(Reuters) - Finland's Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said there was a risk that Russia's Wagner group could benefit from the crisis in Sudan and the European Union should do more to try to resolve it.
CHINA REASSERTS SOVEREIGNTY PRINCIPLE
* China respects the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all countries and upholds the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday.
* Remarks by China's ambassador to France on Friday questioning the sovereignty of former Soviet states such as Ukraine are totally unacceptable, several EU foreign ministers said before a meeting on Monday.
DIPLOMACY
* Turkey's defence minister said he planned to meet his Syrian, Russian and Iranian counterparts in Moscow on Tuesday, state-owned Anadolu news agency said, amid efforts to rebuild Ankara-Damascus ties after years of animosity during the Syrian war.
* The European Union must accelerate its joint procurement of ammunition for Ukraine, Finland's Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said.
* Russia said on Saturday it was expelling more than 20 German diplomats in a tit-for-tat move.
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
* The Group of Seven (G7) economic powers called on Sunday for the "extension, full implementation and expansion" of the grain deal that enables vital exports of food from Ukraine.
* Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday that if the G7 moved to ban exports to Russia, it would respond by terminating the grain 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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(Compiled by Reuters editors)
