NATO flexed its muscles Thursday in Poland during the first full drill of its new spearhead force, a structure designed to boost security on its eastern flank in the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. 

Around 2,100 soldiers from nine NATO states grouped in the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) took part in the Noble Jump 2 exercises at the Zagan training range north-western Poland.

Russian government assets in France and Belgium including bank accounts have been frozen in a row over compensation for shareholders of defunct oil giant Yukos, officials and a claimant representative said Thursday.

In France, accounts in around 40 banks were frozen along with eight or nine buildings, Tim Osborne, executive director of the main shareholder GML, told AFP.

Moscow will extend its embargo on European Union agricultural products but is unlikely to go further if the EU extends sanctions as expected, economy minister Alexei Ulyukayev said Thursday.

"We'll just keep the status quo: the embargo on produce introduced in response to the sanctions regime -- of course, it's a symmetrical measure," Ulyukayev told RIA Novosti state news agency.

Conflicts and violence raging around the world sent the number of people forced to flee their homes soaring to a record 60 million last year, the United Nations said Thursday.

That is 8.3 million more refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) in the world than in 2013 -- the highest-ever increase in a single year, the U.N. refugee agency said in a report titled "World at War".

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has no short term solution and is part of a fabricated conflict with the West to distract everyday Russians from corruption and incompetence, a prominent critic of Vladimir Putin said Wednesday.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man but now living in exile after spending a decade in jail on allegedly trumped up fraud and embezzlement charges, said no real rapprochement with Russia is possible so long as President Putin and his regime remain in charge.

EU member states agreed Wednesday to extend damaging economic sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis by another six months to the end of January 2016, officials said.

The agreement by ambassadors from the 28 European Union nations meeting in Brussels will be formalized by foreign ministers from the bloc when they meet next week, the officials said.

Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik said Wednesday he would ask Russia to use its veto to prevent the adoption of a U.N. resolution on the Srebrenica genocide which is being drafted by Britain.

"I will certainly demand (Russia use its right of veto) and explain that it is a hot issue for us (ethnic Serbs)," Dodik told Bosnian Serb RTRS television.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Saudi Arabia's defense minister this week in a meeting aimed at boosting bilateral ties after years of tensions over Syria, his aide said Wednesday.

Putin will meet Prince Mohammed bin Salman, believed to be a favored son of King Salman, on Thursday on the sidelines of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum, the Kremlin's top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia would have to defend itself if threatened, adding that NATO is "coming to its borders."

"If someone puts some of our territories under threat, that means we will have to direct our armed forces and modern strike power at those territories, from where the threat emanates," Putin said at a meeting outside Moscow with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto. 

NATO head Jens Stoltenberg warned Tuesday that Russian plans to deploy 40 new nuclear ballistic missiles announced by President Vladimir Putin were part of a dangerous pattern of behavior by Moscow.

"This nuclear saber-rattling by Russia is unjustified, destabilizing and it is dangerous," Stoltenberg said after a meeting with European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker.