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BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed in a Brussels meeting on Sunday to work further on a peace plan for Nagorno-Karabakh that has stoked a wave of protests in Yerevan over opposition claims that Pashinyan is being too soft.

European Council President Charles Michel held bilateral talks with both Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan before they had a trilateral at which Karabakh was discussed.

“The leaders agreed to advance discussions on the future peace treaty governing inter-state relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Michel said in a statement after the meeting, adding that foreign ministers will meet “in the coming weeks.”

A commission on border delimitation and border security will start work in “the coming days,” with Aliyev and Pashinyan agreeing also on the need to proceed with unblocking transport links between the two countries.

A simmering dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan flared into a six-week war in 2020.

Azeri troops drove ethnic Armenian forces out of swathes of territory they had controlled since the 1990s in and around Nagorno-Karabakh before Russia brokered a ceasefire.

Baku said Aliyev told Michel “that Azerbaijan had laid out five principles based on international law for the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and for the signing of a peace agreement.”

Armenia’s Pashinyan discussed with Michel the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh, humanitarian issues and stressed the need to resolve them, the Armenian prime minister’s office said.

But Pashinyan is under pressure at home from opponents who say he mishandled the 2020 war and claim his recent public statements indicate he is giving up too much to Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan has faced a series of protests over recent weeks in Yerevan since he said the international community wanted Armenia to “lower the bar” on its claims to Nagorno-Karabakh.

The unrest also coincides with Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has prompted many former Soviet neighbours to reassess their own security just as Moscow is preoccupied with the biggest confrontation with the West for generations.

Michel said that another trilateral meeting will be held by July or August.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge in London and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Michael Perry)

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(Reuters) – Russia heads into the fourth month of its invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday with no end in sight to the fighting that has killed thousands, uprooted millions and reduced cities to rubble.

After abandoning its assault on the capital, Kyiv, Russia is pressing on in the east and south in the face of mounting sanctions and a fierce Ukrainian counter-offensive bolstered by Western arms.

Some key events in the conflict so far:

* Feb. 24: Russia invades Ukraine from three fronts in the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two. Tens of thousands flee.

* Russian President Vladimir Putin says he is launching a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “denazify” Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweets: “Russia has embarked on a path of evil, but Ukraine is defending itself.”

* Feb. 25: Ukrainian forces battle Russian invaders in the north, east and south. Artillery pounds Kyiv and its suburbs and authorities.

* March 1: A U.S. official says a miles-long Russian armoured column bearing down on Kyiv is bogged down by logistical problems.

* Russia hits a TV tower in Kyiv and intensifies its long-distance bombardment of Kharkiv in the northeast and other cities, in what is seen as a shift in Moscow’s tactics as its hopes of a quick charge on the capital fade.

* March 2: Russian forces start a siege of the southeastern port of Mariupol, seen as vital to Russian attempts to link the eastern Donbas region with Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow seized in 2014.

* Russian troops reach the centre of the Black Sea port of Kherson, the first large urban centre captured.

* One million people have fled Ukraine, the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) says.

* March 4: Russian forces seize Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s biggest. NATO rejects Ukraine’s appeal for no-fly zones, saying they would escalate the conflict.

* March 8: Civilians flee the northeastern city of Sumy in the first successful humanitarian corridor agreed. Two million have now fled Ukraine, the UNHCR says. * March 9: Ukraine accuses Russia of bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol, burying people in the rubble. Russia says Ukrainian fighters were occupying the building.

* March 13: Russia extends its war deep into western Ukraine, firing missiles at a base in Yavoriv near the border with NATO member Poland.

* March 16: Ukraine accuses Russia of bombing a Mariupol theatre where hundreds of civilians are sheltering. Moscow denies it.

* March 25: Moscow signals it is scaling back its ambitions and will focus on making gains in the east, and Ukrainian forces go on the offensive to recapture towns outside Kyiv.

* March 30: More than 4 million people have fled Ukraine, the UNHCR says.

