Europe

MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/: US attempts to disassociate itself from Kiev’s terrorism attacks indicate that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky "has become somewhat toxic for the West," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/: Russian air defense forces destroyed 43 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles and intercepted three rockets of the US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket system over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Tuesday.

"During the last 24-hour period, air defense capabilities intercepted three rockets of the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system," the spokesman said.

MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/: Russia no longer intends to trust any promises by Western countries and the UN regarding the Black Sea grain deal, and could consider returning to the deal only after seeing concrete results, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on air during a Channel One television broadcast.

MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/: Russia’s production of weapons and military hardware has increased dramatically over the past year, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW, July 18. /TASS/: Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has characterized the position of European countries on the Black Sea grain deal as "unconscionable."

"In this case, [I think] it would be more fitting to call the position of European countries unconscionable," he said, responding to comments by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who termed Russia’s decision to pull out of the grain deal "unconscionable."

MOSCOW, July 17 (Reuters) - In the run-up to Monday's attack on Russia's road and rail bridge to Crimea, state TV broadcast footage of long traffic jams in southern Russia as tourists waited in their cars for hours to cross over to start their summer holidays.

After explosions tore through the road bridge, killing a couple who had planned to holiday in Crimea and wounding their daughter, it broadcast traffic jams going in a different direction as tourists tried to drive home through Russian-controlled southern Ukraine, territory that Kyiv is fighting to take back.

LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's highly contested plan to make it easier to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is set to become law after the government defeated attempts by parliament's upper house to make changes to the legislation.

The Illegal Migration Bill had been stuck in a battle between parliament's House of Commons and the House of Lords, Britain's unelected upper chamber, which had repeatedly made changes to the legislation to water it down.

KYIV, July 18 (Reuters) - Russia struck Ukrainian ports on Tuesday, a day after pulling out of a U.N.-backed deal to let Kyiv export grain, and Moscow claimed gains on the ground in an area where Ukrainian officials said Russian forces were going back on the offensive.

Russia said it hit fuel storage in Odesa and a plant making seaborne drones there, as part of "mass revenge strikes" in retaliation for attacks by Ukraine that knocked out its road bridge to the occupied Crimean Peninsula.

WARSAW, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Five people were killed, and five others were injured after a Cessna plane crashed into an airfield hangar in central Poland on Monday evening.

In the city of Chrcynno, the plane "hit the hangar where people were sheltering," Andrzej Bartkowiak, chief commandant of the State Fire Service in Poland, said on social media, confirming the casualties.

He also said the plane was landing in bad weather, which might have led to the accident.

LOUTRAKI, Greece (AP) — Wildfires outside Athens forced thousands to flee seaside resorts, closed highways and gutted vacation homes Monday, as high winds pushed flames through hillside scrub and pine forests parched by days of extreme heat.

Authorities issued evacuation orders for at least six seaside communities as two major wildfires edged closer to summer resort towns and gusts of wind hit 70 kph (45 mph).