Europe

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: Colonel Vyacheslav Makarov, the commander of the 4th motorized infantry brigade, was killed in the fighting in the Donetsk People’s Republic, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said on Sunday.

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 2,996 over the past day to 22,898,376, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Sunday.

As many as 332 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Russia over the past day, down 45.1% from the previous day. The number of hospitalized patients rose in 13 regions, while in 57 other regions the figure decreased. A day earlier, 605 people were rushed to hospitals.

MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/: Russia is confident that Ukraine is complicit in attacks on Russians, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Rossiya-1 television on Friday.

He was responding to a statement by Kirill Budanov, the head of the main intelligence directorate at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, that Kiev was ready to kill Russians around the world.

May 14 (Reuters) - Russia's Defence Ministry said on Sunday that two of its military commanders were killed in eastern Ukraine, as Kyiv's forces renewed efforts to break through Russian defences in the embattled city of Bakhmut.

In a daily briefing, the ministry said that Commander Vyacheslav Makarov of the 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade and Deputy Commander Yevgeny Brovko from a separate unit were killed trying to repel Ukrainian attacks.

BERLIN, May 14 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday Kyiv and its Western supporters could make a Russian defeat in the war in Ukraine "irreversible" as early as this year and thanked Germany for being a "true friend" during a visit to Berlin.

Zelenskiy secured a large military boost on his visit, with the German government announcing a 2.7 billion euro ($3 billion) of military aid to Ukraine on Saturday, its biggest such package since Russia's invasion in February last year.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany will provide Ukraine with additional military aid worth more than 2.7 billion euros ($3 billion), including tanks, anti-aircraft systems and ammunition, the government said Saturday.

The announcement came on the eve of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first visit to Germany since Russia invaded his country last year.

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Berlin wanted to show with the latest package of arms “that Germany is serious in its support” for Ukraine.

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi expressed concern Saturday about Russian and Chinese military cooperation in Asia and said the security situation in Europe could not be separated from that in the Indo-Pacific region since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking at a meeting of European and Indo-Pacific foreign ministers in Sweden, Hayashi said Russia’s war in Ukraine had “shaken the very foundation of the international order” and must face a united response by the international community.

BERLIN (AP) — Voters are going to the polls in Germany’s northern state of Bremen on Sunday to decide whether the center-left Social Democrats should continue to run a city they’ve governed since World War II.

The party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz came second behind its conservative rivals for the first time in 70 years at the last election, but retained power with the help of the Greens and Left party.

GENEVA (AP) — He’s European. She’s American. He runs the U.N. migration agency. She wants his job.

International Organization for Migration director-general Antonio Vitorino of Portugal faces what could be a tight race against his Biden administration-backed deputy, Amy Pope, as member countries of the Geneva-based agency choose its chief for the next five years on Monday.

The election comes as migrants have been on the move like never before, driven from their homes by factors including conflict, economic distress and the growing impacts of climate change.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbian authorities on Sunday displayed many of around 13,500 weapons they say people have been handed over since this month’s mass shootings, including hand grenades, automatic weapons, and anti-tank rocket launchers.

The authorities have declared a one-month amnesty period for citizens to hand over unregistered weapons or face prison sentences as part of a crackdown on guns following the two mass shootings that left 17 people dead, many of them children.