Swiftly melting snow triggered the worst recorded flooding in Russia’s Ural Mountains, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes as some of Europe’s biggest rivers swelled to bursting point.

A major flood in the Russian city of Orsk forced thousands of people to evacuate, with Moscow reporting a “critical” situation yesterday and warning of danger water levels in Siberia.

Russia yesterday said it had evacuated 4,000 people in the Orenburg region, in the southern Urals near Kazakhstan, due to flooding after a dam burst.

Russia fired over 3,000 guided aerial bombs, 600 drones and 400 missiles at Ukraine in March alone, President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday.

A Russian court yesterday extended until June 5 the pre-trial detention of US-Russian journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, who faces 15 years in prison on charges of spreading “false information,” according to her employer.

Through the most tense encounters with President Vladimir V Putin’s Russia over the past decade, there has been one project in which Washington and Moscow have claimed common cause: keeping North Korea from expanding its arsenal of nuclear weapons

The Russian air force has conducted a massive strike on objects of energy infrastructure and the gas industry in Ukraine, Russian defence ministry said yesterday.

Pope Francis urged the world to resist “the logic of weapons” in his Easter message at the Vatican yesterday, easing growing health fears as he greeted thousands of Catholics.

A hostage drama in the Netherlands that lasted several hours yesterday ended without bloodshed as all four hostages were freed and police took the suspect into custody.

Peruvian authorities yesterday raided President Dina Boluarte’s home as part of an ongoing corruption investigation related to undisclosed luxury watches.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said yesterday it had uncovered evidence that the gunmen who killed 143 people in an attack on a concert hall last week were linked to “Ukrainian nationalists”.

Russian attacks on eastern and southern Ukraine killed three people and wounded 10 others, officials said yesterday, as Moscow said it had downed a barrage of Ukrainian rockets.

Households around the world threw away one billion meals every single day in 2022 in what the United Nations yesterday called a “global tragedy” of food waste.

Rescuers have lost hope of finding more survivors of the Baltimore bridge collapse, the coast guard said, as efforts yesterday switched to looking for bodies of the missing and more answers to why a container ship smashed into the span.

Planting trees in the wrong places can actually contribute to global warming, scientists said yesterday, but a new map identifies the best locations to regrow forests and cool the planet.

WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange can continue his fight against extradition to the United States after the High Court in London ruled yesterday he should be allowed to appeal against it unless the US promises he will not face the death penalty.

Russia yesterday cast doubt on assertions by the United States that the Islamic State militant group was responsible for a gun attack on a concert hall outside Moscow which killed 137 people and injured 182 more.

Three armed men yesterday tried to attack a police station in the Nor-Nork district of Yerevan, the Armenian capital, Armenia’s interior ministry said. According to preliminary information, two of the three men had been wounded as result of hand grenades they were carrying detonating, it said.

Islamic State yesterday released new videos of the attack on the Crocus City concert hall outside Moscow that left 137 people dead, doubling down on its claim that it masterminded the attack even as Russia has sought to place the blame on Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military said it hit two large Russian landing ships in attacks on the annexed Crimean peninsula early yesterday, as well as a communications centre and other infrastructure used by the Russian navy in the Black Sea.