* April 3/4: Ukraine accuses Russia of war crimes after a mass grave and bodies of people shot at close range are found in the recaptured town of Bucha. The Kremlin denies responsibility and says images of bodies were staged.

* April 8: Ukraine blames Russia for a missile attack on a train station in Kramatorsk that killed at least 52 people trying to flee the looming eastern offensive. Russia denies responsibility.

* April 14: Russia’s lead warship in the Black Sea, the Moskva, sinks after what Ukraine says was a missile strike. Russia blames an ammunition explosion. * April 18: Russia launches its eastern assault, unleashing thousands of troops in what Ukraine describes as the Battle of Donbas, a campaign to seize two provinces and salvage a battlefield victory. * April 21: Putin declares Mariupol “liberated” after nearly two months of siege. But hundreds of defenders hold out inside the city’s huge Azovstal steelworks.

* April 25/26: Moldova’s pro-Russian breakaway region of Transniestria says blasts hit a ministry and two radio masts. It blames neighbouring Ukraine. Kyiv accuses Moscow of staging the attacks to try to widen the conflict.

* April 28: Russia fires two missiles into Kyiv during a visit by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Ukraine says. The Kremlin accuses Ukraine of attacking Russian regions near the border. Two blasts are heard in the Russian city of Belgorod.

* May 1: About 100 Ukrainian civilians are evacuated from Mariupol’s ruined Azovstal steelworks, in what the United Nations says is a “safe passage operation”.

* May 7: As many as 60 people are feared dead after a bomb strikes a village school in Bilohorivka, eastern Ukraine, the regional governor says.

* May 9: Putin exhorts Russians to battle in a defiant Victory Day speech, but is silent about plans for any escalation in Ukraine.

* May 10: Ukraine says its forces have recaptured villages from Russia north and northeast of Kharkiv, pressing a counter-offensive that could signal a shift in the war’s momentum and jeopardise Russia’s main advance. * May 12: More than 6 million people have fled Ukraine, the UNHCR says.

* May 13: Video from Ukraine’s military appears to show Ukrainian forces destroying parts of a Russian armoured column as it tries to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in the eastern Donbas region. Reuters cannot verify the footage.

* May 14: Ukrainian forces have launched a counteroffensive near the eastern Russian-held town of Izium, the local governor says.

* May 18: Finland and Sweden formally apply to join the NATO alliance, a move that would bring about the expansion of the Western military alliance that Putin aimed to prevent.

* May 20: Ukrainian fighters holding out at Mariupol’s Azovstal steelworks surrender to Russian forces over a period of several days. On May 20 Russia says the last Ukrainian forces have surrendered. Hours earlier, Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s military had told the defenders they could get out and save their lives.

(Compiled by Andrew Heavens; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Frances Kerry)

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VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday expressed his spiritual closeness to Catholics in China, voicing hope that the church there operates in “freedom and tranquility,’’ but making no mention of a 90-year-old cardinal who was recently arrested in Hong Kong.

Addressing the public gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the pontiff’s traditional Sunday remarks, Francis noted that the church celebrates, on May 24, the “Blessed Mother Mary, Help of Christians,’’ and recalled that Mary is the patron of Catholics in China.

“The joyful circumstance offers me the occasion to renew to them assurance of my spiritual closeness,’’ the pontiff said. He added that “I follow with attention and participation the life and the matters of the faithful and pastors, often complex, and I pray every day for them.”

Cardinal Joseph Zen was arrested in May 11 along with at least three others on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces to endanger China’s national security. He was released later that night.

Zen has been scathing in his criticism of China and has blasted the Vatican’s agreement in 2018 with China over the nomination of bishops in that country. He has characterized the deal, which is up for renewal this year, as a sell-out of Christians who worship in underground congregations in China to avoid harassment by authorities of the Communist regime.

Francis in his remarks invited the faithful in the square to join him in prayer, “so that the church in China, in freedom and tranquility, can live in effective communion with the universal church and can exercise its mission to announce the Gospel to all, offering, thusly, a positive contribution to the spiritual and material progress of society.”

The Vatican-China deal aims at reducing tensions over the Chinese insistence on influence over the nomination of bishops, which, according to the Vatican, is the prerogative of pontiffs.

