Putin says he is open to direct peace talks with Ukraine

MADRID: Spanish prosecutors on Monday said they were investigating whether General Francisco Franco’s dictatorship collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II to send thousands of exiled Spaniards in France to death camps.
Thousands of Spaniards fled to France after Franco’s Fascist-backed nationalists overthrew a republic in the 1936-1939 civil war, only to find themselves under Nazi occupation in France from 1940.
The investigation will “clarify the relevant responsibilities and the existence of a possible joint strategy” between Franco’s dictatorship and Nazi Germany “in the detention and subsequent transfer of thousands of Spaniards exiled in France to different extermination camps,” the public prosecutor’s office said.
The Mauthausen camp in Austria was among the sites where the republican exiles “were subjected to forced labor, torture, disappearance and murder,” the prosecutor’s office added.
The human rights and democratic memory section of the office will lead the inquiry into the 4,435 recorded dead.
The prosecutors’ office said the probe coincided with the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen and was launched in accordance with a divisive 2022 democratic memory law.
The left-wing government passed the legislation in a bid to tackle the legacy of the civil war and honor victims of violence and persecution under Franco, who ruled with an iron fist until his death in 1975.
The right-wing opposition says the left is trying to reopen the wounds of the past with the law and has vowed to repeal it if they return to power.

LONDON: A military parade, fly-past and balcony appearance by the royal family on Monday kicked off four days of UK celebrations marking 80 years since the end of World War II.
King Charles III saluted as around 1,000 members of the UK armed forces, joined by NATO colleagues from the US, France and Germany, along with 11 soldiers from Ukraine waving their country’s flag reached the end of the procession in front of Buckingham Palace.
Tens of thousands defied the damp weather on the Union Jack-lined Mall to watch the parade, which began with Winston Churchill’s 1945 victory speech, voiced by actor Timothy Spall.
“Do not yield to violence and tyranny, march straight forward and die if need be, unconquered,” bellowed Spall, standing in front of Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square.
The procession culminated in a fly past featuring aerobatic team The Red Arrows and 23 current and historic military aircraft, which the 76-year-old monarch watched from the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
Charles and Queen Camilla were joined by Princess Anne, Prince Edward, Prince William and his wife Catherine along with their children George, Charlotte and Louis.
As European countries gear up to celebrate Victory in Europe (VE) Day on May 8, the war in Ukraine is a reminder “that peace is never to be taken for granted,” Charles told the Italian parliament last month.
“Today, sadly, the echoes of those times — which we fervently hoped had been consigned to history — reverberate across our continent,” the king said.
It was from the same balcony on May 8, 1945, that King George VI and Queen Elizabeth — alongside daughters princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, and then-prime minister Churchill — greeted tens of thousands of Londoners celebrating what Churchill declared the “day of victory in Europe.”
That night, the two princesses, then 19 and 14, were allowed to leave the palace and join the jubilant crowds incognito.
Some 40 years later, Elizabeth, by then queen, described the night as “one of the most memorable” of her life.
This year’s commemorations will take on extra poignancy given the fading of the “Greatest Generation.”
Younger generations are increasingly disconnected from the conflict that shook the continent from 1939 to 1945.
“It’s important to remember some of the poor devils who didn’t make it like I did,” 99-year-old Royal Air Force veteran Dennis Bishop told AFP.
Buckingham Palace will later host a reception celebrating veterans and people of the WWII generation.
The first act on a chilly Monday morning in London was the draping of two huge Union Jack flags on the Cenotaph war memorial.
Hundreds of people set up camp outside Buckingham Palace with chairs and rugs.
“It’s so emotional to be here today. Eighty years of peace and peace of mind. Where would we be without them?” asked Patrick Beacon, 76, who arrived with his wife at around 7:00 am (0600 GMT) to get the “best view.”
Tourists included 52-year-old Ludivine Batthelot from southern France.
“We came out of curiosity because it’s the kind of celebration that the English do so well,” she told AFP. “It’s folklore, we wanted to be in the mood and live the experience.”
Among other events, there was to be a party on HMS Belfast — one of the few surviving British warships from WWII — which is moored on the banks of the Thames.
And people were invited to take part in hundreds of other parties, 1940s dress-up events, picnics, installations and commemorations that take place across the country through the week until VE Day on Thursday.
On Tuesday, Queen Camilla will visit an art installation of around 30,000 ceramic red poppies — symbols of remembrance for the war dead — at the iconic Tower of London.
Celebrations will draw to a close on Thursday with a two-minute national silence at government buildings.
Charles, who has been undergoing treatment for cancer, will attend a service at Westminster Abbey, followed by a concert at London’s Horse Guards Parade.
The royal family was hoping “nothing will detract or distract” from the celebrations after Prince Harry, Charles’ youngest son, gave a bombshell interview on Friday, according to UK media.
Pubs across the country have been allowed to stay open two hours later as part of the celebrations.