The EU on Friday pledged to disburse one billion euros ($1.1 billion) from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets to Ukrainian arms companies as part of its support to Kyiv as it fights off Moscow's invasion.

"We have just made available 1 billion euros for the Ukrainian defense industry so that Ukraine could better defend itself," the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas said in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. The funding would "directly support Ukrainian defense companies", she added.

Pakistan's foreign ministry spokesman said on Friday that India was to blame for bringing the two nuclear-armed neighbors closer to war.

"It is most unfortunate that India's reckless conduct has brought the two nuclear-armed states closer to a major conflict," Shafqat Ali Khan said in a press briefing in the capital Islamabad. "India's jingoism and war hysteria should be a source of serious concern for the world."

Russia's Victory Day military parade commemorating 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany started on Moscow's Red Square on Friday, state TV showed.

President Vladimir Putin was seen sitting next to China's Xi Jinping, with around two dozen other foreign leaders also attending the event.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will travel to Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Saturday, his ministry said, ahead of a regional visit by U.S. President Donald Trump next week.

Araghchi is due to hold talks with senior Saudi officials in Riyadh before heading to Doha for a conference on Arab-Iranian dialogue, ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said in a statement.

Robert Francis Prevost became the first pope from the United States on Thursday, picking the papal name Leo XIV after cardinals from around the world elected him leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics.

Russia and China on Thursday slammed US President Donald Trump' plans for an "Iron Dome" missile defense system as "deeply destabilizing" in a joint statement issued after talks between presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Moscow.

"The recently announced large-scale 'Golden (Iron) Dome for America' program is also deeply destabilizing," said the statement published by the Kremlin. The plan "explicitly provides for a significant strengthening of the arsenal for conducting combat operations in space", it added.

Cardinals return to the Sistine Chapel on Thursday to resume voting for a new pope after the first conclave ballot failed to find a winner, sending billowing black smoke through the chapel chimney.

Some of the 133 voting cardinals had said they expected a short conclave to replace Pope Francis. But it will likely take a few rounds of voting for one man to secure the two-thirds majority, or 89 ballots, necessary to become the 267th pope.

One person was killed early Thursday in Russian attacks in northeast Ukraine, in the opening hours of a 72-hour ceasefire called by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Another two people were injured after Russian forces dropped guided air bombs in the northeast Sumy region.

India's government said Thursday that 13 civilians had been killed by Pakistani fire in "ceasefire violations" along their de facto border since Wednesday, after violence escalated into artillery shelling following Indian strikes.

India's foreign ministry said that all those killed were in the town of Poonch, with 59 others injured, the majority also in the town.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday hailed "deepening" trust with Russia as he sat down with President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.

"The political mutual trust between China and Russia is becoming deeper, and the ties for pragmatic cooperation are becoming stronger," Xi said, visiting Moscow for Russia's May 9 celebrations of the World War II defeat of the Nazis.