Even as Russia announced a ceasefire starting Monday morning and the opening of humanitarian corridors in several areas, its armed forces continued to pummel Ukrainian cities, with multiple rocket launchers hitting residential buildings.

The limited ceasefire announcement came a day after hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians attempting to flee to safety were forced to shelter from Russian shelling of cities in Ukraine's center, north and south. Officials from both sides planned a third round of talks Monday.

A top Iranian official said Monday that his country is seeking "creative ways" to restore its nuclear deal with world powers after Russia's foreign minister linked sanctions on Moscow over its war on Ukraine to the ongoing negotiations.

The tweet by Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's powerful Supreme National Security Council, offers the first high-level acknowledgment of the demands of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

France will soon propose concrete measures to ensure the safety and security of Ukraine’s five main nuclear sites, the office of French President Emmanuel Macron said Saturday.

The safeguards will be drawn up on the basis of International Atomic Energy Agency criteria, a statement from the French presidency added.

A suicide bomber struck inside a Shiite Muslim mosque in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar during Friday prayers, killing at least 56 worshippers and wounding 194 people, hospital officials said.

No militant group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Both the Islamic State group and the Pakistani Taliban — a militant group separate from the Taliban in Afghanistan — have carried out similar attacks in the past in the area, located near the border with neighboring Afghanistan.

NATO countries refused on Friday to police a no-fly zone over Ukraine, warning that such a move could provoke widespread war in Europe with nuclear power Russia, the organization's top civilian official said.

Speaking after chairing a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his counterparts, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged the suffering of the Ukrainian people, as Russia ramps up its use of heavy firepower, shelling cities and other sites, forcing more than a million people out of the country.

A senior U.S. diplomat apologized Friday to thousands of Afghans stranded in the United Arab Emirates months after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, promising to speed repatriation for some to America while acknowledging that authorities still do not know who some of them are.

The visit comes as America still struggles with how to handle the tens of thousands who piled into planes in the hectic final days of Afghanistan's U.S.-backed government, capping the end of a 20-year experiment in replacing hard-line Taliban rule with a nascent democracy.

The U.N.'s top official for Libya on Friday urged the country's divided factions to refrain from violence and agree on a framework for the future. Libya is being pulled apart again, with two rival governments claiming power after tentative steps towards unity in the past year following a decade of civil war.

Stephanie Williams, the U.N. special adviser on Libya, invited lawmakers to appoint 12 members to a committee that will work to overcome the political deadlock.

The Russian parliament has passed a bill introducing sentences of up to 15 years in prison for intentionally spreading "fake" information about military action.

Russian state news agencies reported Friday the passing of the bill in the third and final reading.

As the West condemns Russia, President Vladimir Putin has vocal supporters in China, where the ruling Communist Party tells its people they are fellow targets of U.S.-led harassment.

"If Russia is destroyed, we will be next. This is for sure," said Wang Yongchun, a retiree in Beijing. "The United States wants to dominate the world."

A woman crouches down in the doorway of a blue and yellow train at a station in Kyiv, Ukraine's embattled capital city. Her husband stands on the platform below and cranes his neck up for a kiss that both hope will not be their last.

As the train door closes, the woman holds up their 2-year-old son and he smiles and presses his tiny hand against the smudged window to wave goodbye to his father, who is staying behind to fight the Russian invaders.