The Vatican has contended that the accord prevents an even deeper schism in the Chinese church after Beijing in the past named bishops without the pope’s consent. The deal regularized the status of seven of these “illegitimate” bishops and brought them into full communion with the pope.

The arrests, including that of Zen, in Hong Kong expanded a blanket crackdown on all forms of dissent, penetrating further into the city’s long-respected economic, religious and educational institutions.

The Vatican has said it learned of Zen’s arrests with “concern” and was following “the situation with extreme attention.”

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ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Sunday began enforcing an order requiring all female TV news anchors in the country to cover their faces while on-air. The move is part of a hard-line shift drawing condemnation from rights activists.

After the order was announced Thursday, only a handful of news outlets complied. But on Sunday, most female anchors were seen with their faces covered after the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Ministry began enforcing the decree.

The Information and Culture Ministry previously announced that the policy was “final and non-negotiable.”

“It is just an outside culture imposed on us forcing us to wear a mask and that can create a problem for us while presenting our programs,” said Sonia Niazi, a TV anchor with TOLOnews.

A local media official confirmed his station had received the order last week but on Sunday it was forced to implement it after being told it was not up for discussion. He spoke on condition he and his station remain anonymous for fear of retribution from Taliban authorities.

During the Taliban’s last time in power in Afghanistan from 1996-2001, they imposed overwhelming restrictions on women, requiring them to wear the all-encompassing burqa and barring them from public life. and education.

After they seized power again in August, the Taliban initially appeared to have moderated somewhat their restrictions, announcing no dress code for women. But in recent weeks, they have made a sharp, hard-line pivot that has confirmed the worst fears of rights activists and further complicated Taliban dealings with an already distrustful international community.

Earlier this month, the Taliban ordered all women in public to wear head-to-toe clothing that leaves only their eyes visible. The decree said women should leave the home only when necessary and that male relatives would face punishment for women’s dress code violations, starting with a summons and escalating to court hearings and jail time.

The Taliban leadership has also barred girls from attending school after the sixth grade, reversing previous promises by Taliban officials that girls of all ages would be allowed an education.

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SEOUL (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and his South Korean counterpart, Yoon Suk-yeol, will discuss nuclear cooperation and the threat posed by North Korea during their first bilateral meeting on Saturday, a U.S. official said.

The senior Biden administration official said Washington is ready for diplomacy with North Korea and is prepared to work with other countries in the region to help with issues including the country’s “quite serious” COVID-19 pandemic.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Eric Beech; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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By Trevor Hunnicutt

SEOUL (Reuters) -President Joe Biden and his new South Korean counterpart will search for ways on Saturday to break a diplomatic stalemate with North Korea, as they worry Kim Jong Un could lash out with new nuclear tests.

Biden and Yoon Suk-yeol will meet in Seoul for their first diplomatic engagement since the South Korean president’s inauguration 11 days ago. The friendly encounter between allies is clouded by U.S. intelligence showing North Korean leader Kim is prepared to launch nuclear or missile tests.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters on Saturday that the two leaders will discuss nuclear cooperation and that Washington remains ready for diplomacy with North Korea.

“It is very much our desire that we find ways to have a diplomatic approach,” the official said. “We have made very clear we’re prepared to talk to them, and with no preconditions, and we’re also prepared to take steps to address their domestic challenges, including COVID.”

But it was unclear how Biden and Yoon would jumpstart talks with the North Koreans, who have rebuffed Washington’s efforts at engagement since Biden took office last year.

Yoon has signalled a tougher line on North Korea than his predecessor and is expected to ask for Biden’s help. Yoon has warned of a preemptive strike if there is a sign of an imminent attack and vowed to strengthen the South’s deterrent capability.

North Korea’s first acknowledged COVID-19 outbreak, which the U.S. official described as “quite serious”, may provide an opening.

“We are very concerned about the COVID situation,” the official said. “We are very sensitive to the fact that they appear to be facing a quite serious situation, and I think you’ve seen we stand ready to work with others in the international community as needed to provide assistance.”

