Reuters

Then came waves of deaths. There were the infants housed on the upper floors of the state-run orphanage, known as Mygoma.

The pre-dawn attacks came on the last Sunday of May when the capital celebrates Kyiv Day, the anniversary of its official founding 1,541 years ago.

Clashes could be heard overnight and on Sunday in the capital Khartoum, residents said, while human rights monitors reported deadly fighting in El Fashir, one of the principal cities in the western region of Darfur.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary group, is the most striking member of President Vladimir Putin's circle to gain widespread notoriety in the 15-month war in Ukraine.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham disputed Russian criticism of his support for Ukraine on Sunday, saying he had simply praised the spirit of Ukrainians in resisting a Russian invasion with assistance provided by Washington.

Oman has long been an interlocutor for the West with Iran and has mediated the release of several foreign citizens and dual nationals.

A Russian missile hit a clinic in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday, killing at least two people and wounding 23 in an attack that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described as a crime against humanity.

The race to be the next NATO boss is heating up. But it is a race run largely in the dark, with no sign of a winner yet.

Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine has triggered the deadliest European conflict since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Ukraine shot down 10 missiles and over 20 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks on the capital Kyiv, the city of Dnipro and eastern regions, Ukrainian officials said on Friday.

Pakistan's civilian authorities have handed over 33 suspects to be tried in military courts following the attacks on army installations during violent protests in support of former prime minister Imran Khan, the interior minister said on Friday.

Azerbaijan and Armenia could sign a peace settlement in their decades-old conflict over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh when their leaders meet at a European summit next week, Baku's envoy to France said on Friday.

The military said after the violence that the suspects would be tried in military courts, used primarily to try enemies of the state.

The issue has gained attention recently because of a move by President Abdal Fattah al-Sisi in March to grant pardons to male and female debtors, after which the Interior Ministry said 85 prisoners had been freed.

Three years without adequate rain are likely a result of climate change, which the World Bank has said will make Tunisia hotter and drier.

Russia moved ahead on Thursday with a plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, whose leader said the warheads were already on the move, in the Kremlin's first deployment of such bombs outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

The United States plans to announce up to $300 million worth of military aid for Ukraine comprised mainly of ammunition, two official sources said on Thursday.

Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said his office was looking into social media imagery of vehicles and military hardware in a cross-border incursion on Monday by militia in the Russian region of Belgorod.

On Monday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller warned that Wagner was seeking to transit military equipment through Mali.

It suggested land exports through Europe as an alternative, saying that avenue was more costly for Ukraine.

Pegasus is one of many advanced espionage tools that affords hackers sweeping access to their targets' smartphones, allowing them to record calls, intercept messages and even transform the phones into portable listening devices.

Bangladesh will take steps to tackle and prevent unlawful practices or interference in its elections, authorities said on Thursday, a day after the United States threatened curbs on citizens of the South Asian nation who undermine them.

Kurds, who make up around a fifth of Turkey's population, have been seen as potentially crucial to the opposition's hopes of ending Erdogan's 20 years in power - a reign in which he first courted but then cracked down hard on Kurdish groups.

The United Arab Emirates has become a key trade hub for Russian gold since Western sanctions over Ukraine cut Russia's more traditional export routes, Russian customs records show. The records, which contain details of nearly a thousand gold shipments in the year since the Ukraine war started, show the Gulf state imported 75.7 tonnes of Russian gold worth $4.3 billion - up from just 1.3 tonnes during 2021.

It is unclear whether either side has gained an edge in a conflict that threatens to destabilise regional countries.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Thursday he expected no new steps from the OPEC+ group of oil producers at its meeting in Vienna on June 4, Russian media reported, after the group announced a significant output cut earlier this year.

Hundreds of thousands of South Korean artillery rounds are on their way to Ukraine via the United States, after Seoul's initial resistance toward arming Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Denis Kapustin, who described himself as the commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), spoke to reporters on the Ukrainian side of the border with Russia a day after Moscow said it had repelled the raid on the Belgorod region.

Turkey's anti-immigrant Victory Party leader endorsed opposition presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Wednesday, potentially boosting the challenger as he aims to make up ground and defeat President Tayyip Erdogan in Sunday's runoff election.