Europe

MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/: Russian forces delivered five multiple-launch precision strikes over the week, disrupting the Ukrainian army’s strategic electronic interference control system and wiping out naval drone assembly workshops used by the Kiev regime for terrorist attacks, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Friday.

MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the length of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan may help shine some light on how long the West will support Ukraine.

At a meeting with students and faculty of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University), the top diplomat drew attention to statements by Western politicians about plans to support Ukraine "for as long as it takes."

MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/: The Bank of Russia does not rule out hiking the key rate at the September Board of Directors meeting, Governor of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina said at a press conference on Friday.

"At the Bank of Russia's Board of Directors meeting on August 15, we gave a neutral signal. In essence, it means both the possibility of keeping the rate unchanged and the possibility of hiking it in order to meet our 4% inflation target in 2024," she explained.

MOSCOW, September 1. /TASS/: Russia’s Finance Ministry stands for tighter currency control amid the current situation, though a discussion with the Central Bank is underway so far, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told a conference.

SOLNECHNOGORSK /Moscow Region/, September 1. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he will soon meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

"Rather soon we will have some events and there will be a meeting with Chairman of the People’s Republic of China [Xi Jinping]," the Russian president said during an open lecture entitled "Conversations about what matters."

MOSCOW, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Russia will block the final declaration of this month's G20 summit unless it reflects Moscow's position on Ukraine and other crises, leaving participants to issue a non-binding or partial communique, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.

Lavrov, who has served as President Vladimir Putin's foreign minister since 2004, is due to represent Russia at the Sept. 9-10 meeting of the Group of 20 leading industrialised and developing countries in New Delhi.

HELSINKI, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Finland's former Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who narrowly lost an election in April, stepped down on Friday as chair of the centre-left Social Democrats, hoping to take the focus off her personal life after an often turbulent four years at the helm.

Marin, who had announced her intention to quit soon after the election loss, was the world's youngest prime minister when she took the post in 2019 aged 34, attracting attention around the globe and helping lift Finland's profile.

KYIV, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Friday its troops had broken through Russia's first line of defences in several places, though they have then encountered even more heavily-fortified Russian positions.

Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said Kyiv's troops, in a much-vaunted counteroffensive against Russian forces, were advancing in the Zaporizhzhia region. Washington also said on Friday that Kyiv had made notable progress on the southern front in the last 72 hours.

COPENHAGEN, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- Under a new financial aid package, Denmark aims to increase its aid to Ukraine and its eastern neighbors from 1.2 billion Danish kroner (DKK, 174.8 million U.S. dollars) to 1.5 billion Danish kroner, the country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.

This would make Ukraine the largest recipient of Danish foreign aid for the second year in a row.

BERLIN (AP) — A 98-year-old man has been charged in Germany with being an accessory to murder as a guard at the Nazis’ Sachsenhausen concentration camp between 1943 and 1945, prosecutors said Friday.

The German citizen, a resident of Main-Kinzig county near Frankfurt, is accused of having “supported the cruel and malicious killing of thousands of prisoners as a member of the SS guard detail,” prosecutors in Giessen said in a statement. They did not release the suspect’s name.