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Putin to Travel to Kyrgyzstan in First Known Trip abroad since ICC Arrest Warrant

This pool photograph distributed by Russian state owned agency Sputnik shows Russian President Vladimir Putin attending a meeting with Culture Minister at the Kremlin in Moscow on October 9, 2023. (Photo by Mikhail METZEL / POOL / AFP)
This pool photograph distributed by Russian state owned agency Sputnik shows Russian President Vladimir Putin attending a meeting with Culture Minister at the Kremlin in Moscow on October 9, 2023. (Photo by Mikhail METZEL / POOL / AFP)
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Putin to Travel to Kyrgyzstan in First Known Trip abroad since ICC Arrest Warrant

This pool photograph distributed by Russian state owned agency Sputnik shows Russian President Vladimir Putin attending a meeting with Culture Minister at the Kremlin in Moscow on October 9, 2023. (Photo by Mikhail METZEL / POOL / AFP)
This pool photograph distributed by Russian state owned agency Sputnik shows Russian President Vladimir Putin attending a meeting with Culture Minister at the Kremlin in Moscow on October 9, 2023. (Photo by Mikhail METZEL / POOL / AFP)

Vladimir Putin will visit Kyrgyzstan on Thursday, the presidential office of the Central Asian country said, in what would be the Russian leader's first known trip abroad since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest.
Putin has rarely traveled abroad since the start of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and is not known to have left Russia since the ICC issued in March a warrant for him on suspicion of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. The Kremlin denies those allegations, Reuters said.
"At the invitation of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, Sadyr Japarov, on October 12 of this year, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, will make an official visit to the country," the Kyrgyz presidential administration said in a statement on its website.
Putin agreed in May during talks with Japarov to visit Kyrgyzstan, but there has been no official confirmation yet from the Kremlin that the Russian president will travel there on Thursday.
The Russian leader is also due to travel to China next week for the third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing. Neither Kyrgyzstan nor China are members of the ICC, which was established to prosecute war crimes.
Moscow denies the ICC allegations and the Kremlin said the warrant was evidence of the West's hostility to Russia, which opened a criminal case against the ICC prosecutor and the judges who issued the warrant.
CIS SUMMIT
In Kyrgyzstan, Putin is also to take part in ceremonies dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the opening of an air base in Kant, which is home to the Russian Aerospace Forces' 999th Air Base, the Kyrgyz presidential office said.
Separately, Kyrgyzstan's presidential office said on Tuesday that the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan told Japarov that he will not be attending a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit in Bishkek on Friday.
The office said that Pashinyan told Japarov in a phone call that he will not be able to attend due to "a number of circumstances."
The CIS was formed among a number of the post-Soviet republics after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and includes Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan, among others.
Japarov's office said Putin planned to attend the summit.
Russia-Armenia ties have been badly strained by Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and Armenia moving to subject itself to the jurisdiction of the ICC.
Armenia has also accused Russia of inaction as Armenia's neighbor Azerbaijan recaptured last month Nagorno-Karabakh, a region controlled for three decades by ethnic Armenians, most of whom have now fled.
Last week, Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev pulled out of an EU-brokered meeting with Pashinyan at which Brussels said it was standing by Armenia.
Pashinyan said on Tuesday that plans were proceeding for a meeting with the Azeri president to discuss a durable peace accord.

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World

Israel President Says at End of Visit Antisemitism in Australia 'Frightening'

Israel's President Isaac Herzog reacts during a Jewish community event in Melbourne on February 12, 2026. (Photo by WILLIAM WEST / AFP)
Israel's President Isaac Herzog reacts during a Jewish community event in Melbourne on February 12, 2026. (Photo by WILLIAM WEST / AFP)
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Israel President Says at End of Visit Antisemitism in Australia 'Frightening'

Israel's President Isaac Herzog reacts during a Jewish community event in Melbourne on February 12, 2026. (Photo by WILLIAM WEST / AFP)
Israel's President Isaac Herzog reacts during a Jewish community event in Melbourne on February 12, 2026. (Photo by WILLIAM WEST / AFP)

Antisemitism in Australia is "frightening" but most people want good relations, Israel's President Isaac Herzog said on Thursday as he wrapped up a four-day visit and was met by protests in the city of Melbourne.

Herzog's tightly policed visit to Australia this week was meant to offer consolation to the country's Jewish community following the mass shooting on Bondi Beach that killed 15 people in December, said AFP.

However, it sparked demonstrations in major cities, including in Sydney, where police used pepper spray on protesters and members of the media, including an AFP photographer, during scuffles in the central business district on Monday night.

Herzog told Channel Seven's Sunrise ahead of his Melbourne stop that a "wave" of anti-Jewish hatred in Australia had culminated in the December 14 killings at Bondi.

"It is frightening and worrying," he said.

"But there's also a silent majority of Australians who seek peace, who respect the Jewish community and, of course, want a dialogue with Israel."

The Israeli head of state said he had brought a "message of goodwill to the people of Australia".

"I hope there will be a change. I hope things will relax," he said.

Herzog attended a Jewish community event after a meeting with Victoria's governor at Melbourne's Government House.

Protesters waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans squared off with police outside the event.

More are expected to turn out later at around 5 pm (0600 GMT) on Thursday.

Herzog told the audience at the community event: "We came here to be with you, to look you in the eye, to embrace and remember."

