Iran's army warned on Sunday that countries complying with U.S. sanctions against the Islamic republic would face difficulties crossing the Strait of Hormuz.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that he was expecting Iran's response to Washington's latest proposal on a deal to ending the Middle East war by "tonight."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that his soldiers in Ukraine were fighting an "aggressive force" backed by all of NATO, and that the Russian army's cause was "just", as he addressed an annual Victory Day parade on Red Square.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced a three-day ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia starting Saturday, saying he hoped it could lead to long term deal to end Moscow's war.

A U.S. fighter jet disabled two Iranian-flagged tankers to enforce a port blockade on Friday, prompting retaliatory attacks and rattling a shaky truce as Tehran weighed Washington's latest proposal to end the Middle East war.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday that Europe needs the United States, and vice versa, as America's top diplomat wrapped up two days of fence-mending talks in Italy and the Vatican following weeks of tensions over the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.

Tajani reaffirmed strong trans-Atlantic ties and said he hoped "tensions have been calmed" with Rubio's visit. He said the two discussed the Iran war and spillover into Lebanon, as well as the situation in Venezuela and Cuba. The U.S. secretary of state also met Friday with Premier Giorgia Meloni.

Russia's army said Friday it was responding "symmetrically" to attacks by Ukraine during a unilateral two-day ceasefire ordered by Moscow that Kyiv never agreed to.

The Russian defense ministry said in a statement on social media that Ukraine fired hundreds of drones across the front line as well as tank and artillery attacks, adding that Moscow's troops were "responding symmetrically."

British voters cast ballots Thursday in local and regional elections that could shake up the country's politics and deliver a heavy blow to embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Starmer's center-left Labour Party is bracing for big losses in polls that will choose about 5,000 local councilors and a handful of mayors across England, as well as semiautonomous parliaments in Scotland and Wales.

France's aircraft carrier strike group is moving south of the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea in preparation for a potential French-British mission in the Strait of Hormuz, French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday.

The deployment puts Europe's most powerful warship closer to the strait whose effective closure has come to epitomize the war in Iran, stranding hundreds of ships and triggering what the International Energy Agency calls the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.

Pakistan's military warned Thursday it would respond strongly against any attack as it marked the anniversary of last year's four-day conflict with neighboring India that brought the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of war before a U.S.-brokered ceasefire halted the fighting.

The military said that any "hostile design" against Pakistan would be countered with "greater strength, precision and resolve" than what India witnessed during the May 2025 conflict, which Islamabad named "Marka-e-Haq," or "Battle of Truth."