Europe

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday embraced calls for an international war crimes investigation of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, citing the “atrocities” of bombing civilians, including a maternity hospital.

MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — With bodies piling up in Russia’s nine-day siege of Mariupol, the port city of 430,000 in southeastern Ukraine, local authorities are hurrying to bury the dead in a mass grave.

City workers made quick signs of the cross gestures as they pushed bodies wrapped in carpets or bags into a deep trench some 25 meters (80 feet) long on the outskirts of the city.

More than 70 bodies have been interred in the common grave since it was opened Tuesday.

MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian airstrike on a Mariupol maternity hospital that killed three people brought condemnation down on Moscow on Thursday, with Ukrainian and Western officials branding it a war crime, while the highest-level talks yet yielded no progress in stopping the fighting.

Emergency workers renewed efforts to get food and medical supplies into besieged cities and get traumatized civilians out.

9 March 2022; MEMO: The Ukrainian Charge d'Affaires in Egypt, Ruslan Nechai, has asked Cairo for weapons, financial support and humanitarian aid as some 1,335 civilians have been killed almost two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine.

"It is in Egypt's best interest that the war ends," Nechai said. "We need Egypt to offer us humanitarian and medical aid, and help us with weapons, at its own discretion. Egypt's food security depends on Ukraine to a large extent."

9 March 2022; MEMO: The European Union placed sanctions on the two widows and three daughters of Syrian businessman, Mohammad Makhlouf, uncle of President Bashar Al Assad.

According to the EU Official Journal, the women are the widows of Mohammed Makhlouf, Hala Tarif Al-Maghout, and Ghada Adib Mhanna, and his three daughters Shalaa, Kinda and Sara.

10 March 2022; MEMO: A Turkish field hospital on the Romanian-Ukrainian border is helping war-weary refugees from Ukraine, Anadolu News Agency reports.

A team from Turkiye's Health Ministry established the hospital at the Siret border crossing in Romania's north-eastern city of Suceava to assist Turkish nationals being evacuated from Ukraine where the war with Russia rages on.

However, its services were expanded to treat Ukrainian refugees who reach the border after nearly two days of travel by bus or train.

9 March 2022; MEMO: Russia has withdrawn hundreds of allied Syrian fighters from Libya, as reports emerge of the Kremlin pulling out of some of its operations in the Middle East amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

9 March 2022; MEMO: Parties trying to revive the Iran nuclear deal scrambled on Wednesday to resolve last-minute Russian demands that threaten to scupper negotiations, diplomats said, with the United States appearing unwilling to engage with Russia on the matter, Reuters reports.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) may increase the production of Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft to 40 units per year, the Industry and Trade Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday following the minister Denis Manturov’s meeting with representatives of the sector devoted to the current situation in civil aircraft construction.

VIENNA, March 9. /TASS/: Hungary opposes the EU’s energy sector sanctions against Russia, because Hungarian industry would come to a grinding halt without Russian oil and gas, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at a video conference with European Council President Charles Michel on Wednesday, as part of preparations for an EU summit in France.