He also said demonstrators outside should instead "go protest in front of the Iranian embassy".

The Australian government accused Iran last year of orchestrating a recent wave of antisemitic attacks and expelled Tehran's ambassador.

Canberra, citing intelligence findings, accused Tehran of directing the torching of a kosher cafe in the Sydney suburb of Bondi in October 2024 and a major arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne in December 2024.

- Controversial visit -

Ahead of his arrival, national broadcaster ABC reported that a building at Melbourne University had been graffiti-ed with the phrase: "Death to Herzog".

Many Jewish Australians have welcomed Herzog's trip.

"His visit will lift the spirits of a pained community," said Alex Ryvchin, co-chief executive of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the community's peak body.

But some in the community disagreed, with the progressive Jewish Council of Australia saying he was not welcome because of his alleged role in the "ongoing destruction of Gaza".

The UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry found last year that Herzog was liable for prosecution for inciting genocide after he said all Palestinians -- "an entire nation" -- were responsible for the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.

Israel has "categorically" rejected the inquiry's report, describing it as "distorted and false" and has called for the body's abolition.

World

Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Says the US and Iran Showing Flexibility on Nuclear Deal

FILE PHOTO: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan speaks during an interview with Reuters at the 23rd edition of the annual Doha Forum, in Doha, Qatar, December 6, 2025. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan speaks during an interview with Reuters at the 23rd edition of the annual Doha Forum, in Doha, Qatar, December 6, 2025. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo
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Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Says the US and Iran Showing Flexibility on Nuclear Deal

FILE PHOTO: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan speaks during an interview with Reuters at the 23rd edition of the annual Doha Forum, in Doha, Qatar, December 6, 2025. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan speaks during an interview with Reuters at the 23rd edition of the annual Doha Forum, in Doha, Qatar, December 6, 2025. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/File Photo

The United States and Iran are showing flexibility on a nuclear deal, with Washington appearing "willing" to tolerate some nuclear enrichment, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told the Financial Times in an interview published Thursday.

“It is positive that the Americans appear willing to tolerate Iranian enrichment within clearly set boundaries," Fidan, who has been involved in talks with both Washington and Tehran, told the FT.

“The Iranians now recognize ‌that they ‌need to reach a deal with the ‌Americans, ⁠and the Americans ⁠understand that the Iranians have certain limits. It’s pointless to try to force them.”

Washington has until now demanded Iran relinquish its stockpile of uranium enriched to up to 60% fissile purity, a small step away from the 90% that is considered weapons grade, said Reuters.

Iranian ⁠President Masoud Pezeshkian has said Iran would continue ‌to demand the ‌lifting of financial sanctions and insist on its nuclear rights including ‌enrichment.

Fidan told the FT he believed Tehran “genuinely ‌wants to reach a real agreement” and would accept restrictions on enrichment levels and a strict inspection regime, as it did in the 2015 agreement with the US and others.

US ‌and Iranian diplomats held talks through Omani mediators in Oman last week in ⁠an effort ⁠to revive diplomacy, after President Donald Trump positioned a naval flotilla in the region, raising fears of new military action. Trump on Tuesday said he was considering sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East, even as Washington and Tehran prepared to resume negotiations.

The Turkish foreign minister, however, cautioned that broadening the Iran-US talks to ballistic missiles would bring "nothing but another war."

The US State Department and the White House did not respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.

World

Russia Strikes Heating in Kyiv, Kills Two in East Ukraine

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire at a house following a Russian air attack in Barvinkove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire at a house following a Russian air attack in Barvinkove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
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Russia Strikes Heating in Kyiv, Kills Two in East Ukraine

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire at a house following a Russian air attack in Barvinkove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire at a house following a Russian air attack in Barvinkove, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

Russian strikes early Thursday cut heating to nearly 2,600 residential buildings in Kyiv, in a nationwide attack on energy facilities that killed two people in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has stepped up strikes on Ukraine's power and heating infrastructure, plunging entire cities into darkness in the coldest winter of the four-year war.

AFP journalists in Kyiv heard loud blasts and saw explosions light up the night sky, as Ukrainian air defense systems fended off the Russian barrage.

"After last night's massive attack, due to damage to critical infrastructure targeted by the enemy, nearly 2,600 more buildings in the capital have been left without heat," the mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, said.

He added that two people had been wounded in the capital overnight.

More than 1,000 of the capital's approximately 12,000 apartment blocks were already without heating after massive Russian attacks over the last few weeks.

Russia launched 24 missiles and 219 drones at the war-torn country, Ukraine's air force said, adding that its air defense units had downed 16 missiles and 197 drones.

Two people were killed in the eastern Ukrainian town of Lozova, where the attack cut power to residents and forced authorities to use alternative power sources for critical infrastructure, a local official said.

The attack also wounded four people in the central city of Dnipro, and cut heating to 10,000 customers, Restoration Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said.

"This is yet another attempt to deprive Ukrainians of basic services in the middle of winter. But restoration efforts continue nonstop," Kuleba added.

In the southern Odesa region, the attacks wounded one person, the state emergency services said, while Kuleba said around 300,000 had been left without water supplies.

Russia meanwhile said it repelled a missile attack in the Volgograd region but that debris ignited a fire at a military facility and prompted the evacuation of a nearby village.