Europe

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Two senior Polish military officers resigned over an apparent spat with the defense minister just days before the country holds a general election, with their replacements due to be announced on Tuesday, authorities said.

President Andrzej Duda accepted the resignations of the Chief of General Staff Gen. Rajmund Andrzejczak, and operational commander Gen. Tomasz Piotrowski, and will appoint their successors later in the day, a national security official said.

BERLIN (AP) — Several more people suspected of being involved in planning a far-right coup and plotting to kidnap the German health minister were arrested in raids in a number of regions on Tuesday, authorities said.

Prosecutors have said the group intended to create “conditions similar to civil war” by using explosives to cause nationwide blackouts, then kidnapping Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who was a prominent advocate of strict coronavirus measures. There were no indications the group was close to launching a coup.

MOSCOW, October 9. /TASS/: The admission by Kirill Budanov, head of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR), that Ukraine has launched attacks on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) should serve as "a wake-up call" for the UN, whose representatives have claimed to be unable to determine where the strikes had originated, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

MOSCOW, October 9. /TASS/: There is a need to end the Israeli-Palestinian fighting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

"Apart from ending the fighting and solving the problem of numerous civilian casualties that are being recorded, there is also a need to pay special attention to the reasons why it has been impossible to resolve the Palestinian issue for decades," the top Russian diplomat noted.

MOSCOW, October 9. /TASS/: Russian forces eliminated roughly 170 Ukrainian troops and a self-propelled artillery gun in the Kupyansk area over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Monday.

"The enemy’s losses amounted to 170 Ukrainian personnel, four pickup trucks and an Akatsiya motorized artillery system," the ministry said in a statement.

MOSCOW, October 9. /TASS/: Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has posted evidence on her Telegram channel of the Russian side's repeated appeals to the international community about weapons supplied by the West to Kiev showing up on the black market.

The diplomat posted excerpts from statements made at briefings from last March to the present day.

MOSCOW, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Russian lawmakers were given 10 days on Monday to study how best to revoke Moscow's ratification of a landmark treaty banning nuclear tests, after President Vladimir Putin held out the possibility of resuming such testing.

Russia's envoy to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) said on Friday that Moscow would revoke its ratification of the pact, a move that Washington denounced as endangering "the global norm" against nuclear test blasts.

LONDON, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Russia may be paving the way to conduct a nuclear test, a move that would sharply raise tensions with the West and likely prompt other world powers to resume testing for the first time this century.

President Vladimir Putin last week said Russia's parliament should consider withdrawing Moscow's ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which prohibits tests involving nuclear explosions. Parliamentary leaders were due to discuss the issue on Monday.

MOSCOW, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Russia condemned violence against both Jews and Palestinians in Israel and the Palestinian Territories on Monday, but criticised the United States for what it said was its destructive approach which had ignored the need for an independent Palestinian state.

Israeli troops were battling Hamas gunmen on Monday, more than two days after the militants burst across the fence from Gaza on a deadly rampage. The army said it would soon go on the offensive after the biggest mobilisation in Israeli history.

BRUSSELS/BERLIN, Oct 9 (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Monday it was putting all of its development aid for Palestinians, worth 691 million euros ($729 million), under review and immediately suspending all payments following Hamas' attack on Israel.

Germany and Austria earlier on Monday said they were suspending bilateral development aid to Palestinians, while others such as Italy had said suspending aid was not up for discussion.