Europe

May 7 (Reuters) - The head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group appeared on Sunday to ditch plans to withdraw his forces from Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine after receiving promises overnight that they would get all the arms needed to capture the devastated city.

ROME, May 7 (Reuters) - Italy remains dissatisfied with the apologies offered by Paris after a French minister accused Rome of mishandling the influx of migrants, Italy's foreign minister Antonio Tajani said on Sunday.

"Clearer words are needed," Tajani, who is member of the conservative Forza Italia party, told Italian state-owned television RAI in an interview.

"I hope that the French government changes its position and that an apology comes that represents a contrast to the positions adopted by the Interior Minister. I will be happy to accept them."

KYIV, May 7 (Reuters) - Russian forces are evacuating residents from the town that serves the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, the Ukrainanian military said on Sunday.

Ukraine is expected to start soon a much-anticipated counteroffensive to retake Moscow-held territory, including in the Zaporizhzhia region.

In its morning update, Ukraine's General staff said Russian forces were evacuating local Russian passport-holders to the port city of Berdyansk and the town Prymorsk, both on the coast of the Sea of Azov.

KYIV, May 7 (Reuters) - Russia's Wagner mercenary group appeared on Sunday to ditch plans to withdraw from Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, saying they had been promised more arms by Moscow and suggesting they may keep up their assault on what Russia sees as a stepping stone to other cities in the Donbas region.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian and Russian media reported explosions across Russian-occupied Crimea, and Russia's defence ministry said its air defences had detected and destroyed 22 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea overnight.

BELGRADE, May 7 (Xinhua) -- The Serbians and the Chinese gathered at the site of the bombed former Chinese Embassy in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Belgrade on Sunday to mark the 24th anniversary of the killing of three Chinese journalists in the 1999 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) aggression on Yugoslavia.

LONDON (AP) — After the gilded spectacle of King Charles III’s crowning in an ancient religious ceremony, coronation festivities took a more down-to-earth turn Sunday with thousands of picnics and street parties held across the U.K. in his honor.

The community get-togethers, part of a British tradition known as the Big Lunch, were intended to bring neighbors together to celebrate the newly crowned king even as support for the monarchy wanes. Critics complained about the coronation’s cost at a time of exorbitant living expenses amid double-digit inflation.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog expressed growing anxiety about the safety of a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant near the front lines of fighting in Ukraine after the Moscow-installed governor of the area ordered the evacuation of the city where most plant staff live.

POTOMKYNE, Ukraine (AP) — A grassy lane rutted with tire tracks leads to Volodymyr Zaiets’ farm in southern Ukraine. He is careful, driving only within those shallow grooves — veering away might cost him his life in the field dotted with explosive mines.

Weeds grow tall where rows of sunflowers once bloomed. Zaiets’ land hasn’t been touched since the fall of 2021, when it was last seeded with wheat. Now, it’s a minefield left by retreating Russian forces.

06 May 2023; AA: Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday commemorated 1,601 children killed during the siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995. 

A memorial service was held in the capital with the same number of students, representing the child victims.

Fikret Grabovica, president of the Association of Parents of Children Killed during the siege of Sarajevo, said the perpetrators were not punished and none of them were even prosecuted.

MOSCOW, May 6. /TASS/ :  About 20 people, including children, were injured as a result of a carousel breakdown in Orenburg, the regional police said.

"The police have received a report about the accident in which about 20 people, including underage children, were hurt," the news release reads.

There have been no reports of fatalities as a result of the accident. The injured have been taken to the medics.