Military officials in Ukraine say their units locked in street battles with the Kremlin’s forces in a northeastern Ukrainian town have halted the Russian advance. Even so, a senior Moscow official said Russia’s recent frontline push has enough resources to keep going.

Russia has declared Britain’s defense attaché persona non grata and gave the diplomat a week to leave the country in response to London expelling the Russian defense attaché earlier this month over spying allegations.

Slovak authorities have charged a man with attempting to assassinate populist Prime Minister Robert Fico. Offcials say the suspect acted alone in a politically motivated attack. A hospital official said Fico was in serious but stable condition Thursday, a day after being shot multiple times in the stomach.

Violence is raging across New Caledonia for the third consecutive day and France has imposed a state of emergency in the French Pacific territory. French authorities in New Caledonia and the Interior Ministry in Paris reported that five people, including two police officers, have been killed in the violence.

World War II aircraft that moved troops and cargo across the North Atlantic to Europe are being retooled, fueled and readied to make the same journey the aircraft did 80 years ago for a commemorative flight to pay tribute to the D-Day invasion.

South Africa on Thursday urged the International Court of Justice to order Israel to halt its Rafah offensive and protect civilians in Gaza.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping reaffirmed their “no-limits” partnership that has deepened as both countries face rising tensions with the West, and they criticized U.S. military alliances in Asia and the Pacific region.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken may have thought “Rockin’ in the free world,” was the perfect upbeat song to perform with a Kyiv bar band. However, Neil Young’s 1989 song is a lament about despair and misery caused by homelessness, drug addiction and poverty in the celebrated free world.

A massive search is underway in France for a gang that killed two prison officers and seriously injured three others to free an inmate they were escorting. French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin says “unprecedented” efforts are being deployed, with hundreds of officers mobilized.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US is accelerating arms supplies to Ukraine as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s military confronts a Russian assault on the nation’s northeast.