The mayor of Turkey's third-largest city defected to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan 's ruling party on Wednesday, giving it the mayoralty of the opposition stronghold for the first time.

Izmir had been led by the opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP, for more than two decades until Mayor Cemil Tugay joined Erdogan's Justice and Development Party, or AKP, at a ceremony at its headquarters in Ankara.

Russian missiles and drones pounded Kyiv and a dozen other Ukrainian regions overnight into Wednesday, killing at least 21 civilians, including four children, and wounding around 60 in Moscow's latest devastating barrage, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukraine had anticipated the attack, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warning the previous day that intelligence services had concluded that Russia was building up for a "massive" strike.

Mediator Qatar on Tuesday said the United States and Iran were still engaged in talks to end the Middle East war, despite an apparent deadlock seven months into the conflict.

The indirect negotiations take account of "the concerns of the various parties", foreign ministry official Ibrahim Al-Hashmi told a regular press briefing.

France on Tuesday fired for the first time its new M51.3 nuclear-capable ballistic missile from a nuclear-powered submarine, a successful test that President Emmanuel Macron argued showed the credibility of the French nuclear deterrent.

One child died after a teenage girl stabbed eight pupils at a school in Istanbul on Tuesday, the interior ministry said.

A former German spy chief was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of passing sensitive information to foreign powers, an embarrassing case that comes as the country is seeking to bolster its intelligence agencies.

Ukraine on Tuesday said oil supplies to Russia through South Korea helped Moscow offset losses in refining capacity caused by recent strikes on its fuel facilities.

Three Iranian men went on trial in the United Kingdom Tuesday charged with spying for Iran, allegedly laying the groundwork for a violent attack against at least one London-based journalist.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that negotiations with the United States were "meaningless" and only resulted in renewed attacks, state media reported, with progress on ending the Middle East war stalled for months.

A 15-year-old student lost a hand on Monday picking up a police grenade as part of nationwide protests in France over classroom conditions that have disrupted lessons at hundreds of schools since last week.