North Korea reported more than 200,000 new patients suffering from fever for a fifth consecutive day on Saturday, but the country has little in the way of vaccines or modern treatment for the pandemic.

That has raised the prospect of a diplomatic opening as well as a humanitarian crisis or the prospect of deadlier new COVID variants, health officials have said.

Washington has ruled out sending vaccines directly to the country but Yoon may push Biden to do so. North Korea has not accepted offers of COVID help from South Korea, the United States and international vaccine sharing agencies.

A North Korean weapons test could overshadow Biden’s broader trip focus on China, trade and other regional issues.

Countering China’s presence in the region is a key Biden theme on the trip, but South Korea is likely to strike a cautious tone in public on the topic given Beijing is Seoul’s top trading partner.

Biden also plans to use the visit to tout investments in the United States by Korean companies, including a move by South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Group to invest about $5.54 billion to build its first dedicated full electric vehicle and battery manufacturing facilities in the United States.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Eric Beech; Editing by Sandra Maler and William Mallard)

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian teenage boy as clashes erupted when they entered a volatile town in the occupied West Bank early Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry and local media said.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which has intensified overnight raids in the northern West Bank town of Jenin over the past months.

The Health Ministry identified the dead as Amjad al-Fayyed, 17. It said another 18-year-old Palestinian was in critical condition after being wounded by Israeli gunfire.

Local media reported that clashes erupted outside Jenin’s refugee camp when Israeli forces stormed the area. It was not immediately clear how al-Fayyed was shot.

Israel says it carries out “counter-terrorism activities” to detain wanted militants and planners of recent deadly attacks in the West Bank and Israel.

On May 11, a veteran Palestinian journalist for Al Jazeera satellite channel was killed while covering an Israeli military operation in Jenin. Shireen Abu Aqleh’s family, the broadcaster, the Palestinian Authority and witnesses accused Israel of shooting the correspondent for the Qatari channel. Israel accused Palestinian militants of firing at the journalist but backtracked later.

Israeli military officials on Thursday said the military has identified a soldier’s rifle that may have killed Abu Akleh, but said it cannot be certain unless the Palestinians turn over the bullet for analysis.

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SCHUPBACH, Germany (AP) — Stephanie Kirchner’s journey to work has got longer but, she says, cheaper: she has left her SUV at home and switched to real horse power.

Stud farm owner and horse trainer Kirchner, 33, says she decided “it can’t go on like this” after fuel prices jumped following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Since I also suspected hay harvesting and everything else will become much, much more expensive, we said, ‘we have to save a little money,’” she says.

So she has switched to traveling the roughly 6 kilometers (3 1/2 miles) from her home in western Germany by horse-drawn carriage. That turns a one-way trip from 10-15 minutes to as much as an hour.

But Kirchner calculates that, given how much fuel her Toyota SUV consumes, she saves about 250 euros ($264) per month if she can use horse power every day.

Her carriage, drawn by two horses, is popular with children and some others. But “of course humanity is hectic and then some people are annoyed if they can’t get past me fast enough,” Kircher says.

She acknowledges that her answer to rising fuel prices isn’t for everyone.

“I can’t put a horse in a parking garage,” she says. “I think a lot more horse riders would do it if opportunities were created for the horses.”

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By Natalia Zinets and Jonathan Landay

KYIV/SLATYNE, Ukraine (Reuters) -Russian forces intensified their offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region using artillery, rocket-launchers and aircraft to damage defences around Donetsk, Ukraine’s general staff said on Friday.

“The Russian enemy carried out massive artillery shelling of civilian infrastructure, including multiple rocket-launchers,” it said in a statement.

Russian shelling in Luhansk, also in the Donbas, has killed 13 civilians over the past 24 hours, regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said.

Twelve were killed in the town of Sievierodonesk, where a Russian assault had been unsuccessful, he said.

Ukraine’s Prosecutor General office said 232 children had been killed and 427 wounded since the beginning of Russian invasion.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports and Russia denies targeting civilians.

