Europe

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Widely seen as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the European Union, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has sought to assert Hungary’s neutrality in the war in Ukraine, even as his allies in the EU and NATO assist the embattled country and punish Russia for launching the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will try to use his three-nation tour of the Middle East and North Africa to reassure wary Israelis and Arabs that the Biden administration is committed to the region’s security at a time when Washington is confronting multiple foreign policy challenges.

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — NATO Deputy-General Secretary Mircea Geoana says that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s month-old “barbaric war” against Ukraine is a war he cannot win.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the former Romanian foreign minister and ambassador to the United States added that NATO would be “forced to take appropriate measures” in the event of a chemical or nuclear attack, which follows a string of ominous comments from Moscow officials who refuse to rule out their use. He declined to say what those measures would be.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Twenty-five years ago, Joe Biden visited Poland’s capital with a warning: Even though the Soviet Union had collapsed, some of NATO’s original members were not doing enough to ensure the alliance’s collective defense.

“Now it is time for the people of Western Europe to invest in the security of their continent for the next century,” said Biden, then a U.S. senator.

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Nights are spent huddling underground from Russian strikes pounding their encircled city into rubble. Daylight hours are devoted to hunting down drinkable water and running the risk of standing in line for the little food available as shells and bombs rain down.

This is what now passes for life in Chernihiv, a city in northern Ukraine where death is everywhere. It isn’t — yet — quite as synonymous with atrocious human suffering as the pulverized southern city of Mariupol has become in the 31 days since Russia invaded Ukraine.

25 March 2022; MEMO: Russia is looking to China, Turkey, Iran and India, to plug the gap created by an exodus of western retail companies, an industry body said on Friday, as Moscow grapples to find ways to combat its growing isolation in the face of sanctions, Reuters reports.

25 March 2022; MEMO: Israeli defence officials rejected Ukraine's efforts to obtain the Israeli Pegasus programme due to fears of jeopardising its relations with Russia.

According to The Guardian, Ukraine has been trying to get its hands on the Israeli espionage software since 2019.

PARIS, March 25 (Reuters) - Some members of French President Emmanuel Macron's camp are concerned that his re-election campaign is failing to engage voters, with little new to enthuse them as the war in Ukraine overshadows domestic policy.

With less than three weeks to go before the first round of voting, Macron has a comfortable lead in opinion polls. But with pollsters warning that abstentions could reach a record level, he needs to get supporters fired up enough to make the effort to go out and vote for him.

VIENNA, March 25 (Reuters) - Staff on duty at Chernobyl's Russian-held radioactive waste facilities have not been rotated in four days and Ukraine cannot say when that will change because of fighting in the town where many of them live, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday.

"Ukraine informed the International Atomic Energy Agency today that there had been no rotation of technical staff at (Chernobyl) since 21 March and it did not know when it might next take place," the IAEA said in a statement.

RZESZOW, Poland/WASHINGTON, March 25 (Reuters) - A call this month between Jill Biden and her Polish peer, Agata Kornhauser-Duda, helped speed medical assistance to the frontlines of the refugee crisis following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Kornhauser-Duda, the wife of Polish President Andrzej Duda, spoke to Biden, the wife of U.S. President Joe Biden, about Poland's stretched response to millions of desperate people fleeing the war in neighboring Ukraine. They spoke on March 11 at Kornhauser-Duda's request, the White House said.