KIEV (Reuters) – Euro 2012 got off to an incident-packed start on Friday with Group A favourites Russia thrashing the Czech Republic 4-1 while Greece spoiled the party for co-hosts Poland in a drawn opening match as both teams finished with 10 men.

Russia captain Andrei Arshavin turned in an inspired performance as his side put on a breathless display of counter-attacking football in Wroclaw that blew the Czechs away.

KIEV, June 8 (Reuters) – Euro 2012 got off to an
incident-packed start on Friday with Group A favourites Russia
thrashing the Czech Republic 4-1 while Greece spoiled the party
for co-hosts Poland in a drawn opening match as both teams
finished with 10 men.

Russia captain Andrei Arshavin turned in an inspired
performance as his side put on a breathless display of
counter-attacking football in Wroclaw that blew the Czechs away.

KIEV (Reuters) – Euro 2012 got off to a rousing start on Friday but co-hosts Poland ended the night frustrated after 2004 champions Greece fought back to earn a 1-1 draw in the tournament’s opening match in Warsaw that ended with both teams reduced to 10 men.

It could have been worse for the Poles but for substitute goalkeeper Przemyslaw Tyton, who saved a penalty with his first touch 20 minutes from time in an incident-packed Group A game.

KIEV, June 8 (Reuters) – Euro 2012 got off to a rousing
start on Friday but co-hosts Poland ended the night frustrated
after 2004 champions Greece fought back to earn a 1-1 draw in
the tournament’s opening match in Warsaw that ended with both
teams reduced to 10 men.

It could have been worse for the Poles but for substitute
goalkeeper Przemyslaw Tyton, who saved a penalty with his first
touch 20 minutes from time in an incident-packed Group A game.

KIEV (Reuters) – Co-hosts Poland and Ukraine struggled to dispel racism concerns on Friday right up to the kickoff of the Euro 2012 soccer finals, the biggest sporting event in eastern Europe since the collapse of communism.

Poland were hoping for a winning start against 2004 champions Greece (2:00 p.m. EDT) in the opening match in front of their home fans in Warsaw before Russia take on the Czech Republic (4:45 p.m. EDT) in the other Group A game in Wroclaw.

KIEV, June 8 (Reuters) – Co-hosts Poland and Ukraine
struggled to dispel racism concerns on Friday right up to the
kickoff of the Euro 2012 soccer finals, the biggest sporting
event in eastern Europe since the collapse of communism.

Poland were hoping for a winning start against 2004
champions Greece (1800 GMT) in the opening match in front of
their home fans in Warsaw before Russia take on the Czech
Republic (2045) in the other Group A game in Wroclaw.

KIEV, June 8 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s hopes that the Euro 2012
soccer finals will speed its integration with Europe’s
democracies were fading on Friday because of a growing boycott
over its treatment of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.

Britain joined the unofficial boycott on Thursday by saying
government ministers would not attend the first batch of matches
in the former Soviet republic, which is co-hosting the
tournament with Poland, because of human rights concerns.

CHORVILA, Georgia (Reuters) – Billionaire businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili has spent the last decade making dreams come true for Georgia’s poor by dipping into his vast fortune to build houses, hospitals and schools.

He has paved roads, built villagers new homes with water, electricity and gas, provided each household with 200 lari ($120) a month and given newlyweds $3,000 in Chorvila, where he spent his childhood playing football with his friends.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian authorities said on Thursday that security agencies had foiled a plot by Islamic militants to attack the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, using an arsenal of weapons including surface-to-air missiles and a flamethrower.

Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) said special services had confiscated arms, ammunition and explosives in the breakaway Abkhazia region of Georgia, the South Caucasus country with which Russia went to war in 2008.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin promised to project Russia’s might on the world stage in a rallying speech on Wednesday to troops and war veterans celebrating victory over Nazi Germany at a military parade bristling with weapons on Red Square.

Two days after starting his six-year term, Putin, flanked by military chiefs and his defense and prime ministers, used the address to reinforce appeals for national unity as he tries to reassert his authority, shaken by months of protests.