Besieged Ukrainians held out hope Monday that renewed diplomatic talks with Moscow might open the way for more civilians to evacuate, as Russian forces kept up their pressure on the capital, the day after escalating the offensive by shelling areas close to the Polish border.

Overnight, Russian forces fired artillery on suburbs northwest of Kyiv, a major political and strategic target for the invasion, as well as points east of the city, regional administration chief Oleksiy Kuleba said on Ukrainian television.

Iran has decided to temporarily suspend its secret Baghdad-brokered talks aimed at defusing yearslong tensions with regional rival Saudi Arabia, Iranian state-linked media reported Sunday, a day after Saudi Arabia carried out its largest known mass execution in its modern history.

The Iranian news website Nournews, considered close to the country's Supreme National Security Council, reported the government had unilaterally paused the talks with Saudi Arabia that have been ongoing in Baghdad over the past year aimed at restoring diplomatic ties.

Russian forces pounding the port city of Mariupol shelled a mosque sheltering more than 80 people, including children, the Ukrainian government said Saturday as fighting also raged on the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv.

There was no immediate word of casualties from the shelling of the mosque. Mariupol has seen some of the greatest misery from Russia's war in Ukraine as unceasing barrages have thwarted repeated attempts to bring in food and water and to evacuate trapped civilians.

With Russia's war on Ukraine now in its third week, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday approved bringing in volunteer fighters from the Middle East, particularly Syria.

Syria clearly has a rich pool of fighters to draw from. Russia's military is deeply entrenched in the Mideast country, where its intervention - starting in 2015 - helped Syrian President Bashar Assad gain the upper hand in the ongoing, 11-year civil war.

An oil refinery in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, was attacked by drone, causing a small fire that did not cause injuries or affect supplies, the energy ministry said Friday.

The statement did not specify where the drone strike was launched from. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his officials to expand a satellite launch facility to fire a variety of rockets, state media reported Friday, as the U.S. and South Korean militaries concluded the North is testing a new intercontinental ballistic missile system.

Experts earlier said North Korea could perform a satellite-carrying rocket launch soon in violation of U.N. resolutions after conducting a string of tests recently aimed at modernizing its missile arsenals and applying more pressure on the Biden administration amid stalled diplomacy. Such a rocket launch by North Korea would be its most significant provocation since late 2017 and a violation of its self-imposed moratorium on long-range and nuclear tests.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Romania's president will meet Friday to discuss growing concerns about the influx of displaced people fleeing Ukraine for Romania and elsewhere in eastern Europe due to Russia's invasion.

It's a problem that Biden administration officials and European leaders warn will likely get more complicated in the days and weeks ahead.

Saudi Arabia has said it had rescued two young American women from Yemen in a joint special operations mission with the United States.

The Saudi defense ministry said the women, both Yemeni-American teenagers, were being held by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa after having been taken captive while visiting their grandmother.

A $13.6 billion emergency package of military and humanitarian aid for besieged Ukraine and its European allies easily won final congressional approval, hitching a ride on a government-wide spending bill that's five months late but loaded with political prizes for both parties.

With Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion killing thousands and forcing over 2 million others to flee, the Senate approved the $1.5 trillion overall legislation by a 68-31 bipartisan margin late Thursday. Democrats and Republicans have battled this election year over rising inflation, energy policy and lingering pandemic restrictions, but they've rallied behind sending aid to Ukraine, whose stubborn resilience against brutal force has been inspirational for many voters.

Israel's parliament has renewed a temporary law dating back to 2003 that bars Israeli citizens from extending citizenship or even residency to Palestinian spouses from the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Israel says the law, which was first enacted during a Palestinian uprising, is needed for security. Critics view it as a racist measure aimed at maintaining the country's Jewish majority. The law is aimed at Palestinians and does not apply to Jewish settlers in the West Bank as they already have Israeli citizenship.