United Kingdom

LONDON, September 24. /TASS/: The European Union has to take seriously the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in an interview with BBC on Saturday.

"When people say it is not a bluff, you have to take them seriously," Borrell said commenting on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statement made on Wednesday. "Certainly it’s a dangerous moment."

LONDON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - The Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, may debate bills incorporating Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine into Russia on Sept. 29, the state-run TASS news agency said on Saturday, citing an unnamed source.

Moscow launched referendums on joining Russia in the four occupied regions of Ukraine on Friday, drawing condemnation from Kyiv and Western nations, who dismissed the votes as a sham and pledged not to recognise their results. 

Pro-Moscow authorities have made clear they consider the votes to be a foregone conclusion.

LONDON, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday that any weapons in Moscow's arsenal, including strategic nuclear weapons, could be used to defend territories incorporated in Russia from Ukraine.

Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said that referendums being organised by Russian-installed and separatist authorities in large swathes of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory will take place, and that "there is no going back":

LONDON (AP) — On a blustery November day last year Britain’s future king stood before world leaders to deliver a rallying cry that they should “act with all despatch, and decisively” to confront a common enemy.

The clarion call — in the vast, windowless hall of a Glasgow convention center at the opening of the U.N. climate conference — concerned an issue long dear to the heart of the then-Prince Charles.

LONDON, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech on Wednesday was a worrying escalation and the threats he made must be taken seriously, British foreign office minister Gillian Keegan told Sky News.

Putin ordered Russia's first military mobilisation since World War Two, warning the West that if it continued what he called its "nuclear blackmail" that Moscow would respond with the might of all its vast arsenal.

LONDON, Sept 20 (Reuters) - Russia on Tuesday paved the way for the formal annexation of swathes of Ukrainian territory, backing referendum plans in areas of Ukraine its soldiers control in a direct challenge to the West that could sharply escalate the war.

After nearly seven months of war, including a critical battlefield defeat in northeastern Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin is pondering his next steps. Annexation could be his answer.

LONDON (AP) — The cannons have sounded, the bells have rung and the mourners have paid their respects.

Now King Charles III faces the task of preserving a 1,000-year-old monarchy that his mother nurtured for seven decades but that faces an uncertain future. The challenge is immense.

London, Sep 20 (PTI) Queen Elizabeth II, Britain's longest-reigning monarch, has been laid to rest alongside her late husband Prince Philip in a private burial at St George's Chapel after the pomp and pageantry of a majestic state funeral at Westminster Abbey.

The queen's flag-draped coffin was lowered into the royal vault underneath the chapel, joining her father George VI and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, on Monday evening. It was the final time her coffin was seen in public after 11 days of national mourning.

LONDON (AP) — Britain and the world said a final goodbye to Queen Elizabeth II at a state funeral Monday that drew presidents and kings, princes and prime ministers — and crowds who thronged the streets of London to honor a monarch whose 70-year reign defined an age.

LONDON, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's de-facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is no longer expected to attend Queen Elizabeth's funeral on Monday, a British foreign office source said on Sunday, contrary to Britain's earlier expectations that he would.

Saudi Arabia would be represented instead by Prince Turki bin Mohammed al Saud, the source said. Prince Turki is a minister of state and has been a member of the cabinet since 2018. He is the grandson of late King Fahd and part of the new generation that has been brought to power by Prince Mohammed.