Russia has not spared a single Ukrainian power plant from attack since its all-out invasion, Ukraine's new energy minister said Friday, as a recent escalation of aerial bombardments left hundreds of thousands of people without heat or light for days amid the coldest winter for years.

Denys Shmyhal said Russia conducted 612 attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure objects over last year. That barrage has intensified in recent months as nighttime temperatures plunge to minus 18 degrees C (minus 0.4 F).

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday held phone calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, the Kremlin said, offering mediation amid large-scale protests in Iran.

"Vladimir Putin held a telephone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," the Kremlin announced in a statement, asserting "Russia's readiness to continue its mediation efforts."

A South Korean court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to five years in prison Friday in the first verdict from eight criminal trials over the martial law debacle that forced him out of office and other allegations.

Yoon was impeached, arrested and dismissed as president after his short-lived imposition of martial law in December 2024 triggered huge public protests calling for his ouster.

Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez used her first state of the union message Thursday to advocate for opening the crucial state-run oil industry to more foreign investment following the Trump administration's pledge to seize control of Venezuelan crude sales.

For the first time, Rodríguez laid out a vision for Venezuela's new political reality — one that challenges her government's most deeply rooted beliefs less than two weeks after the United States captured and toppled former President Nicolás Maduro.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she presented her Nobel Peace Prize medal to President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday even as he has questioned her credibility to take over her country after the U.S. ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro.

The Nobel Institute has said Machado could not give her prize to Trump, an honor that he has coveted. Even if the gesture proves to be purely symbolic, it was extraordinary given that Trump has effectively sidelined Machado, who has long been the face of resistance in Venezuela. He has signaled his willingness to work with acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who had been Maduro's second in command.

Russia on Thursday ordered a British diplomat to leave the country over allegations of spying, charges that were dismissed as "baseless" by the U.K.

Russia's Federal Security Service, known by its Russian acronym FSB, alleged the member of embassy staff had worked for British intelligence. It did not provide evidence.

The Kremlin said Thursday that Ukraine was running out of options to strike a deal to end almost four years of war with Russia, as thousands were without heating in Kyiv in -12C temperatures following waves of Russian strikes on the country's energy grid.

"The situation is deteriorating day by day for the Kyiv regime," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, including AFP, adding that Ukraine's "corridor for decision-making" was "narrowing".

The nationwide protests challenging Iran's theocracy appeared to be being smothered Thursday, a week on from authorities shutting the country off from the world and escalating a bloody crackdown that activists say killed at least 2,615 people.

In Iran's capital, Tehran, witnesses say recent mornings saw no new signs of bonfires lit the night before or debris in the streets. The sound of gunfire, which had been intense for several nights, has faded. Meanwhile, Iranian state media announces wave after wave of arrests by authorities, targeting those it calls "terrorists" and also apparently looking for Starlink satellite internet dishes, the only way to get videos and images out to the internet.

President Donald Trump is set to meet Thursday at the White House with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, whose political party is widely considered to have won 2024 elections rejected by then-President Nicolás Maduro before the United States captured him in an audacious military raid this month.

Less than two weeks after U.S. forces seized Maduro and his wife at a heavily guarded compound in Caracas and brought them to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges, Trump will host the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Machado, having already dismissed her credibility to run Venezuela and raised doubts about his stated commitment to backing democratic rule in the country.

Demonstrations broke out in Iran on Dec. 28 and have spread nationwide as protesters vent their increasing discontent over the Islamic Republic's faltering economy and the collapse of its currency. Dozens of people have been killed and thousands arrested as the daily protests have grown and the government seeks to contain them. While the initial focus had been on issues like spikes in the prices of food staples and the country's staggering annual inflation rate, protesters have now begun chanting anti-government statements as well.

Here is how the protests developed: