CONFLICT

When Russia invaded Ukraine, Vadym Khlupianets, a 26-year-old ballet dancer at Kyiv's National Operetta Theatre, joined the army.

A spokesman for IS said Hashimi, an Iraqi, was killed "in combat with enemies of God", without elaborating on the date or circumstances of his death.

European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday floated the idea of a "specialised court" to put Russia's top officials on trial over the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Russia would surely launch new missile attacks on his country, and warned defence forces and citizens to be prepared to withstand a new week of strain on the power grid.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak plans to promise on Monday to maintain or increase military aid to Ukraine next year, and to confront international competitors "not with grand rhetoric but with robust pragmatism".

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the United Nations Security Council to act against Russia over air strikes on civilian infrastructure that have again plunged Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold as winter sets in.

Ukraine's security service said Wednesday it had seized "pro-Russian literature", cash and interrogated dozens during raids of several Orthodox monasteries that spurred a backlash from the Kremlin.

Arab soccer fans at the first World Cup in the Middle East are shunning Israeli journalists in Qatar trying to interview them, illustrating challenges facing wider "warm peace" ambitions two years after some Gulf states forged formal ties with Israel.

Dutch judges convicted two Russian men and a Ukrainian man in absentia of murder for their role in the shooting down of Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 with the loss of 298 passengers and crew, and handed them life sentences.

The expulsion of more than 400 suspected Russian spies from across Europe this year has struck the "most significant strategic blow" against Moscow in recent history and taken Vladimir Putin by surprise, Britain's domestic spy chief said.

The world's largest satellite ground station, on the Svalbard archipelago off Norway, is used by Western space agencies to gather vital signals from polar-orbiting satellites.

Russia and Ukraine both tortured their prisoners of war during the ongoing conflict between the two.

A lawsuit accusing the British government of refusing to acknowledge that jailed Biafran separatist leader Nnamdi Kanu was the victim of extraordinary rendition to Nigeria began at a court in London on Tuesday.

NATO and global leaders will meet on Wednesday after a Russian-made rocket fell on NATO member Poland and killed two people, raising concerns that the Ukraine conflict could spill over its borders.

The UK has also confirmed the deaths of medic Craig Mackintosh and ex-paratrooper Simon Lingard, who was killed near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine this month.

Leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) economies will hold a second day of talks on Wednesday, although the schedule at the summit was disrupted by an emergency meeting to discuss reports of a missile landing in Polish territory near Ukraine.

Iran has been facing massive protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Britain dispatched 300 troops to Mali in December 2020 to join MINUSMA, a force drawn from dozens of countries aiming to bolster the troubled Sahel nation.

The G20 gathering will inevitably be overshadowed by Moscow's offensive in Ukraine, which has shocked global energy markets and aggravated food shortages.

The British government said on Thursday it had frozen assets worth more than 18 billion pounds ($20.5 billion) held by Russian oligarchs, other individuals and businesses sanctioned over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Tuesday night said his forces would not yield "a single centimetre" in battles for control of eastern Donetsk region while Russian-installed officials described Ukrainian forces moving into one southern town with tanks.

The launches come a day after Pyongyang fired more than 20 missiles, including one that landed near South Korea's territorial waters.

Russia said on Wednesday it would resume its participation in a deal freeing up grain exports from Ukraine, reversing a move that world leaders warned would increase hunger globally.

The cost of Russia's military mobilisation and the impact of Western sanctions are set to blow a hole in the government's budget forecasts and drain Moscow's reserves to their lowest level in years, according to analysts' latest calculations.

Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday that British navy personnel blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month, a claim that London said was false and designed to distract from Russian military failures in Ukraine.

The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), in a scathing statement, has called for the release of US basketball star Brittney Griner.

A senior Ukrainian official predicted "the heaviest of battles" to come for the partially Russian occupied strategic southern province of Kherson and said Moscow's military is digging in to face advancing Ukrainian forces.

Intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces was taking place around two towns in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Bakhmut and Soledar, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday.

North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast on Friday, South Korea's military said, the latest in a series of launches by the nuclear-armed country amid heightened tensions.