Europe

March 19 (Reuters) - Russia's space agency on Saturday dismissed Western media reports suggesting Russian cosmonauts joining the International Space Station (ISS) had chosen to wear yellow suits with a blue trim in support of Ukraine. 

"Sometimes yellow is just yellow," Roscosmos's press service said on its Telegram channel.

"The flight suits of the new crew are made in the colours of the emblem of the Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which all three cosmonauts graduated from ... To see the Ukrainian flag everywhere and in everything is crazy."

PRZEMYSL, Poland, March 19 (Reuters) - Ukrainian mothers and their young children found shelter in an ornate theatre in the Polish border town of Przemysl on Saturday, where they were able to get some rest after their harrowing journey.

For Tanya, a 34-year-old from Berdychiv in northern Ukraine, it was a relief to finally have some help with her five young children after their long trip to Poland.

Tanya, who did not give her last name, had stayed in her home until it was no longer possible to shield her children from the war.

GENEVA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- The United States and the United Kingdom are inextricably linked to the Syrian people's misery, a senior Chinese diplomat said here Friday.

In Syria, air strikes by the United States, the United Kingdom and others have resulted in a substantial number of civilian deaths and displacement, said Jiang Duan, minister of China's Permanent Mission to the United Nations Office in Geneva.

MOSCOW, March 19 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed on Saturday "the unacceptable nature of the military-biological activities of the United States in Ukraine" in a phone conversation with Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, the Kremlin said in a statement.

Such activities pose a huge danger to both Russia and the whole Europe, Putin said.

The two leaders discussed Russia's military operation in Ukraine, and Putin noted the missile attacks by the Ukrainian security forces on cities in Donbass, said the statement.

HELSINKI (AP) — Four U.S. Marines were killed when their Osprey aircraft crashed in a Norwegian town in the Arctic Circle during a NATO exercise unrelated to Russia’s war in Ukraine, authorities said Saturday.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere tweeted that they died in the crash on Friday night. The cause was under investigation, but Norwegian police reported bad weather in the area.

The Marines, assigned to 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, II Marine Expeditionary Force, were taking part in a NATO exercise called Cold Response.

About three dozen would-be asylum seekers from Russia found themselves blocked from entering the U.S. on Friday while a group of Ukrainians flashed passports and were escorted across the border.

The scene reflected a quiet but unmistakable shift in the differing treatment of Russians and Ukrainians who enter Mexico as tourists and fly to Tijuana, hoping to enter the U.S. for a chance at asylum.

The Russians — 34 as of Friday — had been camped several days at the busiest U.S border crossing with Mexico, two days after city of Tijuana officials gently urged them to leave.

Ukraine’s president said Russia is trying to starve his country’s cities into submission but warned Saturday that continuing the invasion would exact a toll on Russia for “generations.” The remarks came after Moscow held a mass rally in support of its bogged-down forces.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the Kremlin in an overnight video address of deliberately creating “a humanitarian catastrophe ” and appealed again for Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet with him to prevent more bloodshed.

New York, Mar 19 (AP) Three Russian cosmonauts arrived at the International Space Station on Friday wearing yellow flight suits with blue accents, colors that appeared to match the Ukrainian flag. The men were the first new arrivals on the space station since the start of the Russian war in Ukraine last month.

Russian space corporation Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov blasted off successfully from the Russia-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan in their Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft at 8:55 p.m. Friday (11:55 a.m. EDT).

18 March 2022; MEMO:Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba yesterday called on Turkey to be a "guarantor" in any future deal with Russia, along with the United Nations Security Council's five permanent members – which include Russia – and Germany.

"Ukraine made an offer on the collective security agreement: P5 [the UN Security Council's five permanent members], Turkey and Germany," Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, told reporters in the Ukrainian city of Lviv.

18 March 2022; MEMO: Massive price spikes for food and energy sparked by Russia's invasion of Ukraine will push over 40 million people into extreme poverty, the Centre for Global Development (CGDEV) said on Friday, warning against export curbs and sanctions on Russian food production, Reuters reports.