The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog said he met with his Iranian counterpart in Vienna for talks about an ongoing investigation into manmade uranium particles found at undeclared sites in Iran.

"Dialogue has restarted with Iran on clarification of outstanding safeguards issues," Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), tweeted Monday night.

The Kremlin said Tuesday it was "extremely concerned" about reported leaks on Russia's Nord Stream gas pipeline to Europe through the Baltic Sea and its twin pipeline Nord Stream 2. 

The final day of voting was taking place in Russian-held regions of Ukraine on Tuesday in referendums that are expected to serve as a pretext for their annexation by Moscow and is heightening tension between the Kremlin and the West over Russia's warnings it could resort to nuclear weapons.

Formal annexation of captured chunks of eastern Ukraine, possibly as soon as Friday, sets the stage for a dangerous new phase in the seven-month war, with Russia warning the West that from then on it will be defending its own territory — and could resort to nuclear weapons to protect it.

Two suspected Kurdish militants opened fire on police in southern Turkey and later killed themselves by detonating suicide bombs, Turkey's interior minister said. One police officer was killed in the attack while a second officer and a civilian were wounded.

The attack was carried out late on Monday in the Mezitli district in the Mediterranean coastal province of Mersin, by two women affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters.

A man opened fire at a military conscription office in Siberia on Monday, the latest incident to strain Russia's recruitment drive for its struggling offensive in Ukraine.

Italy took a sharp turn to the right Monday after Giorgia Meloni's Eurosceptic populist party swept to victory in general elections, putting the one-time Mussolini admirer on course to become the first woman to lead the country.

Only glimpses of videos that make it online show the protests convulsing Iran over the death of a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by the nation's morality police.

But those flashes show that public anger across the country, once only simmering, is now boiling.

The death toll has risen to 15 people, including 11 children, after a man opened fire Monday at his former school in central Russia, authorities said.

The attack was the latest in a series of school shootings that have shaken Russia in recent years and came with the country on edge over efforts to mobilize tens of thousands of men to fight in Ukraine.

Tensions have grown between Iran and Western powers over the Islamic republic's lethal crackdown on 10 nights of protests driven by outrage over the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police.

A Molotov cocktail bomb was thrown against the Iranian embassy in Athens on Sunday, Athens News Agency reported.