worth zero," Ivan Fedorov, mayor of Melitopol which is now under Russian control, said in Rome on Sunday, a month after his release.

KIEV, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine on Monday sent to the European Commission (EC) the first part of a questionnaire aimed at achieving candidate status for European Union (EU) membership, the Ukrinform news agency reported.

The 1,156-page document contains the answers to 374 questions regarding Ukraine's compliance with the criteria for EU membership in the political and economic spheres, it reported, citing the country's Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna.

BRUSSELS, April 17 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) is allocating a further 50 million euros (about 54.03 U.S. dollars) of humanitarian aid to people affected by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to a EU statement issued on Sunday.

Some 45 million euros (about 48.63 dollars) of the funding is allocated for humanitarian projects in Ukraine, and 5 million euros (about 5.4 dollars) to projects in neighboring Moldova, which has taken in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees since the start of the conflict.

ROME, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi has tested positive for COVID-19, the government said in a statement on Monday.

Draghi, 74, who is fully vaccinated, "is asymptomatic," according to the statement.

His schedule has been curtailed, including a planned trip to Angola and the Republic of the Congo scheduled for April 20-21. The statement said Draghi will be replaced by Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio and Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani for the trip.

PARIS (AP) — Paris prosecutors are studying a report by the European Union’s fraud agency accusing French far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and other members of her nationalist party of misusing public funds while serving in the European Parliament.

The report was disclosed by French investigative news site Mediapart days before Le Pen faces incumbent Emmanuel Macron in a runoff election Sunday that could determine Europe’s future direction. Le Pen’s party National Rally seeks to diminish the EU’s powers.

HELSINKI (AP) — Swedish police said Monday they consider the violent riots that have shaken several cities and towns in the Nordic country extremely serious crimes against society and suspect some protesters are linked to criminal gangs that intentionally target police.

Sweden, a nation of 10 million, has seen unrest, scuffles, arson and violence since Thursday that has left some police officers and protesters injured. It was triggered by Danish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan’s meetings and planned Quran burnings across the country.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (AP) — Regardless of how the Russian war in Ukraine ends, getting justice for human rights abuses suffered during the conflict will inevitably be a long and painful process for those who survive to tell of the atrocities they witnessed.

That’s the message from survivors of Bosnia’s 1992-95 internecine war, who have dedicated the ensuing years to the re-telling and re-living of their trauma in hope of bringing those responsible to justice and setting the historical record straight.

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missiles hit the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Monday, killing at least seven people, Ukrainian officials said, as Moscow’s troops stepped up strikes on infrastructure in preparation for an all-out assault on the east.

Plumes of thick, black smoke rose over the city after a series of explosions shattered windows and started fires. Lviv and the rest of western Ukraine have seen only sporadic strikes during almost two months of war and have become a relative safe haven for people from parts of the country where fighting has been more intense.