Romanian President Nicusor Dan on Thursday said drone attacks on vessels in the Black Sea were "unacceptable" and must stop, after two ships were struck off the country's coast, spillover from Russia's war with Ukraine.

Istanbul was battling on Thursday to recover from flooding caused by what officials described as the heaviest rainfall in at least 80 years, as the toll rose to three dead and four missing.

The firing squad execution of a convicted military base shooter will not be livestreamed, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Thursday, scrapping a plan by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that had prompted bipartisan and international outrage.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Brussels Thursday seeking to rally support from Europe as his relations with US President Donald Trump have taken a fresh battering.

Zelensky said he would meet NATO chief Mark Rutte and hold a string of bilateral talks with European leaders before joining an EU summit on Friday.

Authorities on Wednesday raided the headquarters of one of Turkey 's few broadcasters not aligned with the government, and appointed a trustee manager to oversee it as part of an investigation into alleged corruption.

Press freedom groups and opposition parties, however, denounced the move against Halk TV — a popular news channel — calling it yet another step by the government to silence opposition voices.

Bulgaria on Wednesday said Russia was likely behind drone attacks that struck four ships in the Black Sea in the past week, sinking two, but there was no way of proving Moscow's culpability.

Rescuers are still searching for 11 crew members missing after drone strikes on Tuesday sank two ships in Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone and adjacent waters, while five other crew members were rescued.

The United States is helping Russia in its war with Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP on Wednesday, blaming Washington for not warning Kyiv about incoming strikes and slowing Starlink.

"There have already been two cases where the Americans did not provide warnings about Russian ballistic launches, a massive ballistic attack against our energy sector... And on top of that they've throttled Starlink speeds," said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Massive Russian strikes on Ukraine on Wednesday left some 600,000 people without power and deliberately flouted a purported "energy ceasefire" announced by Donald Trump, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

"A targeted Russian ballistic missile strike specifically against energy infrastructure –- the very infrastructure covered by the ceasefire announced by the American President," he wrote on X.

Political tensions mounted on Tuesday over the European Union's next long-term budget as pressure builds to get the spending package agreed before a series of unpredictable elections in some of the biggest member countries next year.

The EU budget, known as the multiannual financial framework, amounts to around 1.2% of the 27-nation bloc's gross national income. The MFF is financed mostly by the member countries based on the size of their economies.

Ukraine received no early warning from its partners about a Russian ballistic missile strike on Kyiv in which five missiles hit civilian infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday in a post on X.

Zelensky characterized the barrage on the capital as "particularly vile," and emphasized that receiving intelligence from Ukraine's partners on such ballistic missile attacks "helps save lives, and this is one of the most critical issues."