The EU on Thursday warned Serbia that keeping strong ties with Moscow was "not compatible" with its aspiration to join the bloc, after a top government official met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin described his country as an "ally of Russia" on Wednesday, as he met Putin on the sidelines of an economic forum in Vladivostok on Wednesday.

NATO member Turkey has applied for membership in the BRICS bloc of developing economies, a senior Kremlin official said Wednesday, as Russia and China seek to counter the West's global influence.

Yuri Ushakov, President Vladimir Putin's foreign affairs aide, told reporters that Turkey has submitted an application "for full membership" in the bloc that Russia this year chairs, and it will be considered.

Top U.S. military leaders will be in Germany to discuss Ukraine's wartime needs as Russia has conducted one of its deadliest airstrikes in the conflict and Ukraine presses its offensive in Russia's Kursk region.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will host a meeting Friday at Ramstein Air Force Base of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, made up of military leaders from more than 50 nations that have regularly provided funds and weapon systems to bolster Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022.

French President Emmanuel Macron named the EU's Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, as France's new prime minister on Thursday after more than 50 days of caretaker government.

The appointment of the 73-year-old Barnier follows weeks of intense efforts by Macron and his aides to find a candidate who might be able to build loose groupings of backers in parliament and survive possible attempts by Macron's opponents to quickly topple the new government that Barnier will now put together and lead.

Police in Munich exchanged fire with a gunman near the Israeli Consulate in Munich on Thursday, fatally wounding him. Authorities said he may have been planning to attack the consulate on the anniversary of the attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics.

No one else was hurt in the shootout shortly after 9 a.m.. in an an area near the consulate and a museum on the city's Nazi-era history. Officers had been alerted to a person carrying a "long gun" in the Karolinenplatz area, near downtown Munich, at around 9 a.m. and returned fire when he shot at them. The suspect died at the scene.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday his main aim in Ukraine after 30 months of fighting was to capture the eastern Donbas area -- and claimed that Ukraine's Kursk counter-offensive had made that easier.

Putin was speaking a day after Russia attacked Ukraine's western Lviv region with deadly strikes, and after recent advances by Moscow's forces in the Donbas.

Vice President Kamala Harris is using a New Hampshire campaign stop on Wednesday to propose an expansion of tax incentives for small businesses, a pro-entrepreneur plan that may soften her previous calls for wealthy Americans and large corporations to pay higher taxes.

She wants to expand from $5,000 to $50,000 tax incentives for small business startup expenses, with the goal of eventually spurring 25 million new small business applications over four years.

Serbia is a Russian ally and will never impose sanctions against Moscow or join NATO, the Balkan nation's deputy prime minister said Wednesday as he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The remarks by Aleksandar Vulin, a former intelligence chief who is under U.S. sanctions, reflect persistent close relations between Belgrade and Moscow despite Serbia's proclaimed bid to join the European Union.

The top U.S. envoy to Taiwan on Wednesday said American support for the island is "rock-solid, principled, and bipartisan," and said Washington will continue to follow through on its commitments to ensure the island can defend itself against threats from China.

Raymond F. Greene's remarks Wednesday come at a time of uncertainty over China's intentions toward the island it claims as its own territory — to be taken by force if necessary — and amid conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East that threaten to draw the U.S. in further.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, one of Ukraine's most recognizable faces on the international stage, submitted his resignation Wednesday ahead of an expected major government reshuffle. Russian strikes, meanwhile, killed at least seven people in the Ukrainian city of Lviv near the Polish border, a day after one of the deadliest missile attacks since the war began.

Kuleba, 43, didn't give a reason for stepping down. His resignation will be discussed by lawmakers at their next session, parliamentary Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk said on his Facebook page. Four other Cabinet ministers tendered their resignations late Tuesday, making the Cabinet reshuffle likely the biggest since Russia's February 2022 invasion.