Reporting world updates to you
CNN — Russia’s private military group Wagner has taken “full control” of the AZOM metallurgical plant in the north of the city of Bakhmut, according to video posted by Russian state media and verified by CNN. “Wagner has full control of the territory of AZOM, the Artemivsk [Bakhmut] non-ferrous metal…
Rome, Italy CNN — Pope Francis has updated a 2019 church law governing clerical sexual abuse and extended it to include accountability for Catholic lay leaders of Vatican-approved religious organizations. Lay leaders are people other than clergy members who are on the professional rosters of the church. The norms were…
CNN — While the fury of conflict echoes across the eastern Donbas region, a very different war is being waged in Crimea: one of night-time explosions, sabotage and disinformation. Reclaiming Crimea may seem like an unlikely quest for Ukraine but it is putting considerable effort into making Russia’s occupation as…
CNN — Vladimir Putin says he plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, the neighboring ally from which he staged part of his February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. When the Russian president uses the word “nuclear” the world pays attention and that appears to be a major reason why…
Rome CNN — A record of more than 2,000 migrants arrived on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa in the past day, an Italian official said on Saturday. Some 1,778 people arrived on Friday, with another 267 people landing on seven small boats overnight Saturday, the official said. Previous years have…
Sixteen civilians have been killed and fifty-nine people injured in Russian shelling across eight regions of Ukraine, according to the Defence Forces of Ukraine. Ukraine’s Defense Force said in a statement that “119 settlements have been shelled with various weapons including mortars, tanks, artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, S-300 air defense missile…
Berlin CNN — An extremist and until recently almost unheard-of network in Germany is back in the spotlight after police carried out nationwide raids against it. The Reichsbürger movement – made up of small groups and individuals spread across the country – peddles a number of bizarre views and rejects…
CNN — Here’s a look at the life of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Birth date: October 7, 1952 Birth place: Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia Birth name: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin Father: Vladimir Putin, factory foreman Mother: Maria Putina Marriage: Lyudmila (Shkrebneva) Putina (July 28, 1983-2014, divorced) Children: Yekaterina and Maria…
Kherson, Ukraine CNN — A boom of artillery fire shook the ground as Olena opened the gate to the Kherson Children’s Home. She barely flinched. Russian positions are just across the Dnipro River and Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine, is under regular attack. Like many Ukrainians during this war,…
CNN — King Charles’s state visit to France has been postponed in light of protests planned next week over the French government’s controversial pension reforms. The British monarch and Queen Consort were due to travel to France on Sunday for a trip that would see them visit Paris and Bordeaux,…
Ukrainian officials say Russian forces have kept up their bombardments across the Donetsk region, with more than 200 strikes against the Bakhmut area alone in the past 24 hours — but they claim the Russians are losing hundreds of men a day across the front lines. The eastern city of Bakhmut…
CNN — Russian forces are depleted in Bakhmut and a Ukrainian counter-offensive could soon be launched, one of Kyiv’s top generals has said, raising the prospect of an unlikely turnaround in the besieged city. Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s land forces, said on his Telegram channel Thursday that “[Russians]…
A version of this story appeared in the March 23 edition of CNN’s Royal News, a weekly dispatch bringing you the inside track on Britain’s royal family. Sign up here. Warsaw, Poland CNN — Royal tours are normally planned months in advance. But the Prince of Wales’ surprise trip to…
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, said on Thursday that even though Hungary is a signatory to the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC, and ratified it in 2001, arresting Putin would have no basis in Hungarian law. “We can refer to the Hungarian…
CNN — Russia unleashed a wave of deadly attacks on towns and cities across Ukraine on Wednesday as Chinese leader Xi Jinping departed from Moscow following talks with President Vladimir Putin. Xi left Russia’s capital pledging to deepen ties with Putin but the meetings failed to achieve a breakthrough on…
