One person has been killed and another three have been injured following fresh aerial attacks on Russia's border region of Belgorod, the regional governor said Thursday.

"As a result of an explosion, a car driven by a female civilian overturned into a ditch. The woman died on the spot from her injuries," Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on social media, adding three more people had been wounded by shrapnel.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday urged Russians to vote in elections this weekend that come at a "difficult" time for the country, as the long-serving leader seeks to yet again cement his hold on power.

Putin is set to secure another six-year term this weekend in a vote the Kremlin says will show society is fully behind his assault on Ukraine.

The leaders of France, Germany and Poland will hold urgent talks on Ukraine in Berlin on Friday, Warsaw and Berlin said, as they seek to scrape together additional support for Kyiv.

The talks come on the heels of a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Polish leaders in Washington, shortly after the U.S. leader announced an emergency stopgap package for Ukraine.

Ukraine's army chief said Wednesday the situation on the battlefield was "difficult" and that Russian forces could be poised to strike deep into Ukrainian lines in the eastern Donetsk region.

Ukrainian long-range drones smashed into two oil facilities deep inside Russia on Tuesday, officials said, while an armed incursion claimed by Ukraine-based Russian opponents of the Kremlin unnerved a border region just days before Russia's presidential election.

One person was killed and 22 were injured in a suspected gas explosion in northern China's Hebei province Wednesday, state media reported.

The explosion was suspected to have been caused by a gas leak at a fried chicken shop in the city of Sanhe just before 8 am (0000 GMT), state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Joe Biden and rival Donald Trump have won enough delegates to clinch their party nominations in the 2024 presidential race, networks projected, all but assuring a rematch and setting up one of the longest general election campaigns in U.S. history.

The results in Georgia, Mississippi, and Washington state were essentially a foregone conclusion as President Biden and opponent Trump had already disposed of all primary challengers, and winning the Tuesday votes pushed them both over the threshold of delegates needed to become their parties' nominees in the November election.

President Vladimir Putin said that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons if there is a threat to its statehood, sovereignty or independence, voicing hope that the U.S. would refrain from actions that could trigger a nuclear conflict.

Putin's statement was another blunt warning to the West ahead of a presidential vote this week in which he's all but certain to win another six-year term.

The French navy frigate, bristling with weaponry and powering through frigid Norwegian seas not so far from Russia, awoke at 7:30 a.m. sharp to what, in the circumstances, was a surreal sound.

The 1967 " Summer of Love " hippie anthem "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" was playing over the warship's public address system. Singer Scott McKenzie's voice reverberated through the passageways starting to bustle with sailors clutching coffee mugs: "All across the nation, such a strange vibration, people in motion."

Ukraine launched a wave of long-range drones against targets deep inside Russia on Tuesday, Russian officials said, hitting at least two oil facilities in the attack on eight regions of Russia in the latest display of Kyiv's expanding drone capacity.

Also Tuesday, soldiers who Kyiv officials say are Russian volunteers fighting for Ukraine reported to have crossed the border into Russia, as they have several times during the war. Russia said it had beaten back attempted incursions, but it wasn't possible to verify either side's claims and the reports of border fighting were murky.