Europe

MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/: Russia’s position on Kosovo is unchanged. Moscow calls for a viable and mutually acceptable solution between Belgrade and Kosovo, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday at talks with visiting Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin.

MOSCOW, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Russia on Monday requested that the U.N. Security Council holds a meeting on Tuesday regarding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, Russian state-owned news agency RIA reported, citing Deputy Ambassador to the U.N. Dmitry Polyanskiy.

Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, was overrun by Russian troops in March. It remains close to the frontlines, and has come under repeated shelling in recent weeks, raising fears of a nuclear disaster. Both Ukraine and Russian have blamed each other for strikes on the plant.

COPENHAGEN, Aug 22 (Reuters) - Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has tested negative in a drug test she took following the publication of video footage last week that showed her partying with friends, the prime minister's office said on Monday.

Video clips of Marin, 36, at a party with Finnish celebrities began circulating on social media last week and they were soon published by several media outlets in Finland and abroad. On Thursday, Marin said she was upset that videos of her dancing at private parties were published online as they were meant to be seen only by friends.

PARIS, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- High temperatures and drought have deepened the energy crisis in Europe this summer, affecting electricity production at a time when the European economies are already facing unprecedentedly high oil and gas prices.

In France, Europe's largest producer of nuclear power, several plants along the Rhone and Garonne were forced to reduce output because river temperatures were too high to cool the plants. This further reduced the power supply after the shutdown of a dozen of the country's 56 nuclear plants for planned maintenance.

NIKOPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which hits the half-year mark this week, has already killed some 9,000 Ukrainian soldiers, a general said, and the fighting Monday showed no signs that the war is abating.

At a veteran’s event, Ukraine’s military chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said Ukraine’s children need to be taken care of because “their father went to the front line and, perhaps, is one of those almost 9,000 heroes who died.”

LONDON (AP) — British health authorities will begin offering eligible people just a fraction of the normal monkeypox vaccine dose to stretch supplies by about five times, in line with similar decisions to extend available doses in Europe and the U.S.

In a statement Monday, Britain’s Health Security Agency said patients at clinics in Manchester and London would soon get just one fifth the regular monkeypox vaccine dose as part of ongoing research, citing earlier work suggesting the smaller dose provided as effective an immune response as a full dose.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s top counterintelligence agency on Monday blamed Ukrainian spy agencies have organized the killing of the daughter of a Russian nationalist ideologue.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the main KGB successor agency, said that the killing of Darya Dugina has been “prepared and perpetrated by the Ukrainian special services.”

Dugina was the daughter of Alexander Dugin, a Russian nationalist ideologist who was described by some in the West as “Putin’s brain.”

PRAGUE, August 21. /TASS/: Pavel Fischer and Marek Zenisek, heads of foreign affairs committees of upper and lower houses of the Czech parliament, support the European Union’s ban on issue of Schengen visas to Russians, Cesky Rozhlas radio station said.

Such measures should be included into the list of EU sanctions against Russia, lawmakers said.

MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 39,669 over the past day to 19,117,343, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Sunday.

As many as 1,853 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Russia over the past day, down 46.3% from a day earlier. The number of hospitalized patients increased in 11 regions, while in 66 regions the figure decreased. The situation remained unchanged in eight regions. A day earlier, 3,450 people were rushed to hospitals.

TASS, August 21: The latest Su-57 fighters have shown themselves brilliantly in terms of weaponry during Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, the country’s Defense Minister Army General Sergey Shoigu said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 TV channel on Sunday.