Russia and Ukraine traded damaging overnight airstrikes Thursday as talks were set to resume in Brussels to discuss post-war reconstruction of Ukraine and security guarantees after the conflict triggered by Moscow's full-scale invasion nearly five years ago ends.

The scale of the rebuilding task ahead was underscored by the latest Russian aerial barrage and ongoing efforts to hunt for people missing in piles of rubble left by a deadly airstrike in southern Ukraine on Monday.

Multiple flights in Europe made emergency landings on Thursday after being diverted because of bomb threats, authorities said. The incidents followed hoax bomb threats earlier this week that prompted searches, diversions and in one case a military escort.

More than a dozen flights from cities including Copenhagen, Dublin, Helsinki, Madrid, Milan and Warsaw were confirmed to have been targeted with bomb threats, most diverted to other airports for emergency landings while others landed safely at their destinations. So far inspections have not turned up hazardous or suspicious materials.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped the Democrat win in the US midterm elections would boost support for Kyiv and bring an end to the war with Russia closer.

"There is hope now that there is this balance of power, and that we will be supported more," Zelensky told German broadcaster ZDF in an interview late Wednesday. He added that if the U.S. Congress backs more financial or military support for Ukraine it would "influence" Russia's President Vladimir Putin and could lead to "possible negotiations and a possible peace."

French trade unions are joining forces on Thursday for nationwide strikes and demonstrations for higher wages and in support of the high school protest movement, piling new pressure on the beleaguered government.

After more than a month of regular and large protests across France, major rallies are again expected in Paris, Lyon and Marseille, with hundreds of thousands of people likely to turn out.

As he takes stock of his Republican Party's midterm drubbing, President Donald Trump now faces the difficult question of what to do about his unpopular 8-month-old war against Iran.

For weeks, Trump has threatened to return to a full-scale bombardment of Iran once the U.S. elections were in the rearview mirror if Tehran did not come to a settlement under terms acceptable to him.

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that the Iran war "must end" and suggested his party's incoming majority in Congress could use their control over government funding to press for that goal.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that the Iran war had doomed Republicans in the midterm elections, moving to distance himself from the unpopular conflict ahead of a possible 2028 White House run.

The European Union on Wednesday offered fresh hope for Serbia's membership talks if the election-winning student movement there forms a government willing to strengthen democracy as the bloc signaled that more countries are set to join in coming years.

In its annual enlargement report, the European Commission said that Montenegro is on track to become the EU's 28th member in 2028, and that Albania and Moldova could join the following year. Ukraine is unlikely to meet the conditions for joining before the end of the decade.

Hours after U.S. voters stripped President Donald Trump's Republicans of control of Congress, partly over the Iran war, thousands gathered Wednesday outside the former U.S. embassy in Tehran for an annual anti-American rally.

Thousands of European troops will take part in a military exercise in Poland this month to prepare for a hypothetical postwar mission in Ukraine to boost the country's economy and rebuild its armed forces. But some experts say the deployment may never take place.

The force's first military exercise, led by Britain and France, is aimed both at testing deployment plans and sending a message to Russia and the Trump administration that European countries are stepping up militarily. Yet the overall mission is plagued with challenges, including the ongoing fighting, questions over American support and the outcome of the upcoming French elections.