Europe

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court on Monday sentenced seven defendants to as little as three years in prison for distributing methanol-tainted drinks that killed 44 people.

The court in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, convicted the seven of charges including sale of goods that do not meet safety requirements and result in the deaths of two or more people; sentences ran from three to six years.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Monday chided efforts by international officials meeting in Saudi Arabia to find a peaceful settlement for the war in Ukraine, saying the talks don’t have “the slightest added value” because Moscow — unlike Kyiv — wasn’t invited.

Senior officials from around 40 countries gathered Sunday in Jeddah for a two-day meeting that aims to agree on key principles about how to end the conflict that has raged for more than 17 months.

07 August 2023; MEMO: A recent wave of Quran burnings in Sweden and Denmark is "an assertion of a broader anti-immigrant, anti-non-European right-wing bias that has grown to be quite politically strong," a former UN special rapporteur has said.

"There's no legitimate purpose by allowing groups to burn the holy scriptures of another religious faith," Richard Falk, a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, said.

GENICHESK, August 6. /TASS/: Ukrainian troops delivered a strike on the Chongar Bridge and the settlement of Chongar in the Kherson Region with Storm Shadow missiles, the region’s acting governor Vladimir Saldo said on Sunday.

"Kiev’s terrorists shelled the Chongar Bridge and the settlement of Chongar with NATO’s Storm Shadows. The bridge was damaged by a missile, but the most vile thing done by the Kiev regime is that a school in the settlement was hit," he wrote on his Telegram channel.

BERLIN, August 6. /TASS/: Participants in the Jeddah consultations on Ukraine discussed another peace plan along with the one suggested by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, the DPA news agency said on Sunday, citing diplomatic sources.

MOSCOW, August 6. /TASS/: Russia will discuss the results of consultations on Ukraine in Jeddah with BRICS partners who took part in the meeting, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told TASS.

"As for the BRICS partners who were invited and went there, yes, there is certainly such an understanding that based on the results of the events in Jeddah, a relevant dialogue, a relevant exchange of views between us and the BRICS participants who were there at different levels will be held," he said.

MOSCOW, August 6. /TASS/: Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Sunday that The New York Times has misinterpreted his words about the upcoming presidential election in Russia in 2024 where Putin will be re-elected by more than 90% of votes.

The New York Times earlier on Sunday quoted Peskov as saying that presidential election in Russia "is not really democracy, it is costly bureaucracy" and that "Putin will be re-elected next year with more than 90% of the vote." The article was written by Roger Cohen.

DONETSK, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Flames engulfed a university building's wooden roof in Donetsk following Ukrainian shelling on Saturday, said an emergency official in the Russia-controlled city in eastern Ukraine.

"As a result of the latest attack on Donetsk, the first building of the University of Economics and Trade is on fire," Alexei Kulemzin, the Russia-installed mayor, said on Telegram.

Aug 6 (Reuters) - Moscow said on Sunday that weekend talks in Saudi Arabia including the U.S., China and India aiming to establish principles for a peaceful end to Russia's war in Ukraine were a doomed Western attempt to align the Global South behind Kyiv.

Senior officials from some 40 countries were attending the two-day meeting, part of a push by Ukraine to build support beyond its core Western backers among countries that have been reluctant to take sides in the conflict. Russia was not invited.

KYIV, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Ukraine is seeing "significant results" from U.S. and German air defence systems, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday, despite waves of Russian air strikes that included a hit on a blood transfusion centre.

Russia reported that it had shot down a drone heading for Moscow in the third such attack in a week, while officials on both sides said that Ukraine had struck two bridges linking Crimea to the mainland.