The industrial Donbas region, the focus of recent Russian offensives, has been destroyed, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, as some of the world’s richest countries pledged to bolster Kyiv with billions of dollars.

Since turning away from Ukraine’s capital, Russia is using massed artillery and armour to try to capture more territory in the Donbas, comprised of the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, which Moscow claims on behalf of separatists.

“The occupiers are trying to exert even more pressure. It is hell there – and that is not an exaggeration,” Zelenskiy said in an address on Thursday night. There were also “constant strikes” on the Odesa region in the south, he said.

“The Donbas is completely destroyed,” he said.

Moscow calls its invasion a “special military operation” to rid Ukraine of fascists, an assertion Kyiv and its Western allies say is a baseless pretext for an unprovoked war.

Russia is likely to reinforce its operations Donbas region once it secures the southern port city of Mariupol, scene of a weeks-long siege, British military intelligence said.

As the invasion nears the three-month mark, the U.S. Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved nearly $40 billion in new aid for Ukraine, by far the largest U.S. aid package to date.

The Group of Seven rich nations also agreed to provide Ukraine with $18.4 billion. Ukraine said the money would speed up victory over Russia and was just as important as “the weapons you provide”.

The White House is working to put advanced anti-ship missiles in the hands of Ukrainian fighters to help defeat Russia’s naval blockade, officials said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia of using food as a weapon by holding “hostage” supplies for not just Ukrainians, but also millions around the world.

The war has caused global prices for grains, cooking oils, fuel and fertiliser to soar.

The EU said it is looking into ways of using the frozen assets of Russian oligarchs to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine, while the United States has not ruled out possibly placing sanctions on countries that purchase Russian oil.

NATO DIVISION

But divisions within NATO have also been on show, with Turkey opposed to Sweden and Finland joining the alliance in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a move that would reverse generations of military non-alignment.

Ankara accuses the two Nordic states of harbouring Kurdish militants, but U.S. President Joe Biden and European leaders said they were confident Turkey’s concerns could be addressed.

The past week has seen Russia secure its biggest victory since the invasion began, with Kyiv announcing it had ordered its garrison in a steelworks in Mariupol to stand down, after a protracted siege.

British military intelligence said as many as 1,700 soldiers are likely to have surrendered at the Azovstal steel factory, matching a similar number released on Thursday by Moscow.

Ukrainian officials, who have sought a prisoner swap, have declined to comment on the number, saying it could endanger rescue efforts.

Late on Thursday, Sviatoslav Palamar, deputy head of the Azov Regiment defending the steelworks, released an 18-second video in which he said he and other commanders were still on the territory of the plant.

“A certain operation is going on, the details of which I will not disclose,” he said.

The Switzerland-based International Committee of the Red Cross said it has registered hundreds of prisoners from the plant now held by Russia, but it has not given a precise number.

The leader of Russian-backed separatists in control of the area said nearly half of the fighters remained inside the steelworks.

The wounded were given medical treatment while those who were fit were taken to a penal colony and were being treated well, he said.

(Reporting by Natalia Zinets and Max Hunder in Kyiv and a Reuters journalist in Mariupol; Additional reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Richard Pullin and Stephen Coates; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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ROME (Reuters) – Pro-Russian hackers have attacked the websites of several Italian institutions and government ministries, the police said on Friday.

At 0800 GMT it was still not possible to access the websites of the Italian foreign ministry and its national magistrates association.

The attack was launched at around 2000 GMT on Thursday by the hacker group “Killnet,” Italian cyber-security group Yarix said in a statement.

A similar attack took place on May 11, and last weekend police said they had thwarted a cyber-assault on the latter stages of the Eurovision Song Contest in Turin which ended on Saturday with the victory of Ukraine’s entry.

The police attributed both attacks to the Killnet group and its affiliate Legion.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, many Western governments have raised alert levels in anticipation of possible cyber attacks on IT systems and infrastructure.

Russia routinely denies it carries out offensive cyber operations.

(Reporting by Angelo Amante, writing by Gavin Jones; Editing by Kim Coghill)

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