MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Russian naval forces destroyed three uncrewed Ukraine-launched boats in the northern part of the Black Sea off the Crimean Peninsula, Russia’s defense ministry said on Tuesday. “Anti-sabotage missiles and bombs hit the area where the unmanned boats were detected,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app. It added that an anti-mining and an “anti-sabotage” operation was being carried out off Sevastopol port, which is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Ukraine has intensified its attacks on Crimea since midsummer, trying to undermine Russia’s efforts in the 20-month-long war. Russia seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. In September, Kyiv said it damaged two naval vessels and struck Sevastopol’s port infrastructure in what appeared to be the biggest attack of the war there. The Kremlin uses Sevastopol and the Black See Fleet to project power into the Middle East and Mediterranean and - during the war in Ukraine - to impose a de facto blockade on Ukraine’s seaborne food exports via the Turkish straits.

 

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Officials from the United States and China held a two-hour long virtual meeting to discuss domestic and global macroeconomic developments, the U.S. Treasury Department said, calling the meeting “productive and substantive”. Senior officials from both sides have been meeting each other in recent months to lay the ground for an expected meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in San Francisco in November. “Today, the United States and the People’s Republic of China held the first meeting of the Economic Working Group (EWG), which serves as an ongoing channel to discuss and facilitate progress on bilateral economic policy matters,” the Treasury Department said. U.S. officials also raised “areas of concern,” the Treasury Department said without elaborating. The meeting was led by senior officials from the U.S. Treasury Department and China’s finance ministry. The EWG was launched last month following U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s trip to Beijing in July. It was launched in parallel with a financial working group, which will hold its first meeting on Wednesday.

 

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BANGKOK (Reuters) -- The Thai government may buy a frigate instead of a submarine from China after the Chinese manufacturer was unable to include a German engine as specified in the original deal, Thailand’s defense minister has said.

Thailand has already paid a 7 billion baht ($193.7 million) instalment to China for the purchase of one of three Yuan Class S26T submarines with German-made diesel engines, but the deal was delayed when Germany forbade the use of its engines for Chinese military exports. China has proposed replacing the German engines with Chinese-made equipment several rounds of negotiations did not yield a conclusive result. The new Thai government, which was sworn in last month after a May general election, said it has suggested during Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin’s visit to Beijing for the Belt and Road Summit last week that it wants to buy a frigate instead of a submarine. The defense minister said last week that procurement of submarine would be shelved for now and resume “when the country is ready”. 

 

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BERLIN (Reuters) -- Several people are missing after two freighters collided near the German North Sea island of Heligoland, the central command for maritime emergencies said on Tuesday. The Polesie and Verity vessels collided at around 0300 GMT about 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) southwest of Heligoland, likely causing the Verity to sink, central command said in a statement. One person was rescued from the water and is receiving medical treatment, while several others are still missing, it added. The rescue operation includes a rescue cruiser, police boats, a sensor aircraft and a helicopter, among other vessels. The Polesie, which was carrying 22 passengers, is still waterborne, according to the authorities. The Verity was on its way from Bremen to the English town of Immingham. The Polesie was sailing from Hamburg to La Coruna in Spain. 

 

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MOSCOW (Reuters) -- The Kremlin on Tuesday denied a report that President Vladimir Putin was ill, and laughed off persistent rumors that he used body doubles to cover for him in public appearances. “Everything is fine with him, this is absolutely another fake,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about an unsourced report by a Russian Telegram channel, picked up by some Western media, that the president had suffered a serious health episode on Sunday evening. The spokesman laughed in response to a further question about body doubles, and denied that Putin had any. “This belongs to the category of absurd information hoaxes that a whole series of media discuss with enviable tenacity. This evokes nothing but a smile,” Peskov said. Putin, a judo enthusiast who has long cultivated an “action man” image, turned 71 on Oct. 7. He maintains an intensive schedule of meetings and public appearances, many of them televised. His recent program included a visit to China last week, with stop-offs in two Russian cities on the way back.