MOSCOW, March 17. /TASS/: Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine is not aimed at ruining that country’s statehood or ousting its president, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Thursday.

"Let me stress once again what both the Western mass media and the Western establishment refuse to see: this operation is not targeted at the civilian population. It does not pursue the aim of seizing the country’s territory, ruining its statehood or ousting the current president. We keep saying this again and again."

MOSCOW, March 17. /TASS/: The Russian army has obtained documentary evidence confirming the Pentagon was involved in financing military biological projects in Ukraine, the chief of Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological protection force, Igor Kirillov, has said.

"We believe that components of biological weapons were being created in Ukraine," Kirillov said. He demonstrated a document dated March 6, 2015 confirming "the Pentagon’s direct involvement in financing military biological experiments in Ukraine."

BEIJING, March 17 (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping has urged the country to take more effective COVID-19 measures and minimise the impact of the epidemic on economic development, state television said on Thursday, as the country battles a new wave of infections.

PHNOM PENH, March 17 (Reuters) - A Cambodian court sentenced 20 former politicians and activists to up to 10 years in prison on Thursday for sedition, a lawyer and a human rights group said, part of a broad crackdown on the opposition that has drawn international condemnation.

Sam Rainsy, the self-exiled founder of the disbanded opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), has already been convicted of multiple offences and was among those found guilty on Thursday over remarks the authorities says were tantamount to plotting to overthrow the government.

17 March 2022; MEMO: Greece does not adopt an anti-Turkiye foreign policy, foreign Minister, Nikos Dendias, announced yesterday.

Dendias stressed that his country was pursuing a foreign policy that had "national priorities, interests and principles."

"We are not adopting an anti-Turkish plan," he reiterated.

GENEVA, March 17 (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief said on Thursday that nearly 1,100 activists, opposition members and journalists are being detained on "politically motivated charges" in Belarus and called for their release.

Michelle Bachelet said the government of President Alexander Lukashenko was carrying out violations of a "widespread and systematic nature" since large-scale protests against his contested victory in 2020's elections.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Despite three weeks of Russian bombardment, Ukraine has kept up a stiff defense of its cities by using Turkish-made drones to carry out pop-up attacks on the invaders with a lethal effectiveness that has surprised Western military experts.

The Bayraktar TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles, which carry lightweight, laser-guided bombs, normally excel in low-tech conflicts, and Turkey has sold them to more than a dozen countries, including Azerbaijan, Libya, Morocco and Ethiopia.

LONDON (AP) — Two British citizens who had been jailed in Iran for more than five years — charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and retired civil engineer Anoosheh Ashoori — returned home to their families’ hugs and tears Thursday after the U.K. settled a decades-old debt to Iran.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe hugged her 7-year-old daughter, and her husband and members of Ashoori’s family tearfully embraced one another after the two arrived via a government-chartered aircraft at the Brize Norton air force base in Oxfordshire in the early morning hours.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The trial of four men charged with planning to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is resuming after a three-day break because of a COVID-19 case.

U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker said testimony will pick up again Thursday. The trial was suspended this week because the virus had struck a key participant in the case.

There have been “no further complications,” the judge said Wednesday.

PRISTINA, March 17 (Reuters) - Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani has asked U.S. President Joe Biden to use Washington's influence within NATO member states to help her country join the military alliance.

In a letter sent to Biden dated March 10th and seen by Reuters on Thursday, Osmani said that in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, joining NATO was her main national security priority.

"Kosovo's membership in NATO has become an imperative," Osmani said in her letter.

TOKYO (AP) — Residents in Fukushima and Miyagi were cleaning their homes after a sleepless night following a powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake that struck off the northern Japanese coasts, smashing furniture, knocking out power and killing four people.

The region is part of an area devastated by a deadly 9.0 quake and tsunami 11 years ago that caused nuclear reactor meltdowns, spewing massive radiation that still makes some parts uninhabitable.

KIEV, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may hold talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in the coming days, the Ukrainian government-run Ukrinform news agency reported on Wednesday, citing Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak.

"Obviously, the only way to end this war is direct talks between the two presidents, and this is what we are working on in the current talks," Podolyak, also a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the peace talks with Russia, was quoted as saying.