Europe

MEDYKA, Poland (AP) — The president of Poland compared Russia’s attacks on Ukraine to Nazi forces during World War II, saying Tuesday that besieged Mariupol looks like Warsaw in 1944 after the Germans bombed houses and killed civilians “with no mercy at all.”

President Andrzej Duda, who will host President Joe Biden later this week in a Warsaw rebuilt from the ashes of that war, spoke as traumatized people bearing witness to the horrors inflicted on Ukraine by Russian forces continued to flee. They arrived by the thousands in Poland and other neighboring nations.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was convicted of fraud and contempt of court and sentenced to nine years in a maximum security prison on Tuesday, in a trial Kremlin critics see as an attempt to keep President Vladimir Putin’s most ardent foe in prison for as long as possible.

A judge also ruled that Navalny would have to pay a fine of 1.2 million rubles (about $11,500). Navalny can appeal the ruling.

22 March 2022; MEMO: The EU has backed Spain's new position on the fate of Western Sahara as an autonomous region of Morocco, Reuters has reported. This was a surprise change of tack by the government of Pedro Sanchez that has met with a lot of domestic opposition.

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — As Mariupol’s defenders held out Monday against Russian demands that they surrender, the number of bodies in the rubble of the bombarded and encircled Ukrainian city remained shrouded in uncertainty, the full extent of the horror not yet known.

With communications crippled, movement restricted and many residents in hiding, the fate of those inside an art school flattened on Sunday and a theater that was blown apart four days earlier was unclear.

MOSCOW, March 21. /TASS/: The Russian Foreign Ministry on Monday summoned US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan and issued a demarche and a note of protest to him over the recent "unacceptable" remarks by President Joe Biden regarding Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"On March 21, US Ambassador John Sullivan was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry where he was issued a demarche and handed a note of protest in connection with the recent unacceptable remarks by the head of the White House Joe Biden regarding the president of Russia," the ministry said in a statement.

MOSCOW, March 21. /TASS/: On Monday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed a peace treaty bid between Baku and Yerevan in two separate phone calls with his counterparts, Armenia’s Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijan’s Jeyhun Bayramov.

"The two diplomats discussed the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russia is ready to do its best to facilitate the process", Russia’s Foreign Ministry said regarding the call with Mirzoyan.

MOSCOW, March 21. /TASS/: Moscow is grateful to all countries that offer mediation in negotiations with Kiev, but it is important not just to opt for a venue for a meeting, but also to make Ukraine more cooperative, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

MOSCOW, March 21. /TASS/: Moscow is terminating peace treaty talks with Tokyo in the light of Japan’s newly-introduced unilateral restrictions against Russia over the situation in Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

ZURICH, March 21 (Reuters) - Swiss authorities have seized a luxury mountain home believed to be owned by a Russian oligarch as bankers and officials work overtime to track assets of people linked to Moscow in retribution for the invasion of Ukraine.

The Bern canton's property office said it believed the flat belonged to Petr Aven, identified by Switzerland as a close confidant of President Vladimir Putin and a major shareholder of the group that owns Russia's biggest private bank, Alfa.

GENEVA, March 21 (Reuters) - A U.N. human rights investigator called on North Korea on Monday to reopen its borders to aid workers and food imports, saying that its further self-isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic may have left many facing "hunger and starvation."

Tomas Ojea Quintana, addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council, said chronic food insecurity was already widespread before the pandemic began two years ago. Only 29% of children aged 6-23 months receive the minimum acceptable diet, he said.