Reuters World News Summary
Following is a summary of current world news briefs.
Trump faces day in court, a first in US
Donald Trump, the ex-president and front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024, will appear in court on Tuesday to be fingerprinted, photographed and formally charged in a watershed moment ahead of next year's presidential election. Indicted last week, Trump is the first sitting or former president to face criminal charges, over a case involving a 2016 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. He has said he is innocent and is due to plead not guilty.
Ukraine's tech entrepreneurs fight war on a different front
Eugene Nayshtetik and his five co-workers shuttered their company developing medical and biotech startups to join the defense forces days after Russia invaded Ukraine. Within two months, their commanders agreed it would be more useful if they swapped their military gear for computers. With the government's blessing, Nayshtetik and his team of engineers moved to neighboring Poland where they raised initial funding from a Polish company, Air Res Aviation, to develop a new drone for the Ukrainian military.
Lithuania offers carve-outs to EU skeptics over Russia nuclear sanctions
A new Lithuanian bid to push the European Union to impose sanctions on Russia's nuclear energy industry includes proposed exemptions for Hungary and a two-year period to phase out existing contracts, according to a document seen by Reuters.
Unlike similar proposals by the EU's Russia hawks earlier on, the latest plan from Vilnius includes a nuanced approach, an apparent attempt to win over skeptics in Budapest and elsewhere.
Analysis: Russia's military production, state splurge ease sanctions pain
Rising military production and huge state spending are keeping Russia's industry buzzing along, an analysis of recent data shows, helping soften the economic impact of Western sanctions and allowing Moscow to plow on with its campaign in Ukraine. Last week's official data showed annual industrial output decline slowed in February, largely thanks to the defense sector, offsetting some of the damage wrought mainly by sanctions on Russia's key energy exports.
Ukraine battles on in Bakhmut as Finland joins NATO
Fighting raged in and around Bakhmut as Ukraine mocked Russian claims to have captured the administrative center of the eastern Ukrainian city, saying Russian forces had raised a victory flag over "some kind of toilet." Finland, which shares a 1,300-km (810-mile) border with Russia, will later on Tuesday join NATO, just over a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, partly in response to what Russia said the alliance's aggressive expansion eastward.
Finland's NATO membership triggered by Putin's invasion of Ukraine - Stoltenberg
Finland will become a member of NATO on Tuesday, completing a historic security policy shift which alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said was triggered directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine. "President Putin had as a declared goal of the invasion of Ukraine to get less NATO," he told reporters at NATO's Brussels headquarters, speaking hours before Finland was officially to become a member.
Russia charges St Petersburg bomb suspect with terrorism
Russian investigators on Tuesday formally charged Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old woman, with terrorism offenses over the killing of pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a bomb blast in St Petersburg. Tatarsky, a cheerleader for Russia's military campaign in Ukraine whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed on Sunday when an explosion ripped through a cafe where he was due to talk.
Sikkim avalanche kills seven near India's border with China, others trapped
An avalanche killed at least seven tourists in India's Himalayan state of Sikkim near a mountain pass to the Chinese region of Tibet, with several more people feared trapped, the Indian army said. The army said five to six vehicles carrying up to 30 tourists to the strategically located Nathu La pass between Sikkim and Tibet were feared to have been stuck under the snow when the avalanche hit.
Finland becomes member of NATO
Finland became a member of NATO on Tuesday, completing a historic security policy shift triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto completed the accession process by handing over an official document to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
Netherlands train crashes into maintenance crane, killing one; dozens hurt
A Dutch passenger train rammed into a maintenance crane that stood on the railway tracks early on Tuesday near The Hague, killing the equipment operator and injuring dozens of passengers as the train derailed. The maintenance work was planned and standard, but "we have no idea how the crane got on the track which was still open for traffic," John Voppen, the CEO of railway infrastructure firm ProRail, told a news conference.
