Europe

MOSCOW (AP) — Russians who came for a last look at former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on Saturday mourned both the man and his policies that gave them hope. President Vladimir Putin claimed to be too busy to attend.

Gorbachev, who died Tuesday at age 91, launched drastic reforms that helped end the Cold War. But he also precipitated the breakup of the Soviet Union, which Putin had called the 20th century’s “greatest geopolitical catastrophe.”

MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/: Defense ministers from 35 countries as well as representatives from six international organizations took part in the 10th Moscow Conference on International Security, Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said during a conference call on Friday.

MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/: Moscow denounced as inadmissible the continued Israeli strikes on Syria that may lead to a large-scale military escalation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a comment on Friday.

"We consider similar irresponsible moves by Israel to be absolutely inadmissible. We resolutely condemn them," Zakharova emphasized.

MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/: Western countries began demonizing Russia long before Moscow started its special military operation in Ukraine, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said during a Rossiya-24 TV broadcast on Friday.

MOSCOW, September 2. /TASS/: The proportion of Russian citizens' confidence in President Vladimir Putin stood at 81.1% at the end of August, while 78.1% of those polled approved of the president's work, according to the All Russian Public Opinion Research Center that published the results of a survey conducted from August 22 to 28 among 1,600 respondents aged over 18.

Sept 2 (Reuters) - Group of Seven finance ministers agreed on Friday to impose a price cap on Russian oil aimed at slashing revenues for Moscow's war in Ukraine while keeping oil flowing to avoid price spikes, but Russia vowed to halt oil sales to countries imposing it.

PARIS/LONDON/BERLIN, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Europe is anticipating the prospect of Liz Truss as Britain's next prime minister with a mixture of irritation and unease: diplomats say that with the war in Ukraine and rampant inflation, the last thing they need is another Brexit battle.

Frontrunner in a ruling Conservative party contest to succeed Boris Johnson, Truss has few admirers across the 27-nation European Union to start with.

MOSCOW, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, was shocked and bewildered by the Ukraine conflict in the months before he died and psychologically crushed in recent years by Moscow's worsening ties with Kyiv, his interpreter said on Thursday.

Pavel Palazhchenko, who worked with the late Soviet president for 37 years and was at his side at numerous U.S.-Soviet summits, spoke to Gorbachev a few weeks ago by phone and said he and others had been struck by how traumatised he was by events in Ukraine.

Sept 2 (Reuters) - Russia has scrapped a Saturday deadline to resume gas flows via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, one of the main supply routes to Europe, after saying it discovered a fault during maintenance, deepening Europe's difficulties in securing fuel for winter.

Nord Stream 1, which runs under the Baltic Sea to supply Germany and others, had been due to resume operating after a three-day halt for maintenance on Saturday at 0100 GMT.

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Anticipating a tough winter in light of the war in Ukraine, three Balkan states agreed Friday to help each other with potential food or energy shortages and have urged the European Union to include the volatile region in its support plans.

The leaders of Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania held a summit in the Serbian capital Belgrade as part of the so-called Open Balkan initiative aimed at strengthening regional economic ties and stepping up joint efforts for EU membership.