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One person was killed and six others were injured in the past 24 hours as a result of a Russian attack on Ukraine’s Donetsk region.The Ukrainian News Agency (Ukrinform) reported that a girl was injured in the town of Kramatorsk when a Russian drone crashed into a residential building.Since the start of the war on February 24, 2022, Russia and Ukraine have continued to exchange claims of repelling each other’s attacks, though these reports have not been independently verified due to the ongoing conflict.

Germany and Iceland have agreed to strengthen their military cooperation amid growing Russian threats. A memorandum of understanding signed in Reykjavik focuses on maritime logistics, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said during a meeting with Icelandic Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir. "Germany is, from my point of view, the leading force now in strengthening the security and defence of Europe," Gunnarsdottir said. She highlighted plans for closer cooperation with the German air force and navy, as well as joint efforts to defend against hybrid attacks and disruptions to internet communications. The German armed forces plan to establish a point of call on the volcanic island in the far north for warships, submarines and supply vessels.

The French navy was Wednesday on board a tanker from Russia's "shadow fleet" stationed off France, AFP journalists at the scene said, after data showed it was off the Danish coast last month during mysterious drone flights.The Boracay, a Benin-flagged vessel blacklisted by the European Union for being part of Russia's sanction-busting "shadow fleet" of ageing oil tankers, was stationed off Denmark from September 22 to 25, according to ship tracking data analysed by AFP.Drones have been sighted across Denmark, including over military sites, since September 22, prompting brief closures at several airports and a ban on all civilian drone flights until Friday.French military personnel were Wednesday on the deck of the tanker, now stationed off the coast of western France, AFP journalists who overflew the area said.A military source, asking not to be named, told AFP the vessel had been boarded on Saturday.A government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP earlier the French navy had boarded the ship.President Emmanuel Macron earlier on Wednesday said France was probing the ship for "serious offences".But he stopped short of confirming reports of a connection to the Denmark drone flights."There were some very serious offences committed by this crew, which justify the current judicial procedure," Macron told reporters at an EU leaders' summit in Copenhagen.Built in 2007 and variously known as Pushpa and Kiwala, the Boracay has been anchored off Saint-Nazaire in western France for several days.According to the specialist website The Maritime Executive, the 244-metre vessel is suspected of being involved in mystery drone flights that disrupted air traffic in Denmark in September.The publication said the tanker and other ships could have been used either as launch platforms or as decoys.But when asked about those claims, Macron said he would "remain very careful", as it was not for him to establish a link between the Boracay and the drone flights.The French operation however underscored the importance of European efforts to stop the "shadow fleet" of vessels aiding Russia to circumvent Western sanctions.The European Union has sanctioned hundreds of ageing tankers used by Russia to circumvent oil export curbs imposed after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.Among them is the Boracay, which was blacklisted in February under the name Kiwala.The public prosecutor's office in the northwestern French city of Brest said it had opened an investigation following a report from the navy.The probe was launched over the crew's "failure to justify the nationality of the vessel" and "refusal to cooperate", Brest public prosecutor Stephane Kellenberger told AFP.The tanker left the Russian port of Primorsk outside Saint Petersburg on September 20 and was scheduled to arrive in Vadinar in northwestern India on October 20, according to data from the Marine Traffic tracking website.The French president said the "shadow fleet", estimated to include between "600 and 1,000 ships", was thought to represent "tens of billions of euros of Russia's budget" and make up "40 percent of the Russian war effort".

