Moscow (AFP) - Russia is not trying to bring back the USSR, President Vladimir Putin said in a documentary aired Sunday, but the problem is that "nobody wants to believe it".

Since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, which saw pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych ousted by pro-European demonstrators, Moscow has accused the West of using "the politics of containment" in a Cold War throwback.

"With Ukraine and other areas of the former USSR, I'm sure our Western partners aren't working in the interests of Ukraine, they are working to prevent the recreation of the USSR," he said in "World Order", a documentary broadcast on the public Rossiya 1 channel.

"But nobody wants to believe us, nobody wants to believe that we're not trying to bring the Soviet Union back," he said.

The president also used the documentary to take a familiar swipe at Western intervention in North Africa and the Middle East.

"You can't just impose your version of democracy, of good and evil, onto people of other cultures, with other religions and traditions in this mechanic, automatic way," he said.

"Apparently (the West) think they're infallible, but when the moment comes to take some responsibility, they disappear."

Budapest (AFP) - Hungary has accused Austria of confusing "solidarity and stupidity" after Vienna said that nations which do not accept their share of refugees under European Union quotas should face sanctions.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann had said that countries who did not cooperate with the programme and received more money from the EU than they put in should see their subsidies cut.

"The Austrian chancellor does not see the difference between solidarity and stupidity" said Budapest's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

"Solidarity means helping people who are in danger where they live, and helping them to return home once the conflict is finished," Szijjarto told Hungarian national press agency MTI Sunday.

"Stupidity is letting hundreds of thousands of people -- millions -- into Europe with no controls, while everyone, Europeans and migrants alike, can see they'll never get what they hoped for here," he said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has also threatened legal action against EU countries that refused to accept refugees under the bloc's quota programme, specifically mentioning Hungary and Slovakia.

Szijjarto, a member of Viktor Orban's hardline right-wing government, accused foreign politicians of "using blackmail to bring more migrants into Europe, then distributing them through a system of obligatory quotas".

According to plans to distribute 160,000 refugees and migrants across the bloc, Slovakia and Hungary are due to take in around 2,300 people each. But the relocation plan, drawn up in September, is proving to be slow moving and difficult to put into effect.

Lakeisha Holloway, a suspect who drove into pedestrians on the Las Vegas Strip, killing one person, is shown in this Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department booking photo released on December 21, 2015. Holloway is expected to face murder and other charges in connection with the incident on Sunday night, Clark County District Attorney Steven Wolfson said at a news conference alongside Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Joe Lombardo. REUTERS/Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department/Handout

By Alexia Shurmur

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Nevada authorities will try piecing together on Tuesday a clearer picture of a homeless Oregon woman accused of killing one woman and injuring at least 35 pedestrians when she plowed her car into crowds on a Las Vegas Strip sidewalk on Sunday.

Lakeisha Holloway, 24, intentionally drove her 1996 Oldsmobile into pedestrians on the crowded walkway as bystanders tried to open the car door in a futile attempt to stop her, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Sheriff Joe Lombardo said.

Holloway, who was living in her sedan with her toddler, surrendered to officers a short distance from the scene, Lombardo told a news conference on Monday.

U.S. law enforcement has been on heightened alert since 14 people died in a Dec. 2 shooting massacre in San Bernardino, California, by a married couple inspired by Islamist militants.

Lombardo said Holloway made a statement to police explaining her motive. He declined to relate what she said, other than that the incident did not appear to be a militant attack.

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Las Vegas police investigate following a traffic crash in front of the Planet Hollywood Hotel, near …

Holloway told detectives she had a stressful time on Sunday, trying to rest and sleep inside her vehicle, but that she was told to move by security guards at the properties where she stopped, an arrest report said.

Holloway's license was suspended by the Oregon DMV in 2012 and again by (Portland's) Multnomah County in 2013 and had not been reinstated, an Oregon Department of Transportation spokeswoman said on Monday.

Clark County District Attorney Steven Wolfson said his office planned to bring charges of murder with use of a deadly weapon and other counts against Holloway, who was held without bail.

Jessica Valenzuela, 32, of Buckeye, Arizona, died from injuries after she was struck, the Clark County Coroner-Medical Examiner's office said. Other victims included visitors from Colorado, Florida, Mexico and Quebec, Canada.

Holloway, who is from Oregon, had been living in her car in Las Vegas for about a week with her three-year-old daughter, Lombardo said.

The child, who was in the car when Holloway drove into the pedestrians, was uninjured and is in protective custody, Lombardo said.

