Europe

BRUSSELS, August 23. /TASS/: Europe is probably facing the most severe drought over the last 500 years, the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission said on Tuesday.

"Cumulatively, 64% of Europe is under warning or alert, which is also contributing to spread widely the areas of fire danger across the EU," JRC said.

Dry and warm weather in certain western regions and the Mediterranean will last until November, experts said. "According to JRC experts, the current drought still appears to be the worst since at least 500 years," the statement reads.

MOSCOW, August 23. /TASS/: Ukraine's Ambassador to Kazakhstan Pyotr Vrublevsky is openly engaged in undermining interethnic accord in his host country, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a commentary on Tuesday.

KYIV, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Ukraine will not agree to any proposal to freeze the current frontlines in its conflict with Russia in order to "calm" Moscow, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told a news conference on Tuesday.

He also urged the world not to show fatigue with the war, saying this would pose a big threat to the whole world.

KYIV, Aug 23 (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowed on Tuesday Ukraine would recapture its annexed peninsula of Crimea from Russia when it chooses and that Kyiv will not consult other countries before doing so.

Zelenskiy made the comments at a news conference in Kyiv after the leaders of dozens of countries and international organisations took part - most of them by video - in Crimea Platform, a forum hosted by Ukraine focused on the peninsula.

BARCELONA, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Spanish prison authorities on Tuesday euthanised a man who had shot and wounded four people in December and was subsequently wounded in a shootout with the police, rendering him paralyzed and begging to be allowed to die while awaiting trial.

Courts allowed the man's assisted death after rejecting several appeals by his victims who argued he had to face justice. The case even reached the Constitutional Court, which refused to deliberate on it, saying there has been no violation of fundamental rights.

VIENNA, Aug 23 (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog will visit the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine within days if talks to gain access succeed, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly accused each other of firing at the Zaporizhzhia facility, which pro-Moscow forces took over soon after the Feb. 24 invasion. The United Nations has called for the area to be demilitarised.

LONDON (AP) — Mixed signals are emerging about travel in Europe heading into the winter season. British Airways is cutting more than 10,000 short-haul flights in and out of London’s Heathrow Airport through March, while nearby Gatwick Airport is ending its limits on the number of daily flights.

CHISINAU, August 22. /TASS/: Relations with Russia are a strategic priority for the unrecognized Transnistrian republic, its leader Vadim Krasnoselsky said on Monday in his congratulations on the occasion of Russia's State Flag Day.

MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/: The Russian people cannot be broken so the murderers of Darya Dugina won’t achieve their goals, according to a statement by her father, public figure Alexander Dugin, published by Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev on his Telegram channel on Monday.

Dugin stressed that his daughter was "a patriot, a war correspondent, an expert of central channels and a philosopher" while she "never called for violence and war."

KIEV, August 22. /TASS/: Roger Waters, one of the founders of the British rock band Pink Floyd, has been blacklisted by Ukraine’s notorious website Mirotvorets (Peacemaker) over his statements about Crimea.

The website publishes the data of individuals whom the Ukrainian authorities see as enemies of the country.

According to a statement on the website, its administrators interpreted the musician’s remarks about Crimea as "an attack on the territorial integrity of Ukraine."