Russia and Belarus are rehearsing the launch of Russian tactical nuclear weapons as part of joint war games, Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday.State media quoted the Belarusian chief of staff as saying that the exercises also featured Russia's Oreshnik hypersonic missile, which it test-fired last year in the war with Ukraine.Russia and Belarus are ending five days of war games codenamed Zapad (West) in a show of force they say is to test combat readiness but which has unnerved some surrounding countries.Dressed in military attire, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with top military officials Tuesday in Russia's Nizhny Novogorod region, where some of the drills took place.Some 100,000 military personnel participated in the exercises, which involved roughly 10,000 pieces of military equipment, the Kremlin chief said in comments broadcast on state television.The drills were to ensure the "unconditional protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Union State," Putin said, referring to the alliance of Russia and Belarus.The war games, which Western military analysts say are designed to intimidate Europe, come just days after Polish and Nato forces say they shot down Russian drones that entered Polish airspace.Belarus, a close Russian ally which borders Ukraine and Russia, as well as Nato members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, hosts Russian tactical nuclear weapons which Moscow retains command and control of.Lukashenko was cited by the Belarusian state news agency Belta as saying that it was only natural that the Russian tactical nuclear weapons were part of the Zapad drills."We are practising everything there. They (the West) know this too, we are not hiding it. From firing conventional small arms to nuclear warheads. Again, we must be able to do all this. Otherwise, why would they be on Belarusian territory?" he was quoted as saying."But we are absolutely not planning to threaten anyone with this."The Belarusian Defence Ministry confirmed in a statement that the use of tactical nuclear weapons had been rehearsed along with the deployment of Russia's intermediate-range Oreshnik ballistic missile that Moscow fired at Ukraine for the first time on November 21 last year.Putin said late last year that Russia could deploy Oreshniks, which he has claimed are impossible to intercept, on the territory of Belarus in the second half of 2025.Lukashenko, who holds regular talks with Putin, allowed Moscow to use his territory to enter Ukraine in February 2022, but has not committed his own troops to the fighting.US President Donald Trump has begun cultivating closer ties with Lukashenko, long treated as a pariah by the West, and relaxed some sanctions on Belarus last week in return for the release of 52 prisoners including political opponents.US military officers observed part of the Zapad exercise in Belarus on Monday.Russia's Defence Ministry said Tuesday that nuclear-capable Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers had rehearsed launching cruise missiles over the Barents Sea north of the Nordic countries.The bombers had flown over the Barents Sea's neutral waters for about four hours, escorted by MiG-31 fighter jets, it said.Separately, it said Marines belonging to Russia's Northern Fleet practised repelling an amphibious landing by an enemy force on a peninsula in Russia's Murmansk region.Video showed troops — backed by attack helicopters and fighter jets — using armoured personnel carriers, drones, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and automatic weapons — seeing off an imaginary enemy.Ships from Russia's Baltic Fleet — backed by fighter jets — test-fired cruise missiles at notional enemy ships, as did the fleet's land-based mobile missile launchers.In Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, troops practised using a Torn-MDM radio reconnaissance complex to detect the location of enemy forces so that their coordinates could be passed on to drone and artillery units.

Romania's Foreign Ministry on Sunday summoned the Russian ambassador to Bucharest over the entry of a Russian drone into its airspace during an attack on Ukraine. Romanian Foreign Minister Oana Toiu said that Russia's ambassador to Bucharest, Vladimir Lipaev, was summoned to the ministry and that Romania conveyed its strong protest against this act, adding that Moscow's actions pose a "new challenge" to Black Sea security.Earlier today, Romania strongly condemned the entry of a Russian drone into its airspace during an attack on neighboring Ukraine. The incursion comes days after Poland said it had shot down Russian drones that had violated its airspace.In a statement, Romania's defense ministry said it "strongly condemns the irresponsible actions of the Russian Federation and emphasizes that they represent a new challenge to regional security and stability in the Black Sea area."

The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned on Wednesday the Israeli aggression against Qatar, describing it as a flagrant violation of international law and the UN Charter.In a statement, the ministry urged all concerned parties to take a responsible approach and avoid actions that could lead to a deterioration of the situation in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone and complicate the search for a political settlement.The ministry stressed that Russia considers this incident a flagrant violation of international law and the UN Charter, an assault on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of an independent state, and a step that will lead to further escalation and destabilization of the situation in the Middle East.

The Russian forces succeeded in taking out 1,150 Ukrainian troops and shooting down 230 drones of the Ukrainian air defense systems, the Russian Defense Ministry reported in a statement on Tuesday. The statement added that the Russian troops optimized their military posture and took control of critical sites along numerous axes, targeting Ukrainian Armed Forces formations engaged across 140 locations along the frontlines. These operations resulted in the neutralization of 1,150 Ukrainian troops, along with the destruction of several armored combat vehicles, artillery systems, ammunition storage sites, and electronic warfare nodes, the statement continued. Russia and Ukraine have been trading, since the outbreak of the war in February 2022, near-daily reports on advances or the repelling of mutual attacks, without the ability to verify the accuracy of each side's data.