In 2012, Holloway received an award from a Portland career-mentoring nonprofit for being a role model for high school students, said The Skanner, a community website in the Pacific Northwest.

In the story, Holloway described her mother as having "turned to alcohol, leaving Lakeisha to fend for herself". Holloway was homeless during her freshman year in high school, but had since graduated, the story said.

(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis, Eric M. Johnson, Brendan O'Brien; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Iraqi security forces stand with an Islamist State flag which they pulled down at the University of Anbar, in Anbar province July 26, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's armed forces stormed the center of Ramadi on Tuesday, a spokesman for the counter-terrorism units said, in a drive to dislodge Islamic State militants from their remaining stronghold in a city they captured in May.

The operation to recapture Ramadi, a Sunni Muslim city on the river Euphrates some 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, began in early November after a months-long effort to cut off supply lines to the city, whose fall to Islamic State was a major defeat for Iraq's weak central government.

Progress has been slow because the government wants to rely entirely on its own troops and not use Shi'ite militias in order to avoid rights abuses such as occurred after the recapture of the city of Tikrit from the militants in April.

U.S. officials have also cautioned against the use of Iran-backed Shi'ite militias in retaking Ramadi from the hardline Sunni militants to avoid fanning sectarian tensions

The Baghdad government has said it also wanted to spare civilians and give them the opportunity to leave the city.

"Our forces are advancing toward the government complex in the center of Ramadi," the counter-terrorism units' spokesman Sabah al-Numani said. "The fighting is in the neighborhoods around the complex, with support from the air force."Iraqi intelligence estimates the number of Islamic State fighters entrenched in the center of Ramadi, capital of Western Anbar province, at between 250 and 300.

DAWN OFFENSIVE

The offensive to capture the city center started at dawn, said Numani. Military units crossed the Euphrates river into the central districts using a bridge that was destroyed by the militants and repaired by army engineers, he said."Crossing the river was the main difficulty," he said. "We're facing sniper fire and suicide bombers who are trying to slow our advance, we're dealing with them with air force support."

If the attack to capture Ramadi succeeds, it will be the second major city after Tikrit to be retaken from Islamic State in Iraq.

Islamic State also controls Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and Falluja, which lies between Ramadi and Baghdad. Retaking Ramadi would provide a major psychological boost to Iraqi security forces after Islamic State seized a third of Iraq, a major OPEC oil producer and U.S ally, last year.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Saif Hameed; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Refugees and migrants arrive aboard the passenger ferry Eleftherios Venizelos from the island of Lesbos at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Greece, December 18, 2015. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) - The number of refugees and migrants arriving by land and sea in the European Union has passed 1 million this year, while a further 3,600 died or went missing, the U.N. refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday.

Half of those arriving were Syrians fleeing the war, another 20 percent were Afghans, and 7 percent were Iraqis, the two agencies said in a joint statement.

Out of a total of 1,005,504 arrivals to Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Malta and Cyprus by Dec. 21, the vast majority -- 816,752 -- arrived by sea in Greece, IOM said.

"We know migration is inevitable, it’s necessary and it’s desirable," IOM chief William Lacy Swing said in the statement.

"But it’s not enough to count the number of those arriving—or the nearly 4,000 this year reported missing or drowned. We must also act. Migration must be legal, safe and secure for all—both for the migrants themselves and the countries that will become their new home."

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A refugee girl looks outside of her camp at a hotel touted as the world's most northerly ski res …

The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR is planning for arrivals to continue at a similar rate in 2016, but IOM spokesman Joel Millman said it was impossible to forecast future numbers.

"So much is in the balance, the resolution of the Syrian war, and the disposition of the European border protection moves that are being contemplated," he said.

"We never thought it would reach this level. We just hope people are treated with dignity."

The record movement of people into Europe is a symptom of a record level of disruption around the globe, with numbers of refugees and internally displaced people far surpassing 60 million, UNHCR said last week.

"I don't understand why people are insisting that this is a European problem. This is a global issue," Michael Moller, director of the U.N. office in Geneva, told a news conference on Tuesday.

The U.N. refugee chief Antonio Guterres called on Friday for a "massive resettlement" of Syrian and other refugees within Europe, to distribute many hundreds of thousands of people before the continent's asylum system crumbles.

He called for European countries to recognize the positive contributions made by refugees and migrants and to honor what he said were "core European values: protecting lives, upholding human rights and promoting tolerance and diversity."

(Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)