Rescuers work at a site of a residential building damaged by a Russian missile strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine on March 22. (Stringer/Reuters) Russia unleashed a wave of deadly attacks on towns and cities across Ukraine on Wednesday as Chinese leader Xi Jinping departed from Moscow following talks with President Vladimir Putin. Xi left Russia’s capital pledging…
Warsaw, Poland CNN — Britain’s Prince William made a rare, unannounced trip to Poland on Wednesday, meeting British and Polish troops stationed near the Ukrainian-Polish border and praising their “cooperation in support of the people of Ukraine and their freedom.” The Prince of Wales first visited the 3rd Brigade Territorial…
CNN — Here’s a look at the life of Sir John Major, former prime minister of the United Kingdom. Birth date: March 29, 1943 Birth place: Carshalton, Surrey Birth name: John Major Father: Abraham Thomas Ball, stage name – Tom Major, performer Mother: Gwen (Coates) Major, dancer Marriage: Norma (Johnson)…
CNN — A large ship sitting in a dry dock was dislodged from its holding and partially tipped over in the Scottish capital Edinburgh on Wednesday, leaving 25 people injured, emergency services said. A spokesperson for the Scottish Ambulance Service told CNN that 15 patients were transported to local hospitals…
Hong Kong CNN — Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have made a sweeping affirmation of their alignment across a host of issues – and shared mistrust of the United States – in a lengthy statement following talks between the two leaders in Moscow this week. Their…
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Kremlin on Tuesday. (Grigoy Sysoyev/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images) As two autocrats traded tributes over a feast of quail, venison, Siberian white salmon and pomegranate sorbet, China and Russia seemed to conjure the anti-Western compact the US has long feared. Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s state visit…
CNN — Russia is “deliberately trying to disinform,” said the UK Ministry of Defense on Tuesday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned London against providing Ukraine with ammunition that contains depleted uranium. On Monday, the UK confirmed that it will send ammunition containing depleted uranium to Ukraine, a development which…
Izium, Ukraine CNN — A Russian soldier who allegedly shot a civilian in an extraordinary attack caught on camera by a Ukrainian drone is being accused of war crimes in absentia by the Ukrainian police. The dossier of evidence against him includes phone calls between the soldier and his wife…
Hong Kong CNN — Xi Jinping sits down for a second day of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday but Western allies remain skeptical of any breakthrough over the war in Ukraine with Washington saying the Chinese leader’s visit provides “diplomatic cover” for Moscow. The first day in…
Fumio Kishida delivers a speech in New Delhi on March 20. (Kydpl Kyodo/AP) Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is making a surprise trip to Ukraine on Tuesday to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — a day after Chinese leader Xi Jinping met his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Kishida has…
CNN — Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said late Monday that a strike destroyed Russian “Kalibr” cruise missiles that were being transported by train in the town of Dzhankoi, in Russian-occupied Crimea. Ukrainian authorities did not directly claim responsibility for the strike but said it serves to further “demilitarize Russia and…
CNN — London’s Metropolitan Police Service has allowed predatory behavior to flourish within its force and failed to adequately protect members of the public from abuse, as well as its own female staff, according to a review that accused the organization of perpetuating a misogynistic, sexist, racist and homophobic internal…
CNN — Xi Jinping has landed in Moscow for meetings with Vladimir Putin, Russian state media TASS reported Monday, the first time China’s leader has visited his neighbor and close strategic partner since Russia began its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Xi’s visit comes days after the International Criminal Court in…
A woman who survived last year’s bombing of a packed theater in Mariupol likened Russian President Vladimir Putin’s overnight visit to the occupied city to “when a serial killer returns to the place of the crime.” CNN’s Ivan Watson previously spoke to Maria Kutnyakova in March last year, after she managed to escape Mariupol to Ukrainian-controlled…
CNN — Britain’s King Charles has remembered the late Queen on the first Mother’s Day in the UK since her death. “To all mothers everywhere, and to those who may be missing their mums today, we are thinking of you and wishing you a special day,” a tweet on the…
