Russia

(AP) --- The Russian military said Tuesday it fended off a Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow that prompted authorities to briefly close one of the city’s airports.

The attack, which follows previous similar raids on the Russian capital during the previous months, comes after a mutiny launched by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, which saw his Wagner troops approach Moscow in the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in more than two decades of his rule.

MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/: Russian forces destroyed a Ukrainian command post in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) over the past day during the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Monday.

"In the area of the settlement of Dyleyevka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, a command post of the Ukrainian army’s 28th mechanized brigade was destroyed," the spokesman said.

MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/: Inflation in Russia began to slow down, now it reaches 3.2%, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Monday.

"After the growth in consumer prices in March-April last year, inflation began to slow down. Today, inflation reaches 3.2%," he said.

MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/: The preconditions for Ukraine’s accession to NATO could only be defined after the armed conflict in the country is over, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in an interview for Poland’s Rzeczpospolita.

July 3 (Reuters) - Russia has brought some 700,000 children from the conflict zones in Ukraine into Russian territory, Grigory Karasin, head of the international committee in the Federation Council, Russia's upper house of parliament, said late on Sunday.

"In recent years, 700,000 children have found refuge with us, fleeing the bombing and shelling from the conflict areas in Ukraine," Karasin wrote on his Telegram messaging channel.

MOSCOW, July 1. /TASS/: The government in Kiev will be ready to hold talks to end the conflict in Ukraine if its armed forces gain control of the borders that the country believes are recognized internationally, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said at a joint news conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday.

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/: Poland’s authorities intend to convince NATO partners over time of the need to deploy nuclear weapons in the country within the framework of the Nuclear Sharing program, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said at a briefing.

"Constant dropping wears away a stone," the prime minister said, commenting on the question that the US has not yet confirmed talks on nuclear weapons deployment with Poland.

MOSCOW, July 2. /TASS/: Eugeniusz Czykwin of Poland has been elected President of the Interparliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy (IAO) to replace Sergey Gavrilov of Russia, a source in the IAO told TASS on Sunday, adding that delegations from Russia, Belarus, and Syria were not allowed to take part in the meeting of the IAO General Assembly.

July 2 (Reuters) - A Russian arms dealer freed last December in a prisoner swap for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner has been chosen as the candidate of a far-right party for a seat in a Russian regional legislature, state news agency RIA reported on Sunday.

Viktor Bout, once dubbed "the merchant of death" by the United States, served 10 years of a 25-year sentence in U.S. prisons on arms dealing charges until his release in the prisoner exchange with Griner, an Olympic gold medallist.

July 2 (Reuters) - Yevgeny Prigozhin's media holding group is to shut down, the director of one of its outlets said, highlighting the mercenary chief's worsening fortunes a week after the collapse of a brief mutiny staged by his Wagner Group fighters.

Under a deal that halted the mutiny, Prigozhin, a former ally of President Vladimir Putin, was allowed to go into exile in Belarus and his men given the choice of joining him, being integrated into Russia's armed forces or returning home.