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In Call with NATO Chief, Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Says Pressure Needed on Russia

In this handout photograph taken and released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service on May 20, 2025, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a meeting with the Crown Prince of Norway in Kyiv. (Handout / Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / AFP)
In this handout photograph taken and released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service on May 20, 2025, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a meeting with the Crown Prince of Norway in Kyiv. (Handout / Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / AFP)
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In Call with NATO Chief, Ukraine’s Zelenskiy Says Pressure Needed on Russia

In this handout photograph taken and released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service on May 20, 2025, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a meeting with the Crown Prince of Norway in Kyiv. (Handout / Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / AFP)
In this handout photograph taken and released by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service on May 20, 2025, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a meeting with the Crown Prince of Norway in Kyiv. (Handout / Ukrainian Presidential Press Service / AFP)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday he had spoken by telephone to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, and that they had discussed joint steps and the need to put pressure on Russia to secure "a just peace".

"It is important that all decisions are coordinated. Then the sanctions will work. Without pressure on Moscow, a just peace cannot be achieved. Everyone understands this," Zelenskiy said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Ukrainian leader has been calling European allies in the last two days to seek more pressure on Russia after US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone on Monday.

For Ukraine and its allies, who spent months trying to win the Trump administration over to their cause in the war started by Russia, the US leader's call with Putin put them back at square one.

The US president dropped his earlier insistence on an unconditional 30-day ceasefire that he hoped would kickstart what promise to be long and tortuous peace talks.

Trump also signaled that the war he once promised to end in 24 hours was no longer his to fix - a message that leaves Ukraine vulnerable and its allies worried.

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World

Russia: Man Suspected of Shooting Top General Detained in Dubai

An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova
An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova
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Russia: Man Suspected of Shooting Top General Detained in Dubai

An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova
An investigator works outside a residential building where the assassination attempt on Russian Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev took place in Moscow, Russia February 6, 2026. REUTERS/Anastasia Barashkova

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Sunday that the man suspected of shooting top Russian military intelligence officer Vladimir Alexeyev in Moscow has been detained in Dubai and handed over to Russia.

Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of the GRU, ⁠Russia's military intelligence arm, was shot several times in an apartment block in Moscow on Friday, investigators said. He underwent surgery after the shooting, Russian media ⁠said.

The FSB said a Russian citizen named Lyubomir Korba was detained in Dubai on suspicion of carrying out the shooting.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of being behind the assassination attempt, which he said was designed to sabotage peace talks. ⁠Ukraine said it had nothing to do with the shooting.

Alexeyev's boss, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, the head of the GRU, has been leading Russia's delegation in negotiations with Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on security-related aspects of a potential peace deal.

World

Factory Explosion Kills 8 in Northern China

Employees work on an electric vehicle (EV) production line at the Volkswagen Anhui factory in Hefei, Anhui province, China, February 4, 2026. REUTERS/Florence Lo
Employees work on an electric vehicle (EV) production line at the Volkswagen Anhui factory in Hefei, Anhui province, China, February 4, 2026. REUTERS/Florence Lo
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Factory Explosion Kills 8 in Northern China

Employees work on an electric vehicle (EV) production line at the Volkswagen Anhui factory in Hefei, Anhui province, China, February 4, 2026. REUTERS/Florence Lo
Employees work on an electric vehicle (EV) production line at the Volkswagen Anhui factory in Hefei, Anhui province, China, February 4, 2026. REUTERS/Florence Lo

An explosion at a biotech factory in northern China has killed eight people, Chinese state media reported Sunday, increasing the total number of fatalities by one.

State news agency Xinhua had previously reported that seven people died and one person was missing after the Saturday morning explosion at the Jiapeng biotech company in Shanxi province, citing local authorities.

Later, Xinhua said eight were dead, adding that the firm's legal representative had been taken into custody.

The company is located in Shanyin County, about 400 kilometers west of Beijing, AFP reported.

Xinhua said clean-up operations were ongoing, noting that reporters observed dark yellow smoke emanating from the site of the explosion.

Authorities have established a team to investigate the cause of the blast, the report added.

Industrial accidents are common in China due to lax safety standards.
In late January, an explosion at a steel factory in the neighboring province of Inner Mongolia left at least nine people dead.

World

Iran Warns Will Not Give Up Enrichment Despite US War Threat

Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
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Iran Warns Will Not Give Up Enrichment Despite US War Threat

Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)
Traffic moves through a street in Tehran on February 7, 2026. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Iran will never surrender the right to enrich uranium, even if war "is imposed on us,” its foreign minister said Sunday, defying pressure from Washington.

"Iran has paid a very heavy price for its peaceful nuclear program and for uranium enrichment," Abbas Araghchi told a forum in Tehran.

"Why do we insist so much on enrichment and refuse to give it up even if a war is imposed on us? Because no one has the right to dictate our behavior," he said, two days after he met US envoy Steve Witkoff in Oman.

The foreign minister also declared that his country was not intimidated by the US naval deployment in the Gulf.

"Their military deployment in the region does not scare us," Araghchi said.