Europe

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: Russia’s COVID-19 case tally rose by 58,675 over the past day to 17,140,069, the anti-coronavirus crisis center reported on Wednesday.

In absolute terms, the growth rate was the lowest since February 22. In relative terms, it reached 0.34%.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: Kiev has confirmed that a meeting between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov will take place on the sidelines of a diplomatic forum in Turkey’s Antalya on Thursday so Moscow expects that the meeting will indeed be held, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the Sputnik radio station on Wednesday.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: The situation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is controlled jointly by Russian troops, Ukrainian specialists and the National Guard, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

"Currently, control over the situation at the Chernobyl NPP is being exercised jointly by Russian servicemen, Ukrainian specialists, the plant’s civilian personnel, and that country’s National Guard," she said, adding that Ukraine’s allegations about 20-fold radiation increase at the Chernobyl plant are not true.

MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/: The United States of America is de facto waging an economic war against Russia, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, commenting on the statement by US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland that from the point of view of the US "this Ukraine gambit is a strategic failure for Putin."

"The US, undoubtedly, declared an economic war against Russia and they are waging this war. Yes, de facto this is exactly what it is," the Kremlin official said.

BERLIN, March 9 (Reuters) - Germany will certainly not send warplanes to Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Wednesday after the United States rejected an offer by Poland to transfer its Russian-made MiG-29 jets to a U.S. base in Germany.

"We have provided all kinds of defence materials and .. have sent weapons that we have told you about but it is also true that we have to consider very carefully what we do concretely, and definitely warplanes are not part of that," said Scholz at a news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

GENEVA, March 9 (Reuters) - Syria's war has escalated in the last months, marked by intensified shelling and aerial bombing by Syrian and Russian forces on rebel-held areas, U.N. war crimes investigators said on Wednesday.

Families in Syria, where rampant inflation hit 140% at the start of 2022, would be hard-hit by any disruption of wheat imports from Ukraine or Russia that could make prices for basic goods soar even further, they said.

KOSICE, Slovakia, March 9 (Reuters) - Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia on Wednesday of holding 400,000 residents of Mariupol hostage by shelling the southern Ukrainian port city despite efforts to establish a safe evacuation corridor for civilians.

"Almost 3,000 newborn babies lack medicine and food," he wrote on Twitter. "Russia continues holding hostage over 400,000 people in Mariupol, blocks humanitarian aid and evacuation. Indiscriminate shelling continues."

BRUSSELS, March 9 (Reuters) - European Union leaders will discuss enhancing Kyiv's links to their single market and connecting Ukraine to their energy grid under ideas for enhanced partnership or "association plus plus", an official said, making clear membership was not an option now.

"Membership could take long," said the official, who is involved in preparing talks of the 27 national EU leaders in Versailles on Thursday and Friday.

LONDON, March 9 (Reuters) - Britain is planning to supply Ukraine with anti-aircraft missiles to help it defend its skies from Russian invasion, defence minister Ben Wallace said, stressing that the technology fell within the definition of defensive weapons.

"It is vital... that Ukraine maintains its ability to fly and suppress Russian air attack," Wallace told lawmakers.

PRZEMYSL, Poland/ISACCEA, Romania, March 9 (Reuters) - Thousands more Ukrainian refugees fled to central and eastern Europe on Wednesday, many with no contacts and nowhere to go, as host countries scrambled to accommodate them.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, the number of refugees has probably reached 2.1-2.2 million, the head of the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, said.

Most are women and children, as men stay home to fight.