Russia's parliamentary election features the Kremlin's main party, United Russia, and nine others that all support President Vladimir Putin's policies. The only party that dared to oppose the war in Ukraine has been barred from the ballot.

The absence of genuine opposition all but assures the Kremlin will keep tight control of the Russian political scene amid mounting economic costs and increasing Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries and online retailers. Those drone strikes have made Russians feel the pain from the war more than 4½ years after its start.

A Russian barrage of missiles and drones targeting Ukraine's capital and the surrounding region injured at least 19 people overnight and into Thursday morning, authorities said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces carried out overnight strikes against targets in Russia, including an oil refinery in Yaroslavl and a military airfield in the Rostov region.

A Russian drone struck a passenger bus in southern Ukraine early Wednesday, killing five people and wounding at least seven. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack, the latest in a series of Russian strikes on civilian transportation, as an "atrocity."

The strike occurred in the Nikopol district of Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, near the war's southern front line. Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration, said all five were killed at the scene while the seven wounded were receiving medical care.

They lead party tickets, star in campaign videos and appear in televised debates. They are Russians who have fought in Ukraine, and they feature prominently in this week's parliamentary election.

Election officials say nearly 200 candidates have served in Ukraine, and the Kremlin touts them as part of Russia's "true elite" — its effort to show that veterans of the 4 1/2-year-old war will have an honored place in civilian life.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has canceled a trip to the U.N. General Assembly next week as he faces mounting pressure at home during a string of difficult state elections.

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they couldn't publicly discuss a trip that hadn't been announced officially, said Wednesday that Merz won't travel to New York as originally planned because "his presence is required in Berlin." Merz had been expected to speak at the General Assembly next Wednesday.

The Trump administration is stripping tens of millions of dollars in U.S. military assistance from countries in Europe and the Middle East to support conservative-leaning governments in Central and South America.

The State Department on Tuesday notified Congress that it will reprogram $52 million in foreign military financing from Slovakia, North Macedonia, Tunisia and Iraq to Panama, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia.

Brazil's Supreme Court is in the throes of an unprecedented crisis. Sessions are being canceled. Justices are overruling one another's decisions. And suspicions of graft, political bias and police interference loom over several of its members ahead of the country's presidential election in October.

The justices at the heart of the crisis are perceived as being at opposing ends of Brazil's polarized political spectrum. Next month, incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is expected to face off with Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the former President Jair Bolsonaro, in what is likely to be a close election, as it was four years ago.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will deliver a major state of the European Union speech on Wednesday setting out her priorities for the next year and her vision for tackling the challenges faced by the world's biggest trading bloc.

The content of von der Leyen 's address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, has been kept under wraps. Political groups in the assembly have lobbied to get their priorities and pet projects included.

The Kremlin on Tuesday welcomed what it called U.S. President Donald Trump's "good idea" for a truce between Russia and Ukraine on striking energy infrastructure.

"We have seen President Trump's post. We consider it a good idea, a good initiative. We are in contact with the Americans," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, a day after Trump announced the warring sides had agreed to a truce, despite neither Kyiv or Moscow having said a deal had been struck.

NATO fighter jets shot down a drone that entered Lithuanian airspace overnight, officials said Tuesday, less than a day after NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that strikes close to the alliance's territory would drive the trans-Atlantic organization to increase its support for Kyiv.

The drone was downed near the village of Pratkūnai in the Kaišiadorys district, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of the country's capital, Vilnius, and near the Kaunas Reservoir, Lithuania's National Crisis Management Center said Tuesday.