Europe

VLADIVOSTOK, September 11. /TASS/: Those Russians who left abroad with the start of the special military operation (SMO) will be returning as the growing Russian market becomes more attractive, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with RBC.

"As our growing market becomes more attractive against the background of negative economic trends in many countries where these people preferred to go, these people will be coming home," the Kremlin spokesman said, adding that "the economy is still at the heart of many processes."

MOSCOW, September 11. /TASS/: Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has called for suspending diplomatic relations with the EU in response to the EU decision to bar Russian citizens from entering the EU with everyday personal items, calling it a spit in the face of every Russian.

VLADIVOSTOK, September 11. /TASS/: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron cannot act as mediators in settling the conflict in Ukraine, since they have lost their autonomy, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.

MOSCOW, September 11. /TASS/: Russian forces repelled five Ukrainian attacks in the Donetsk area over the past day, causing the enemy to suffer about 200 casualties, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a daily bulletin of the special military operation.

Here are the details of this and other combat actions that happened over the past day, according to the bulletin.

Donetsk area

The five attacks by Ukrainian assault teams were repulsed near Kurdyumovka, Avdeyevka and Krasnogorovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic.

VIENNA, September 11. /TASS/: Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi hopes what is going on at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant (NPP) will be discussed with Russia and Ukraine at a high level.

"I assure you of my full commitment to continue to use the resources you entrust to us prudently, efficiently and in order to make the biggest possible positive impact," Grossi said at a press conference on the opening of the September session of the IAEA Board of Governors.

MOSCOW, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Russia said on Monday a European Union ban on Russians bringing their cars and some personal goods into the bloc was racist, and one ally of President Vladimir Putin suggested that all diplomatic relations should be severed in response.

In an explanatory note to its rules on sanctions imposed over the Ukraine war, the European Commission said Russians were temporarily barred from bringing some personal goods or vehicles into the 27-nation EU.

KYIV, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Monday its troops had regained more territory on the eastern and southern fronts in the past week of its counteroffensive against Russian forces.

Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said in televised comments that Ukraine had retaken nearly 2 square km (0.77 square mile) of land around the eastern city of Bakhmut, captured by Russia in May after months of fighting.

She later added on the Telegram messaging app that the Ukrainian army had in the past week also recaptured 4.8 square km in the southern Tavria sector.

HELSINKI, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- David Wu, Visit Finland's director of Greater China, said in a recent written interview with Xinhua that he was excited by China's decision to reopen group tourism to Finland.

China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism has recently issued a notice allowing nationwide travel agencies and online tourism companies to operate outbound group tours and offer "flight + hotel" packages for Chinese citizens to a third batch of selected countries and regions, including Finland.

BRUSSELS, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission cut the European Union's (EU) and the eurozone's 2023 economic growth forecast on Monday.

"While (the EU) avoided a recession last winter, the multiple headwinds facing the EU economy this year have led to somewhat weaker growth momentum than we projected in the spring," Paolo Gentiloni, European commissioner for economy, said as he presented the EU's "Summer 2023 Economic Forecast."

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian military said Monday that it recaptured strategic gas and oil drilling platforms from Russia in the Black Sea and claimed gains in occupied areas near Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine left in ruins after the war’s longest and deadliest fighting.

The recapture of the so-called Boyko Towers platforms provides an energy source and takes back an asset that Russia seized in 2015 and used to launch helicopters, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said.