Europe

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: Confirmed COVID-19 cases in Russia increased by 5,990 over the past day, with 32 fatalities, the federal anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Saturday.

A day before, Russia reported 6,548 daily novel coronavirus cases and 31 fatalities. In total, Russia has recorded 22,845,868 COVID-19 cases and 398,271 fatalities since the beginning of the pandemic in the county, the latest figures indicate.

Coronavirus recoveries increased by 7,186 over the past 24 hours compared to 7,775 a day before, totaling 22,244,169, the crisis center reported.

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: Russian forces delivered a strike by seaborne precision weapons against the command staff of the Ukrainian battlegroup Kherson on the evening of April 28 during the special military operation in Ukraine, Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov reported on Saturday.

"A multiple strike by long-range seaborne precision weapons was delivered against the location of the command staff of the Ukrainian integrated battlegroup Kherson. The goal of the strike was achieved," the spokesman said.

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: More than 50 countries have already confirmed their interest in participating in the Games of the Future, as more than 100 countries are expected to take part, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko told journalists on Saturday.

The Games of the Future will take place in Kazan from February 23 to March 2, 2024.

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has recorded a video address to participants and guests of the ceremony launching the countdown to the first international tournament ‘Games of the Future,’ according to the video posted on the Kremlin website on Saturday.

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/: The seizure of the Russian embassy school in Warsaw can be defined as a provocation, as Poland has been violating international law and bilateral agreements for years, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel on Saturday.

KYIV, April 29 (Reuters) - Ukraine had protested to key allies the European Union and Poland over restrictions on its grain supplies on Friday, before the European Commisssion announced later in the day that a deal had been reached in principle to resolve the matter.

Ukraine's foreign ministry said on Saturday it had sent notes to the Polish Embassy and EU representative office in Kyiv on Friday expressing dissapointment with the situation and saying restrictions on its grain exports via the European trade bloc were "categorically unacceptable".

LONDON/STOCKHOLM, April 28 (Reuters) - (This April 28 story has been refiled to remove repeated word in paragraph 1)

As recently as February, generative AI did not feature prominently in EU lawmakers' plans for regulating artificial intelligence technologies such as ChatGPT.

The bloc's 108-page proposal for the AI Act, published two years earlier, included only one mention of the word "chatbot." References to AI-generated content largely referred to deepfakes: images or audio designed to impersonate human beings.

MOSCOW, April 29 (Reuters) - Armenia and Azerbaijan will hold a new round of talks in Washington on Sunday to try to normalise relations, Yerevan said on Saturday, after weeks of rising tensions over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Armed forces from the two Caucasus neighbours have frequently exchanged fire amid disputes over the mountain enclave, which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but populated mainly by ethnic Armenians.

April 29 (Reuters) - A drone strike caused a fire at a fuel storage facility in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, sending a vast column of black smoke into the sky before it was extinguished, the city's Moscow-installed governor said on Saturday.

Experts examined the site and "it became clear that only one drone was able to reach the oil reservoir," Mikhail Razvozhaev said on the Telegram messaging app, adding no one had been injured in the fire.

Another drone was downed, its wreckage found on the shore near the terminal, Razvozhaev added.

MOSCOW, April 29 (Reuters) - Russia on Saturday promised it would respond harshly to what it said was Poland's illegal seizure of its embassy school in Warsaw, an act it called a flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations.

Polish state-run news channel TVP Info had earlier reported that police had showed up outside the Russian embassy school on Kieleckiej street in Warsaw on Saturday morning.

When asked about the incident, a Polish foreign ministry spokesman told Reuters the building housing the embassy school belonged to the Polish state.