World News

As Russia works to counteract, and retaliate against, the effect of Western sanctions, President Vladimir Putin has compared the punitive measures imposed by the U.S. and its allies over his invasion of Ukraine to a “declaration of war.”

After Visa and Mastercard announced that their operations in Russia would be suspended, many Russian banks announced on Sunday that they would soon begin issuing cards using the Chinese UnionPay card operator’s system combined with Russia’s own Mir network. Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, as well as Alfa Bank and Tinkoff, all announced the transfer to UnionPay on Sunday.

Ukraine says Russian forces have seized Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, and there is concern about the use of cluster bombs in the ongoing Russian invasion. With the offensive escalating, many people flee the war-torn nation, including to the Hungarian- Ukrainian border.

High-ranking whistleblowers warn that the United States is to finalize an earth-shattering deal with Iran that will fuel the Islamic state’s race to build a nuclear weapon and finance terrorism.

Germany has agreed to pay a further $720 million for the care of vulnerable Holocaust survivors, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports.

The United Nations’ atomic watchdog said Thursday that it believes Iran has significantly increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium in breach of a 2015 accord with world powers.

The head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, will travel to Iran on Saturday “for meetings with senior Iranian officials,” the IAEA said Thursday.

Taiwan suffered a widespread electrical blackout on Thursday and the power outage disrupted a meeting between former Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.

More than 1 million people have fled Ukraine following Russia‘s invasion, in the swiftest refugee exodus this century, the United Nations said Thursday, as Russian forces pressed their assaults on the country’s second-largest city and two strategic seaports.

Two independent news outlets who have refused to toe the Kremlin’s line following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were forced off the air this week.

People are massively leaving Ukraine as Russia has intensified its attacks on key Ukrainian cities. Fighting was raging for the seventh day of the Russian invasion in the north, south, and east of Ukraine.

Wheat prices have soared past $10 per barrel, the highest price since 2008 for the staple grain, as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to adopt a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Israel joining 140 other countries in the 193-member body to demand that Moscow immediately withdraw its forces from the soil of its sovereign neighbor.

The violence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine hasn’t yet reached Odesa, the country’s third-largest city, but Vladimir Putin’s navy was headed there Wednesday night.

Georgia’s ruling party said Wednesday that it would “immediately” put forward an application to join the European Union.

Up to 70 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in a Russian artillery strike on Ukraine’s north-eastern city of Okhtyrka, several sources say.

Initially restrained in its response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Turkey shifted its stance at the weekend, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling the attack “unacceptable” and saying his country would restrict Russia warships’ entry into the Black Sea to “prevent escalation.”

President Biden moved Tuesday to check Russian President Vladimir Putin’s energy leverage, releasing strategic oil reserves as U.S. petroleum imports from Russia hit a record high and frustration mounted over the administration’s domestic fossil fuel crackdown.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the European Union on Tuesday to prove that it sided with Ukraine in its war with Russia, one day after signing an official request to join the bloc.

Ukrainian authorities say troops from Belarus have entered a region in northern Ukraine to join the Russian invasion of the country. A Belarusian column of some 33 units reportedly entered the area of Chernihiv on Tuesday.