Europe

MOSCOW, March 25. /TASS/: In a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he understood Russia’s intentions to remove obstacles to Russian food exports as part of the grain deal, the Kremlin said.

"The Turkish leader praised Russia’s readiness to extend the Istanbul agreements regarding the export of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports and unblock Russian food and fertilizer exports," the Kremlin said in a statement following the telephone call.

MOSCOW, March 25. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev in the Kremlin on Saturday.

Before the meeting, Putin invited Savelyev to sit closer and the transport minister drew his chair towards him.

"Vitaly Gennadyevich, you and I were scheduled to focus on the issues related to the upcoming operation of the transport industry during the summer vacation period, the spring/summer season and the first part of the fall," the president told Savelyev.

LONDON, March 25 (Reuters) - British retail consultant and television personality Mary Portas has written an open letter to the John Lewis Partnership accusing the group of losing its soul for considering a change to its longstanding model of employee ownership.

Last week, the partnership, which owns John Lewis department stores and the upmarket Waitrose supermarket chain, confirmed it was considering selling a minority stake in the business to outside investors to fund investment.

LONDON, March 25 (Reuters) - Plans by the British government to move migrants out of hotels and into military bases or even disused ferries are expected to be announced within weeks, Sky News reported on Saturday.

Previous suggestions involving the use of holiday camps and student halls were less likely to be brought into action, the report said.

The government has signalled it wants to end the use of hotels as asylum seeker accommodation.

SAINTE-SOLINE, France, March 25 (Reuters) - Police in western France clashed with protesters on Saturday opposed to the creation of a large water reservoir for farm irrigation.

Thousands of protesters converged on the site of the planned reservoir in the rural district of Sainte-Soline, where a similar protest last October resulted in injuries.

Opponents marched on Saturday in defiance of a ban on gatherings in the Sainte-Soline district.

MOSCOW, March 25 (Reuters) - More than 5,000 former criminals have been pardoned after finishing their contracts to fight in Russia's Wagner mercenary group against Ukraine, the founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Saturday.

Wagner Group, originally staffed by battle-hardened veterans of the Russian armed forces, took on a much more prominent role in the Ukraine war after the Russian army suffered a series of humiliating defeats last year.

MOSCOW, March 24 (Reuters) - Russia wants to create demilitarised buffer zones inside Ukraine around areas it has annexed, an ally of President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, saying it might be necessary to push deeper into Ukraine if such zones cannot be set up.

More than a year into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Putin's core war aims remain unfulfilled despite Russian control of nearly a fifth of the country.

KIEV, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine expects to yield 45 million tons of grain and legumes in 2023, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Friday.

"As in the previous year, Ukraine will be fully provided with grain and food," Shmyhal was quoted as saying by the government press service.

In particular, Ukraine's wheat harvest is estimated at 16.6 million tons this year with domestic consumption of about 5 million tons, Shmyhal said.

The Ukrainian government, he said, is helping farmers to ensure the smooth run of the ongoing spring sowing campaign.

HELSINKI, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Politicians in Finland are divided over the possibility of the country donating Hornet fighter jets to Ukraine as per Kyiv's request.

The controversy started when Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin visited Ukraine in early March and said that her government may be open to donating Hornets to the country.

Finland purchased Hornet fighter jets from the United States in the mid-1990s. By 2030, they will be replaced with U.S.-made Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fighters, the first of which will arrive in the country in 2026.

SOMBOR, Serbia, March 24 (Xinhua) -- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)'s aggression against Yugoslavia 24 years ago marked the death of international law, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Friday at a commemoration event in the city of Sombor, where the first bomb fell in 1999.

"24 years ago, the modern international law finally died, and you should know that it is not an unimportant bureaucratic wording -- but much more than that," Vucic said.