Europe

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.’s aid coordination office, backed by Britain, Germany and Qatar, is launching its biggest-ever appeal for funds for a single country in hopes of collecting $4.4 billion to help Afghanistan, a decidedly ambitious call to assist the impoverished country again run by Taliban militants when much of the world’s attention is on Russia’s war in Ukraine.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian president said his country’s defense against the Russian invasion is at a “turning point” and again pressed the United States for more help in the hours after the Kremlin’s forces reneged on a pledge to scale back some of their operations.

MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 20,145 over the past day to 17,823,648, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Wednesday.

In relative terms, the growth rate reached 0.11%.

As many as 4,299 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Russia over the past day, down 12.8% from a day earlier. The number of hospitalized patients decreased in 52 regions, while in 31 regions the figure increased. The situation remained unchanged in two regions. A day earlier, 4,932 people were rushed to hospitals.

KOROLYOV /Moscow Region/, March 30. /TASS/: The Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft’s capsule carrying cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei landed in Kazakhstan.

Rescue crews have been dispatched to the landing site to help the crew members to get out of the capsule.

MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/: The West fails to globally bound Russia as the country was ready for sanctions, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev believes.

"Of course, there are real difficulties, which Russia has to cope with, as we are still being isolated from global value-added chains, the international division of labor, facing growing unemployment and being sent into an economic turmoil," he wrote on his Telegram channel on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/: The world has started to lose faith in the US dollar in recent years, so given this situation, the only option is to expand the use of national currencies, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

"Given that the prestige of the dollar as the world’s main reserve currency has been plummeting in recent years, while trust in other internationally recognized currencies is also not at its highest now, broadening the use of national currencies is the only and inevitable alternative to these processes," he said.

BRUSSELS, March 30 (Reuters) - The European Commission is readying new sanctions against the Kremlin over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, EU sources told Reuters on Wednesday, with the magnitude of the new measures depending on Moscow's stance on gas payments in roubles.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has said he wants "unfriendly" countries, including EU states, to pay their gas bills in roubles, a request rejected by Western nations.

The new package of EU sanctions could be ready as early as next week, two of the sources said.

LONDON/ZURICH/NEW YORK, March 30 (Reuters) - Yevgeny Chichvarkin, a telecoms tycoon who fled Russia in 2008 and became a high-profile London restaurateur, has long been a vocal supporter of Ukraine.

Together with wife Tatiana Fokina, the multimillionaire says he has sent four truckloads of medical and protective equipment to Poland to help Ukrainians since the Russian invasion on Feb. 24.

Chichvarkin, a burly man with a waxed moustache, said he drove the first load himself.

MALA ROHAN/NEAR IRPIN, Ukraine, March 30 (Reuters) - Russian forces bombarded the outskirts of Kyiv and a besieged city in northern Ukraine on Wednesday, a day after promising to scale down operations there in what the West dismissed as a ploy to regroup by invaders suffering heavy losses.

Nearly five weeks into an invasion in which it has failed to capture any major cities, Russia had said on Tuesday it would curtail operations near Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv "to increase mutual trust" for peace talks.

KIEV, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine established three humanitarian corridors on Wednesday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Telegram.

Two corridors were set up to allow Ukrainian civilians to flee the cities of Melitopol and Energodar in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, which were captured by Russia's forces, Vereshchuk said.

Another humanitarian route was established in the eastern Donetsk region to evacuate people from the city of Mariupol, where active hostilities are underway, she added.