Europe

BUDAPEST, January 16. /TASS/: Budapest believes that the European Union should provide assistance to Ukraine without damaging its own budget, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.

"I think that we should help Ukraine but without damaging the European Union’s budget," Orban told reporters following talks with his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico.

He added that financial assistance to Kiev should be provided outside of the EU budget.

DAVOS, January 16. /TASS/: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has described the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine as extremely difficult for the Ukrainian army and called for not underestimating Russia.

MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/: Russia is gaining allies around the world, as most countries support the idea of a multipolar world, so Russian parliamentarians need to build and develop relations with them, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said, speaking at the first plenary session of the chamber's spring meeting.

MOSCOW, January 16. /TASS/: Russian President Vladimir Putin has met with the foreign ministers of Russia and North Korea, Sergey Lavrov and Choe Son Hui, who earlier in the day held talks in Moscow, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"Russian President Vladimir Putin received at the Kremlin DPRK Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui," Peskov said.

According to him, the top diplomats informed the Russian president of the agreements reached.

Ukraine Jan 16 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the West on Tuesday to tighten sanctions pressure on Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and to step up its support for Kyiv to ensure that Moscow did not succeed in its war.

Western hesitation in its backing for Kyiv and fears of an escalation in the war with Russia were costing time and lives, and could prolong the fighting by years, he told the World Economic Forum in Davos in an emotional speech.

MOSCOW, Jan 16 (Reuters) - A court on Tuesday sentenced a former senior officer in the National Guard to six years in a prison colony after convicting him of buying equipment unable to protect the bridge which links southern Russia to Crimea, the TASS state news agency reported.

TASS said that Colonel Sergei Volkov had purchased two radar-based air defence systems for 395 million roubles ($4.5 million) which were meant to be able to bring down Ukrainian attack drones by suppressing their signal.

LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defeated an initial right-wing rebellion in his party on Tuesday over legislation to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, refusing to cede ground in a battle that prompted two of his vocal supporters to resign.

The resignations of two Conservative vice-chairmen underlined the deep divisions in Sunak's governing party over legislation he believes is crucial in turning round his party's popularity before an election this year.

DAVOS, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said on Tuesday the kingdom could recognise Israel if a comprehensive agreement were reached that included statehood for the Palestinians, ambitious talk as the war between Israel and Hamas shows no sign of easing.

"We agree that regional peace includes peace for Israel, but that could only happen through peace for the Palestinians through a Palestinian state," Prince Faisal bin Farhan told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

MOSCOW, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Ukraine's statehood could suffer an "irreparable blow" if the pattern of the war continued, and Russia would never be forced to abandon the gains it had made.

Putin made his televised comments a day after Switzerland agreed to host a global summit at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Putin dismissed "so-called peace formulas" being discussed in the West and Ukraine and what he called the "prohibitive demands" they entailed.

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Police in Estonia arrested a Russian professor teaching at the Baltic country’s most prestigious university on suspicions of spying for Moscow, officials said Tuesday.

Estonian Internal Security Service, or security police, said it launched an investigation into Vyacheslav Morozov, a Russian national and professor of international politics at the University of Tartu, for his alleged involvement in intelligence activity meant to undermine the country’s national security.