India will roll out a package of measures to help exporters hurt by a surge in US tariffs, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Friday.The new US duties slapped on Indian goods last month included a 25% punitive levy over New Delhi’s Russian oil purchases - taking overall duties as high as 50% on a wide range of items from garments and jewellery to footwear and chemicals."The government will come out with something to handhold those who have been hit by 50% tariffs," Sitharaman told CNBC TV18, without going into further detail.The government plans to offer credit guarantees on loans overdue by up to 90 days for small businesses and exporters, Reuters reported earlier, citing government sources.Exporters said labour-intensive sectors such as textiles, jewellery and seafood, particularly shrimp - which all operate on margins of just 3%-5% - have been hit hardest, causing job losses in industrial hubs in Tamil Nadu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat."Textiles and apparel manufacturers in Tiruppur, Noida and Surat have halted production amid worsening cost competitiveness," S C Ralhan, president of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), said.The tariffs, among the highest imposed by the administration of US President Donald Trump, delivered a serious blow to ties between the two powerful democracies that had in recent decades become strategic partners.Nearly 55% of Indian exports to the US, worth about $48bn, now face a cost disadvantage against rivals from Vietnam, China and Bangladesh, Ralhan said last week ahead of an exporters' meeting with the finance minister.Thousands of workers have already been laid off, exporters have said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that any Western troops deployed to Ukraine would be legitimate targets for Moscow to attack.Putin was speaking a day after French President Emmanuel Macron said 26 countries had pledged to provide postwar security guarantees to Ukraine, including an international force on land, sea and in the air.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Kyiv Wednesday there was a chance to end the war in Ukraine via negotiations "if common sense prevails", an option he said he preferred, but that he was ready to end it by force if that was the only way.Speaking in Beijing at the end of a visit that resulted in an agreement on a new gas pipeline to China, Putin said he perceived "a certain light at the end of the tunnel", given what he said were sincere efforts by the United States to find a settlement to Europe's biggest land war since World War Two."It seems to me that if common sense prevails, it will be possible to agree on an acceptable solution to end this conflict. That is my assumption," Putin told reporters."Especially since we can see the mood of the current US administration under President (Donald) Trump, and we see not just their statements, but their sincere desire to find this solution... And I think there is a certain light at the end of the tunnel. Let's see how the situation develops," he said."If not, then we will have to resolve all the tasks before us by force of arms." However, Putin indicated no willingness to soften his long-standing demands, including that Kyiv abandon any idea of joining Nato and that it end what Moscow says is discrimination against Russian speakers.He said he was ready to hold talks with Volodymyr Zelenskiy if the Ukrainian president came to Moscow, but that any such meeting had to be well prepared and lead to tangible results.Ukraine's foreign minister dismissed as "unacceptable" the suggestion of Moscow as a venue for such a meeting.FAR APARTZelenskiy has been pressing to meet Putin to discuss the terms of a possible deal even though the two sides remain far apart. He has urged Washington to impose further sanctions on Russia if Putin does not agree.Trump - who has been trying to broker a peace settlement - has also said he wants the two leaders to meet and has threatened, but not yet imposed, secondary sanctions on Russia.Putin, whose economy is showing signs of strain after being hit with sweeping Western sanctions, said he would prefer to end the war diplomatically, "by peaceful means", if possible.Russia claims to have annexed four Ukrainian regions, a claim Kyiv and most Western countries reject as an illegal land grab backed by a colonial-style war of conquest.

A man rammed his car into the gates of the Russian consulate in Sydney, Australia Monday and police said the suspect was arrested and charged with offences including destroying property and possessing a knife. Eyewitness video of the incident showed police shouting: "Get out of the car now!" to a man in a car inside the grounds of the consulate in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra.The 39-year-old man was arrested and later charged with charges including using an offensive weapon to prevent police investigation, destroying property, resisting police and custody of a knife in a public place, police said in a statement.