© Reuters. Ukrainian servicemen return from heavy fighting amid Russia?s attack on Ukraine, close to Bakhmut, Ukraine, April 15, 2023. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
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(Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a meeting chaired by Russia’s foreign minister Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is “causing massive suffering and devastation” and that the risks of conflict between major powers are at an historic high.
SECURITY MOVES
* Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said Russia could benefit from the crisis in Sudan and the European Union should do more to try to resolve it. The EU must also accelerate its joint procurement of ammunition for Ukraine, Haavisto said.
* Security will be a key issue at a wind energy summit of seven countries surrounding the North Sea, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said. Dutch intelligence agencies have accused Russia of planning potential sabotage to offshore turbines. Moscow has said the allegations are baseless.
* Turkey’s defence minister said he planned to meet his Syrian, Russian and Iranian counterparts in Moscow on Tuesday, amid efforts to rebuild Ankara-Damascus ties after years of animosity during the Syrian war.
CHINA SEEKS TO END SOVEREIGNTY ROW
* China respects the status of former Soviet member states as sovereign nations, its foreign ministry said, distancing itself from comments by its envoy to Paris that triggered an uproar among European capitals.
FIGHTING
* Russia’s Black Sea Fleet repelled a drone attack on the Crimean port of Sevastopol early on Monday, the Moscow-installed governor of the city said through social media.
* Russia said on Sunday its forces had advanced in Bakhmut while a top Ukrainian commander said his troops were holding the front line through the city.
GRAIN DEAL
* Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday that if the G7 moved to ban exports to Russia, it would respond by terminating the Black sea grains deal, which it has already signalled it will not allow to continue beyond May 18.
* A first batch of Russian fertilizer that Latvia seized last year is being shipped to Kenya by the U.N. World Food Programme, Latvia’s foreign ministry said on Saturday. Russia has cited the seizure as a key stumbling block to its continued participation in the grains deal.
ECONOMY
* Global military spending rose to a record last year as Russia’s war drove the biggest annual increase in expenditure in Europe since the end of the Cold War three decades ago, a prominent conflict and armaments think tank said on Monday.
* Russia’s richest people have added $152 billion to their wealth over the past year, helped by high prices for natural resources – rebounding from the huge losses they experienced after the start of the war in Ukraine, Forbes Russia said.
RUSSIAN OFFICIAL’S SON
* The son of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson said in an interview published on Saturday that he had served in Ukraine under an assumed name as an artilleryman in the Wagner mercenary force, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported.
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