The last remaining nuclear arms pact between Russia and the United States is set to expire Thursday, removing any caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century.

The termination of the New START Treaty would set the stage for what many fear could be an unconstrained nuclear arms race.

President Donald Trump held a nearly two-hour meeting on Tuesday with his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, that both called friendly — a dramatic about-face from weeks earlier, when Trump accused Petro of pumping cocaine into the U.S. and threatened his country with military action.

Afterward, Trump tried to downplay his past criticisms, saying, "He and I weren't exactly the best of friends, but I wasn't insulted because I never met him. I didn't know him at all."

A U.S. Navy fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone that was approaching the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea, U.S. Central Command said Tuesday, threatening to ramp up tensions as the Trump administration warns of possible military action to get Iran to the negotiating table.

The drone "aggressively approached" the aircraft carrier with "unclear intent" and kept flying toward it "despite de-escalatory measures taken by U.S. forces operating in international waters," Central Command spokesman Capt. Tim Hawkins said in a statement.

The Kremlin warned on Tuesday that the world was heading into a "dangerous" moment as the last U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty is set to expire this week.

New START, the last nuclear treaty between Washington and Moscow after decades of agreements dating to the Cold War, is set to expire on Thursday, and with it restrictions on the two top nuclear powers.

Cuba's government on Monday told AFP that it was in "communication" with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration but not yet in formal talks on a deal to end Washington's pressure campaign on the island.

"Today we cannot talk about having dialogue with the United States, but it is true that there have been communications between the two governments," deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio said in an interview.

NATO chief Mark Rutte was in Kyiv on Tuesday for a surprise visit just hours after Russia launched its largest drone and missile attack so far this year.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video of the pair laying flowers at a memorial in central Kyiv to soldiers killed in the Russian invasion.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agreed late Monday to testify in a House investigation into convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the Republican leading the probe said an agreement had not yet been finalized.

Rep. James Comer, the chair of the House Oversight Committee, continued to press for criminal contempt of Congress charges against both Clintons Monday evening for defying a congressional subpoena when attorneys for the Clintons emailed staff for the Oversight panel, saying the pair would accept Comer's demands and "will appear for depositions on mutually agreeable dates."

A meeting between the United States and Iran is likely to take place in Turkey on February 6, an Arab official told AFP on Tuesday, after Tehran called for the restart of nuclear talks and Washington warned of consequences if a deal was not reached.

"A meeting between U.S. negotiators and senior Iranian officials was likely to take place on Friday in Turkey," the official said on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.

France's delayed budget for this year is set to pass Monday, clearing the way for higher military spending promised by President Emmanuel Macron to confront threats linked to Russia's war in Ukraine and Mideast conflicts.

The expected adoption of the budget marks the final step of a monthslong, chaotic process that exposed deep divisions in the fractured Parliament, which proved unable to reach a compromise. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu ultimately opted to use his special constitutional power to pass the bill without a vote. He is widely expected to survive two no-confidence votes on Monday evening.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on Monday rejected calls for a Europe-wide army, warning that it could be "extremely dangerous" as the bloc considers ways to provide its own security after the United States warned that its priorities lie elsewhere.

Talk of a European army has resurfaced amid tensions within NATO over President Donald Trump's threats to annex Greenland, the semiautonomous territory of NATO-ally Denmark.