Europe

MOSCOW, September 4. /TASS/: Two drones were destroyed by Russian air defenses over the Black Sea off Crimea and over the Kursk Region, as Kiev made yet another attempt to attack Russian facilities, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Monday.

"At about 1:00 a.m. today, an attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terror attack on facilities on Russian soil with the use of two unmanned aerial vehicles was foiled. [Russian] air defense forces on duty destroyed the Ukrainian UAVs over the Black Sea off the Crimean Peninsula and over the Kursk Region," the ministry said.

Sept 3 (Reuters) - Traffic on the main bridge linking the Russian mainland with the Crimean Peninsula resumed after a brief suspension early on Sunday, the Russian-installed operator of the bridge said on the Telegram messaging app.

The administration did not disclose the reason for the suspension. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 in a move condemned by many Western governments as illegal.

The Crimean Bridge has been a target of increased air and sea drone attacks in recent months.

FORNELLI, Italy, Sept 3 (Reuters) - In October 1943, after the Nazis began a brutal occupation of their former ally, German troops hanged six Italian civilians on a hillside in southern Italy as collective punishment for the killing of a soldier, who had been foraging for food.

Eighty years later, some of the relatives of the men put to death in Fornelli are finally set to receive a share of 12 million euros ($13 million) awarded by an Italian court as compensation for their families' trauma.

LONDON, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Armenia's prime minister has said his country's policy of solely relying on Russia to guarantee its security was a strategic mistake because Moscow has been unable to deliver and is in the process of winding down its role in the wider region.

In an interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica published on Sunday, Nikol Pashinyan accused Russia of failing to ensure Armenia's security in the face of what he said was aggression from neighbouring Azerbaijan over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

MADRID, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Madrid's mayor on Sunday advised all residents to stay at home as the capital braced itself for torrential rain and storms affecting parts of Spain.

National weather agency AEMET issued a maximum red alert, which means possible extreme danger, for Sunday in the Madrid region, Toledo province, and the city of Cadiz.

It said up to 120 litres per square metre of rain could fall over 12 hours in Madrid.

KIEV/MOSCOW, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) -- The following are the latest developments related to the Ukraine crisis:

Ukrainian forces have breached the first line of Russia's defense near the city of Zaporizhzhia on the country's south, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported Sunday, citing a Ukrainian military commander.

"Now we are between the first and the second defensive lines," said Oleksandr Tarnavsky, commander of the operational-strategic grouping of troops "Tavria."

BERLIN (AP) — The governor of the German state of Bavaria said Sunday that he will let his deputy stay in office despite a furor that started with allegations he was responsible for an antisemitic flyer when he was a high school student 35 years ago.

Governor Markus Soeder, a leading figure in Germany’s center-right opposition, said he had concluded that it would be “disproportionate” to fire Hubert Aiwanger, his deputy and coalition partner, but Aiwanger needs to rebuild confidence with the Jewish community and others.

LYMAN, Ukraine (AP) — Concealed under pine branches in the forests of northeast Ukraine, the muzzle of a Soviet-era howitzer rises, aiming for a group of approaching Russian infantrymen many kilometers away.

A Ukrainian soldier signals to fire, then swiftly runs for cover. The thunderous crash of the unleashed projectile sends a pall of black smoke billowing above jabs of yellow flames. A pile of spent shells in the nearby foliage grows by the day.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that defense minister Oleksii Reznikov will be replaced this week with Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar lawmaker.

Zelenskyy made the announcement on his official Telegram account, writing that new leadership was needed after Umerov “has gone through more than 550 days of full-scale war.”

Later in his nightly address, Zelenskyy said he believes “that the Ministry needs new approaches and different formats of interaction both with the military and with society.”

MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/: Artillery of the battlegroup East has struck a Ukrainian drone control center in the south of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Oleg Chekhov, a spokesman for the battlegroup, told TASS.

"Rocket and cannon artillery hit the command center of Ukrainian territorial defense units in the area to the west of Vremevka <...>, a strongpoint with a satellite communication station near Novodarovka and a control point of Ukrainian unmanned aviation north of Vladimirovka," he said.