Europe

MOSCOW, February 22. /TASS/: Suggestions that there would have been no sanctions and condemnation from the West against Russia if it had not recognized the sovereignty of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) are an illusion, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoma Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday on Solovyov Live YouTube channel.

MOSCOW, February 22. /TASS/: Russia hopes that the UN Secretariat, before making any statements regarding Russia’s decision to recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, will rely on the organization’s basic principles, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on the Rossiya-24 round-the-clock television news channel on Tuesday.

"It is my strong wish to see the UN Secretariat’s leadership, in making some statements, adhere to the basic principles the organization rests upon in accordance with the decisions made by the member-states.

MOSCOW, February 22. /TASS/: The severance of diplomatic relations with Ukraine will only further complicate relations between the two countries and peoples and is extremely unwelcome, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that he had received a request from the foreign ministry to sanction the severance of diplomatic relations with Russia and promised to consider it.

ROME, Feb 22 (Reuters) - The Italian coastguard rescued 573 migrants at sea who were trying to reach Europe aboard two fishing boats in distress in bad weather, a statement said on Tuesday. One body was found.

The rescue operation took place off the southern Italian coast. Three coastguard units transferred the migrants to another vessel, which will bring them ashore at the port of Augusta in Sicily.

The migrants told the coastguard the body found was that of a migrant who had died several days earlier, the statement said.

DOHA/LONDON, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Neither Qatar nor any other single country has the capacity to replace Russian gas supplies to Europe with liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the event of disruption due to a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Qatar's energy minister said on Tuesday.

With most of Qatari volumes are locked into long-term contracts mostly to Asian buyers, the amount of divertable volumes that can be shipped to Europe is only 10-15%, Saad al-Kaabi added.

VIENNA, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Russia's recognition of two separatist regions of Ukraine and its decision to send troops are the start of a new invasion and put the world on the verge of "a dark and dangerous era", U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Tuesday.

"Make no mistake: Yesterday's actions are the beginning of the latest Russian invasion of Ukraine," she said in a statement to an extraordinary meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's participating states, adding: "We are on the precipice of a dark and dangerous era."

VIENNA, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Talks on restoring a deal to curb Iran's nuclear programme and ease sanctions are near conclusion, a Russian envoy said on Tuesday, and sources close to the negotiations said a prisoner swap between Iran and the United States is expected soon.

"Apparently the negotiations on restoration of #JCPOA are about to cross the finish line," Mikhail Ulyanov said on Twitter, using the 2015 agreement's full name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

GENEVA, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Now that the Beijing Winter Olympics is over, U.N. rights chief Michelle Bachelet must release her long-delayed report on alleged violations in China's Xinjiang region against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

Ken Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, urged Bachelet to issue her office's findings before her March 7 speech to the main annual session of the U.N. Human Rights Council which opens next week.

MOSCOW, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Russian leader Vladimir Putin got the green light from his upper house of parliament on Tuesday to deploy Russian military forces to two separatist-held regions of eastern Ukraine for what lawmakers said would be a "peacekeeping" mission.

Inflaming a crisis with the West, the upper chamber's lawmakers voted unanimously in favour after Putin asked for permission to deploy forces abroad. That step came after Moscow recognised the independence of the Ukrainian regions on Monday, triggering international condemnation and sanctions. 

MOSCOW/DONETSK, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Germany put a new gas pipeline on ice and Britain hit Russian banks with sanctions on Tuesday, as the West responded to Moscow's recognition of two separatist regions in Ukraine and a speech by President Vladimir Putin suggesting more belligerent aims.

Putin said the territory Russia had recognised as independent covered the entire Donetsk and Luhansk regions, not merely the parts currently controlled by the separatists - a move that appeared to increase the likelihood of conflict.