Europe

MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/: The US and NATO did not take Russia’s principal concerns in their responses to Moscow’s proposals on guarantees of security, Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out during his phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron, the Kremlin said in its statement Friday.

MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/: Moscow has decided to expand the retaliatory list of EU representatives banned from entering the country, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated on Friday.

MOSCOW, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday that a planned expulsion of 27 Russian diplomats from the United States in January would leave 184 staff members at the Russian embassy.

The United States has demanded that 55 Russian diplomats leave the country this year. Twenty-seven had to leave this month, and the rest are required to return to Russia by June 30, the Russian embassy said in a post on its Facebook page.

KYIV, Jan 28 (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday did not rule out a full-blown war with Russia but said Ukraine was not a sinking Titanic and accused Washington and media of fuelling panic that weighed on the economy while there were "no tanks in the streets".

He spoke after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the United States and NATO had not addressed the Kremlin's main security demands in the East-West standoff over Ukraine, but that Moscow was ready to keep talking. 

MOSCOW, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- If the United States were to impose more sanctions against Russia, the country would risk severing relations with Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday.

"Regarding the threat of (new) sanctions, the Americans were told during the contacts of the presidents that the package (of new sanctions) being considered by Washington, including a complete shutdown of those financial and economic systems controlled by the West, would be equivalent to breaking off ties," Lavrov said.

GENEVA, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- The funding provided by the United States to the World Health Organization (WHO) has dropped by 25 percent since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Reuters report.

In 2020 and 2021, U.S. financial contributions to the WHO declined by over 200 million U.S. dollars, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing provisional WHO data contained in a budget document.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia said Friday it will not start a war in Ukraine but warned that the U.S. and NATO have ignored its demands and left little room for compromise in the crisis.

President Vladimir Putin told French President Emmanuel Macron that the West has failed to consider Russia’s key conditions of halting further NATO expansion, stopping the deployment of alliance weapons near Russian borders, and rolling back its forces from Eastern Europe, the Kremlin said.

27 Jan 2022; MEMO: The highly controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, which critics say has fuelled a witch-hunt against academics critical of Israel, has claimed another victim.

GORKI, January 27. /TASS/: The people of Ukraine will eventually elect a national leadership that will fix the relations with Russia and will recognize a number of geopolitical realities, including Crimea, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview Thursday.

MOSCOW, January 27. /TASS/: Moscow calls on NATO to withdraw its forces from Eastern European states in order to reduce military tensions on the continent, Russian Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Alexey Zaytsev said Thursday.

"It is clear that the military tensions in Europe will reduce if NATO withdraws its forces from Eastern European states. So this is what we call for, this is one of the key points of our proposals for NATO on guarantees of security," he said.