Europe

MADRID (AP) — Spain took another step Wednesday toward a sense of normality amid the pandemic by partially ending the near two-year-long obligatory use of masks indoors.

The government decree, passed Tuesday, keeps masks mandatory for visitors and staff in medical centers and nursing homes, although patients won’t always be obliged to wear them.

Masks will also be mandatory on all forms of public transportation, but not in stations or airports.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — After spending weeks with no electricity or water in the basement of her family’s home in Ukraine, Viktoriya Savyichkina made a daring escape from the besieged city of Mariupol with her 9- and 14-year-old daughters.

Their dwelling for now is a huge convention center in Poland’s capital. Savyichkina said she saw a photo of the home in Mariupol destroyed. From a camp bed in a foreign country, the 40-year-old bookeeper thinks about restarting her and her children’s lives from square one.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces tightened the noose around diehard Ukrainian defenders holed up at a Mariupol steel plant Wednesday amid desperate new efforts to open an evacuation corridor for trapped civilians in the ruined city, a key battleground in Moscow’s drive to seize the country’s industrial east.

CHERNOBYL, Ukraine (AP) — Here in the dirt of one of the world’s most radioactive places, Russian soldiers dug trenches. Ukrainian officials worry they were, in effect, digging their own graves.

Thousands of tanks and troops rumbled into the forested Chernobyl exclusion zone in the earliest hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, churning up highly contaminated soil from the site of the 1986 accident that was the world’s worst nuclear disaster.

20 April 2022; MEMO: Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett requesting that he authorise the transfer of control of the Church of Saint Alexander Nevsky in the Christian Quarter of occupied East Jerusalem to Moscow.

Israeli sources said yesterday that Israel was handling the matter, without elaborating, Haaretz reported.

MOSCOW, April 19. /TASS/: Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was used by the West against Russia to ignore the implementation of the Minsk Agreements, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday in an exclusive interview with India Today television channel.

"I think the West played Zelensky against Russia. And [the West] did everything to strengthen him in the desire to ignore the Minsk Agreements," Lavrov said. "Had he [Zelensky] cooperated in implementing the Minsk Agreements, the crisis would be over a long [time] ago."

THE HAGUE, April 19. /TASS/: The Netherlands already sends armored vehicles to Ukraine and considers sending additional heavy weapons, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte tweeted Tuesday after the phone call with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky.

"In a call with [Zelensky], [Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren] and I expressed our support as Russia begins a renewed offensive. The Netherlands will be sending heavier materiel to Ukraine, including armored vehicles. Along with allies, we are looking into supplying additional heavy materiel."

BELGRADE, April 19. /TASS/: The Montenegrin Foreign Ministry has apologized in Twitter for reporting earlier about the cutting of diplomatic ties with Russia.

"We apologize to the public for the grave mistake in a report published earlier erroneously announcing that a number of restrictions were put into action, instead of just being mentioned," the ministry’s press service said in a statement on Tuesday night.

LONDON, April 19. /TASS/: UK authorities intend to revoke the recognized stock exchange status from the Moscow Exchange, HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) said in its statement on Tuesday.

"The UK’s tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), has today (19 April 2022) announced its intention to revoke the Moscow Stock Exchange’s (MOEX) status as a recognized stock exchange," the authority said.

"This means investors will not be able to access certain UK tax benefits in future when trading securities on MOEX, although existing investments will be protected," it added.

NOVO-OGARYOVO, April 19. /TASS/: Relations between Russia and Armenia are at their highest level, including cooperation in all key industries of both countries, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday.