The Ukrainian energy network has been so battered by Russian attacks that officials are seeking out new options to prevent a crisis, like renting floating power plants and scavenging scrapped ones from the region.

Russia's president says he should've prepared more before launching his country's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Officials in Russia say drones launched by Kyiv have hit Kazan, a city more than 600 miles from Ukraine which hosted an international economic summit two months earlier. Video on social media shared Saturday showed the drones striking apartment blocks in the capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan where a meeting of the Moscow-led BRICS bloc took place in October.

France is drumming up support for a peacekeeping force. It may be Europe’s only option to prevent an even bloodier war.

For the world, 2024 was riven by conflict on two fronts. As the year ends, Gaza is in shambles and tens of thousands are dead.

The Russian embassy in London on Saturday described Britain's planned transfer to Ukraine of more than 2 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) backed by frozen Russian assets as a "fraudulent scheme". Britain said in October it would lend Ukraine 2.

His assassination has shocked Russia's military and political establishment. Sources from Ukraine's SBU security service let it be known they were behind it. There have been numerous Ukrainian operations targeting Russia's forces on Ukrainian territory.

Ukrainian pensioner Oleksandr Sopov barely reacts to the boom of artillery outside Pokrovsk, the eastern city where fierce battles are raging between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky has announced a shake-up of his diplomatic team, including Kyiv's envoy to the United Nations. Decrees announcing dismissals and new appointments of Kyiv's envoys were issued on the president's website on Saturday.

The state-owned RIA Novosti agency reported that Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency announced a temporary block on landing and takeoff at Kazan International Airport and restrictions at Gagarin Airport in the city of Saratov -- both in the southwest of the country.