Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever insisted on Thursday that his European partners must share the risk of using billions of dollars in frozen Russian assets that are held in his country to help keep Ukraine's economy and war effort afloat in coming years.

Ukraine's budget and military needs for 2026 and 2027 are estimated to total around $153 billion, and the European Union's executive branch has been developing a plan to use Russia's frozen assets as collateral to drum up funds.

Ukraine's state security service has unveiled an upgraded sea drone it says can now operate anywhere in the Black Sea, carry heavier weapons and use artificial intelligence for targeting.

Ukraine has used the unmanned naval drones to target Russian shipping and infrastructure in the Black Sea. The Security Service of Ukraine, known by its Ukrainian acronym SBU, has credited strikes by the unmanned vessel known as the " Sea Baby" with forcing a strategic shift in Russia's naval operations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday directed drills of the country's strategic nuclear forces that featured practice missile launches, an exercise that came as his planned summit on Ukraine with U.S. President Donald Trump was put on hold.

The Kremlin said that as part of the maneuvers involving all parts of Moscow's nuclear triad, a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was test-fired from the Plesetsk launch facility in northwestern Russia, and a Sineva ICBM was launched by a submarine in the Barents Sea. The drills also involved Tu-95 strategic bombers firing long-range cruise missiles.

Leaders of six Western Balkan nations are meeting British and European officials in London on Wednesday for talks on migration, security and economic growth in a volatile region where Russia seeks to wield influence.

A large-scale Russian drone and missile attack across Ukraine killed at least six people, including a woman and her two young daughters, officials said Wednesday, as U.S.-led efforts to end the war floundered and Ukraine's president sought more foreign military help.

Ukraine's president and European leaders on Tuesday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of stalling for time in diplomatic efforts to bring his invasion of Ukraine to an end and opposed any move to make Kyiv surrender land captured by Russian forces in return for peace, as U.S. President Donald Trump has on occasion suggested.

Eight European leaders as well as senior European Union officials said in a joint statement they intend to go ahead with plans to use Moscow's billions of dollars (euros) of frozen assets abroad to help Kyiv win the war, despite some misgivings about the legality and consequences of such a step.

Japan's parliament elected ultraconservative Sanae Takaichi as the country's first female prime minister Tuesday, a day after her struggling party struck a coalition deal with a new partner expected to pull her governing bloc further to the right.

As the lights went out in her hometown, 40-year-old Zinaida Kot could not help but think about her next dialysis treatment for kidney disease. Without electricity, the machine that keeps her alive stops working.

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived at a prison in Paris on Tuesday to begin serving a 5-year sentence for a criminal conspiracy to finance his 2007 election campaign with funds from Libya.

The management of the Louvre museum denied on Monday having contacted a private Israeli intel firm to investigate the weekend's audacious jewel heist at the iconic French institution.