Europe

MOSCOW, June 8 (Reuters) - For more than 15 months Russia has been fighting a war in Ukraine that the Kremlin refused to call a war - but that is changing: President Vladimir Putin is using the word "war" more often.

When Putin sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, he called it "a special military operation" - a euphemism the Kremlin, Russian ministers and state media mostly stuck to, even coining a new Russian acronym, the "SVO".

VLADIVOSTOK, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud discussed ensuring the stability of the global energy market during a phone conversation, according to a statement by the Kremlin's press service on Wednesday.

"Both sides highly appreciated the level of cooperation within the framework of the OPEC+ (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies), which allows for timely and effective measures to maintain the balance of oil supply and demand," the statement said.

LONDON, June 8 (Xinhua) -- China Southern Airlines on Wednesday inaugurated a new direct flight service linking London and Beijing.

The newly opened route operates one flight daily, departing from Heathrow Airport at 10:30 p.m. local time and landing at the Beijing Daxing International Airport after approximately 10 hours of flying.

Upon arrival at the Daxing airport, passengers can connect with flights to various cities in China, such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Chongqing and Changsha, as well as international destinations like Tokyo, Osaka, Tashkent and more.

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s prime minister on Thursday complained of bias against his country from the United States and the European Union and tolerance of what he called Serbia’s authoritarian regime.

Prime Minister Albin Kurti said his Cabinet took a different stance. “We insist that behaving well with an autocrat doesn’t make him behave better. On the contrary,” he said.

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces Thursday shelled a southern Ukrainian city inundated by flooding in a catastrophic dam collapse, Ukrainian officials said, forcing a suspension of some rescue efforts hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went to the area to assess the damage.

The fresh fighting returned security issues to the region, two days after the collapse of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River set off a scramble to evacuate residents in dozens of flooded areas and get aid to those still there.

ROME (AP) — The leaders of Italy and the Netherlands along with the EU Commission president travel to Tunisia on Sunday with a packet of initiatives to help create security in Tunisia, easing the way for a possible international bailout, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni told reporters Thursday.

“Tunisia is a priority, because destabilization in Tunisia would have serious repercussions on the stability of all Northern Africa, and those repercussions inevitably arrive here,″ Meloni said during a press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — Exclusive drone footage of the collapsed Ukrainian dam and surrounding villages under Russian occupation showed the ruined structure falling into the flooded river, hundreds of submerged homes, greenhouses, even a church — and no evidence of an attack from above, as Russia alleges.

An Associated Press team flew a drone over the devastation on Wednesday, a day after the destruction of the Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River.

PARIS (AP) — As bystanders screamed for help, a man with a knife stabbed four young children at a lakeside park in the French Alps on Thursday, assaulting at least one in a stroller repeatedly. The children between 22 months and 3 years old suffered life-threatening injuries, and two adults also were wounded, authorities said.

The helplessness of the young victims and the savagery of the attack sickened France.

07 June 2023; MEMO: The Russian Defence Ministry claimed, on Wednesday, that Ukraine's armed forces intentionally blasted the Tolyatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline in the Kharkiv region, which is mentioned in the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

Speaking at a press briefing in Moscow, the Ministry's spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, said several people were injured in the blast.

MOSCOW, June 7. /TASS/: Moscow will make efforts to find out the circumstances of the explosion of the Togliatti-Odessa ammonia pipeline, but it is already obvious that it was never Kiev that was interested in resuming its operation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"We will, of course, make efforts to find out the circumstances of the accident, but we can already say that the only country that was never interested in reviving the pipeline was, of course, [Ukraine and] the Kiev regime," she said.