Western weaponry pouring into Ukraine helped blunt Russia's initial offensive and seems certain to play a central role in the approaching, potentially decisive, battle for Ukraine's contested Donbas region. Yet the Russian military is making little headway halting what has become a historic arms express.

The U.S. numbers alone are mounting: more than 12,000 weapons designed to defeat armored vehicles, some 1,400 shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to shoot down aircraft and more than 50 million rounds of ammunition, among many other things. Dozens of other nations are adding to the totals.

The Polish and Baltic presidents on Wednesday visited the Ukrainian town of Borodyanka not far from Kyiv, with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda saying it was "permeated with pain and suffering". 

The Russian soldiers forced more than 300 villagers into a school basement. Then, during weeks of stress and deprivation, some began to die.

Residents of Yahidne, a village 140 kilometers (87 miles) from Kyiv, told The Associated Press about being ordered into the basement at gunpoint after the Russians took control of the area around the northern city of Chernihiv in early March.

Swiss prosecutors are concluding without any charges a decade-long investigation into alleged money laundering and organized crime linked to late former President Hosni Mubarak's circles in Egypt, and will release some 400 million Swiss francs ($430 million) frozen in Swiss banks.

The office of the Swiss attorney general said Wednesday that information received as part of cooperation with Egyptian authorities wasn't sufficient to back up the claims that emerged in the wake of Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 that felled Mubarak's three-decade rule.

A tourist bus collided with a truck on a highway in southern Egypt and burst into flames on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people including four French and a Belgian, authorities said.

The crash happened some 55 kilometers (34 miles) south of the ancient city of Luxor, as it was travelling to the temples of Esna on the west bank of the Nile River, provincial authorities said in a statement.

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man during clashes on Wednesday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, as Israeli troops continued a days-long operation in the occupied West Bank in response to a spate of deadly attacks.

The death is the latest in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence that has erupted as Muslims mark the holy month of Ramadan.

Russia vowed to continue its bloody offensive in Ukraine as the war neared its seventh week Wednesday, as President Vladimir Putin insisted the campaign was going as planned despite a major withdrawal and significant losses.

Thwarted in their push toward the capital, Kyiv, Russian troops focused on the eastern region of Donbas, where Ukraine said it was investigating a claim that a poisonous substance had been dropped on its troops. It was not clear what the substance might be, but Western officials warned that any use of chemical weapons by Russia would be a serious escalation of the already devastating war.

Police hunted late into the night for the gunman who opened fire Tuesday on a subway train in Brooklyn, an attack that left 10 people wounded by gunfire and once again interrupted New York City's long journey to post-pandemic normalcy.

The search focused partly on a man who police say rented a van possibly connected to the violence.

President Joe Biden said Russia's war in Ukraine amounted to "genocide," accusing President Vladimir Putin of trying to "wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian."

"Yes, I called it genocide," he told reporters in Iowa on Tuesday shortly before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington. "It's become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian."

Iran's supreme leader has insisted negotiations over Tehran's tattered nuclear deal "are going ahead properly," even after repeated comments by American officials that an agreement to restore the accord may not happen.

The comments by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during a meeting with hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi's administration marking the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, offered his endorsement of their "faithful and diligent" efforts.