Hungary's populist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his victory in an election whose outcome was never in doubt after systematic crackdowns on dissent.

Orbán, widely seen as Putin's closest ally in the European Union, sent the letter of congratulations on Thursday after the release of official election results in Russia, according to his press chief. The Hungarian leader was the only head of a EU country to congratulate Putin on his reelection, which will extend his nearly quarter-century rule of Russia by another six years.

Since the start of his political career, Donald Trump has played on stereotypes about Jews and politics.

He told the Republican Jewish Coalition in 2015 that "you want to control your politicians" and suggested the audience used money to exert control. In the White House, he said Jews who vote for Democrats are "very disloyal to Israel."

Russia launched a massive wave of deadly overnight attacks on Ukraine using over 90 missiles and 60 Iranian-made drones, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday, in one of the largest offensives recently.

"There were more than 60 'Shaheds' and almost 90 missiles of various types overnight," he said. "The world sees the targets of Russian terrorists as clearly as possible: power plants and energy supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings, even a trolleybus."

As Venezuela's government would have it, President Nicolás Maduro and members of his inner circle have been the target of several conspiracies since last year that could have left them injured or worse.

Few details have been released about the alleged plots. But the government has cited them in the arrests of more than 30 people since January including a prominent human rights attorney and staffers of the leading opposition presidential candidate.

A suicide bomber carried out an attack Thursday at a private bank in Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan, killing at least three people and injuring 12 others, officials said.

All of the victims were people who had gathered at the branch of New Kabul Bank to collect their monthly salaries, said Inamullah Samangani, head of the government's Kandahar Information and Culture Department.

European Union leaders gathered Thursday to consider new ways to help boost arms and ammunition production for Ukraine and to discuss the war in Gaza amid deep concern about Israeli plans to launch a ground offensive in the city of Rafah.

Ukraine's munition stocks are desperately low, and Russia has more and better-armed troops. There is also a growing awareness that the EU must provide for its own security, with election campaigning in the U.S. raising questions about Washington's commitment to its allies.

Ukraine's air force said Thursday it shot down 31 Russian missiles overnight, the largest attempted strike in weeks as Moscow vowed revenge for recent Ukrainian attacks on its border regions.

"The main direction of the attack was Kyiv," Ukraine's air force said in a statement on social media. Some 13 people were injured in the capital, the interior ministry said in a separate statement.

Lawyers for Donald Trump urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to dismiss an indictment charging the former president with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, renewing their arguments that he is immune from prosecution for official acts taken in the White House.

Lower courts have already twice rejected the immunity claims, but Trump's lawyers will get a fresh chance to press their case before the Supreme Court when the justices hear arguments on April 25. The high court's decision to consider the matter has left the criminal case on hold pending the outcome of the appeal, making it unclear whether special counsel Jack Smith will be able to put the ex-president on trial before November's election.

North Korea successfully tested a solid-fuel engine for its new-type intermediate-range hypersonic missile, state media reported Wednesday, claiming a progress in efforts to develop a more powerful, agile missile designed to strike faraway U.S. targets in the region.

The House impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden has hit a crossroads, lacking the political appetite from within Republican ranks to go forward with an actual impeachment, but facing political pressure to deliver after months of work.

The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, has signaled an interest in another direction. He is stopping short of drawing up articles of impeachment against the president, but eying criminal referrals of Biden family wrongdoing to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.