Europe

MOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/: The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that Russia would respond harshly to hostile steps by Latvian authorities. On Monday, January 23, the Russian ambassador in Riga, Mikhail Vanin, was summoned to the Latvian Foreign Ministry, where he was notified that the level of diplomatic relations with Russia had been downgraded. Earlier in the day, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that Russia was downgrading its relations with Estonia in a retaliatory move.

GENEVA, Jan 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The World Health Organization on Monday appealed for $2.54 billion for its work in 2023 to help millions of people facing health emergencies around the world.

   The UN health agency said that it was currently responding to an unprecedented number of intersecting health emergencies.

PARIS, Jan 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — France repatriated 15 women and 32 children held in Kurdish-control prison camps in northeastern Syria, the French foreign ministry said Tuesday.
 
“The minors were handed over to the services in charge of child assistance and will be subject to medical and social monitoring,” the ministry said in a statement.

It added that “the adults have been handed over to the competent judicial authorities”.

Jan 24 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that there were shortages of some medicines in Russia, despite the country producing more of its own drugs, and suggested building up stocks of popular medicines to help meet demand.

While prescription drugs are exempt from Western sanctions imposed over the war in Ukraine, their delivery to Russia has been hit by transport, insurance and customs hurdles caused by the war and other restrictive measures, industry figures say.

HELSINKI, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Finland's foreign minister said on Tuesday a time-out of a few weeks was needed in Finland and Sweden's talks with Turkey on their application to join the NATO military alliance.

Turkey's president said on Monday that Sweden should not expect his country's support after a protest near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm at the weekend, which included the burning of a copy of the Koran.

FRANKFURT, Jan 24 (Reuters) - German defence group Rheinmetall (RHMG.DE) could deliver 139 Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine if required, a spokesperson for the company told media group RND.

Germany is coming under intense pressure from Ukraine and some NATO allies, such as Poland, to allow Kyiv to be supplied with German-made Leopard 2 tanks for its defence against Russia's invasion.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has so far held back from supplying the tanks or allowing other NATO countries to do so.

Jan 24 (Reuters) - Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday that he had been asked to conclude a non-aggression pact with Ukraine, the Belta state news agency reported, citing comments that suggested he saw Kyiv as a potential threat.

Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, disclosed the alleged offer to a meeting of government and law enforcement officials at which he also accused Ukraine - without evidence - of allowing its territory to be used by the West to train and arm militants who could destabilise the situation in Belarus.

KYIV, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that changes would be announced imminently in the government, the regions and in the security forces following allegations of corruption nearly a year into Russia's invasion.

Zelenskiy, elected by a landslide in 2019 on pledges to change the way government operated, did not identify in his nightly video address the officials to be replaced.

Jan 23 (Reuters) - Russia's new military reforms respond to possible NATO expansion and the use of Kyiv by the "collective West" to wage a hybrid war against Russia, the newly appointed general in charge of Russia's military operations in Ukraine said.

Valery Gerasimov, in his first public comments since his Jan. 11 appointment to the role, admitted also to problems with the mobilisation of troops, after public criticism forced President Vladimir Putin to reprimand the military.

KYIV, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Ukraine dismissed more than a dozen senior officials including governors of several major battlefield provinces on Tuesday in the biggest shake-up of its wartime leadership since Russia's invasion last year.

Separately on Tuesday, a long-awaited decision on whether allies could send German-made heavy tanks to Ukraine finally confronted Berlin, after Poland said it had formally sent its request to the German government.

U.S. officials said Washington was also moving towards supplying some of its tanks to Kyiv.