Europe

A truck crashed into several U.S. army vehicles, including two fuel tankers, that had pulled over to the side of a highway in southern Germany on Monday, setting off a blazing inferno and injuring several people, police and the U.S. military said. The driver of the truck was believed to …

Russia on Monday expelled two German diplomats in response to a spat with Berlin over a German court’s ruling that Moscow had ordered the 2019 assassination of an ex-Chechen commander in a Berlin park. “The German ambassador was informed that two diplomatic employees of the German embassy in Russia were …

NATO should engage in dialogue with Russia but the US-led military bloc ought not to stand for Moscow telling its members what to do, Germany’s new defense minister declared on Sunday, during a visit to Lithuania. Christine Lambrecht made the statement during a press conference with her Lithuanian counterpart, Arvydas …

A fire broke out on Sunday at a Siberian coal mine, Russia’s TASS news agency cited the emergency services as saying, with operations underway to bring 139 miners to the surface, weeks after a blast at a mine in the same region killed 51 people. There were conflicting reports of …

UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has admitted it’s unlikely that the UK will send military forces to help defend Ukraine in the event of a conflict with Russia. He disclosed that Kiev is aware of the situation. “It’s a fact [that Ukraine is] not a member of NATO, so it …

Russia has officially left the Open Skies arms control treaty following the United States’ unilateral exit from the pact last year, saying Washington bears “full responsibility” for the post-Cold War accord’s demise. In a statement issued on Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the decision to withdraw from the treaty, …

The French government has said it will call on the EU to open legal proceedings against the UK over London’s alleged withholding of fishing licenses. Paris says 73 licenses are now outstanding. Speaking on Friday, Minister for European Affairs Clement Beaune told reporters that France had obtained 93% of the …

Russia said on Friday it wanted a legally binding guarantee that the NATO military alliance would give up any military activity in Eastern Europe and Ukraine, part of a wish list of ambitious security guarantees it wants to negotiate with the West. The demands form a package that Moscow says …

European countries prepared to impose further restrictions on travel and more on Friday in an effort to stem surging cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 that are threatening to stall a global economic recovery. Germany, Ireland, and Denmark were all considering further restrictions in the days before Christmas festivities …

Russia ordered the killing in broad daylight in a Berlin park of a former Chechen militant, a German court found on Wednesday, sentencing the agent who carried out the 2019 act of “state terrorism” to life imprisonment. Georgian citizen Tornike Khangoshvili was killed with three shots from a Glock pistol …

Four migrants from Syria and Iraq were rescued from a swamp in Poland near the border with Belarus late on Tuesday in a life-or-death operation as bitter winter conditions set in, security services said. While the number of migrants trying to cross into the European Union from Belarus has decreased …

Ukraine’s parliament approved on Tuesday a draft law that allows foreign troops to take part in military exercises on the territory of the former Soviet republic in 2022, a move likely to infuriate Russia. According to the draft law, submitted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine plans to hold 10 …

Syarhei Tsikhanouski, the husband of Belarus’s opposition leader, was sentenced to 18 years in jail on Tuesday for organising mass unrest and inciting social hatred, according to the official Belta news agency. Alongside him, five supporters were tried and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 14 to 16 years. Tsikhanouski, …

Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto on Tuesday that he wants “immediate” talks with the United States and NATO over security guarantees, the Kremlin said, as tensions mount over Ukraine. Putin “reiterated the need to immediately launch negotiations with the United States and NATO in order …

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden have agreed to hold more talks amid tensions over a Russian troop build-up near Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Sunday, and Putin would like to meet in person at some stage too. The Kremlin said Putin and Biden had agreed …

Three people were killed and six are still missing after a gas explosion late on Saturday caused several residential buildings in the Sicilian town of Ravanusa to collapse, Italian authorities said on Sunday. Two apartment blocks in the town of 11,000 people were completely destroyed and several other buildings had …

Several areas in southwest France have been flooded after receiving two to three weeks’ worth of rain overnight. The heavy precipitation caused rivers to swell and triggered landslides in some areas, forcing residents to flee. The French meteorological agency, Meteo France, has issued red alert warnings in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques and …

Lithuania said Thursday it would offer migrants a greater cash incentive to return home, as the Baltic state struggles to repatriate thousands who crossed into the EU member from Belarus. Each migrant who voluntarily opts to go back to their country of origin will now receive 1,000 euros ($1,130) instead …

Finland has chosen US defense giant Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighters to replace ageing F/A-18 combat jets and plans to order 64 planes with weapons systems in a $9.4 billion deal, the government said on Friday. Lockheed Martin competed in a tender for the deal with Sweden’s Saab, US rival Boeing, …

Ukraine and Russia blamed each other after a push to agree a new ceasefire in eastern Ukraine broke down late on Thursday as tensions over a Russian troop buildup near its southern neighbour persisted. Ukraine said Moscow had rejected a series of its proposals, including prisoner swaps, reopening a checkpoint …