World

The message came from an unfamiliar Ukrainian number while Anastassia Vitkovitsky and her family were drinking tea in their Toronto home: “Help, SOS, we’re in trouble.” It was from her cousin, Katya Aksenko, in the city of Mariupol, whom no one had been able to reach for nearly a week.

Crash investigators from the U.S. are hoping to travel within a matter of days to China to help with the investigation into the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Corp. plane that killed all 132 people on board.Chinese authorities issued visas for investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board, along with technical advisers from the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing Co., the NTSB said Tuesday.To Read the Full Story

Ukraine and Russia said they made progress in talks to end the war, with Kyiv presenting its proposal for a neutral status and international security guarantees as Moscow continued deadly strikes across Ukraine despite promises to focus its campaign on the eastern Donbas region.Though the latest round of negotiations, opened by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul, made advances toward drafting a peace treaty, violence continued unabated, with dozens of reported civilian casualties.To Read the Full Story

TEL AVIV—A Palestinian gunman killed five people on Tuesday in central Israel, the third suspected terrorist attack in the small Middle Eastern country in a week. Israeli security forces have been on high alert after two attacks in recent days by Arab citizens of Israel with suspected ties to Islamic State, according to Israeli officials.To Read the Full Story

KYIV, Ukraine—Fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces has reached the streets of the port city of Mariupol, officials said Saturday, a strategic objective for Moscow as it attempts to open an overland corridor to the annexed region of Crimea and shift the momentum in its three-week-old invasion. During weekslong bombardment and attack, Ukrainians said they had kept Russian forces at bay on Mariupol’s outskirts, but that has changed. “The fighting is already in the city itself,” an official from the mayor’s office said via text message. “But Mariupol remains a Ukrainian city.”

ROME—A new Vatican constitution published on Saturday opens the way for women to run some offices at the Catholic Church’s universal headquarters that have always been run by men. The change is the latest move by Pope Francisto expand the presence of women in the senior management of a church with an all-male clergy.

An isolated autocrat in Moscow makes a fateful decision about war based on rosy assumptions that are quickly disproved on the battlefield. Soon, the effects are felt back home as the economy is thrown into turmoil and political unrest rises.Today’s headlines echo many wars in the Russian and Soviet past. History records tales of undersupplied Russian conscript soldiers, high inflation and industrial breakdowns during wartime, and tyrants surrounded by flatterers. The previous wars don’t allow for any firm predictions of what might happen this time. Some of Moscow’s interventions ultimately worked as planned, such as when Red Army tanks invaded Hungary in 1956 and installed a lasting pro-Soviet government. Still, one lesson of history is that Russia’s conflicts starting abroad or on its bor...

SEOUL—South Koreans elected Yoon Suk-yeol as president on Wednesday, installing a conservative who promises a tougher stance on North Korea and closer ties with the U.S. on regional affairs.Mr. Yoon, a 61-year-old former prosecutor, marks a significant foreign-policy shift for Seoul, at least in rhetoric if not more, from the left-leaning President Moon Jae -in, who favored engagement with the Kim Jong Un regime and a balanced dynamic with Washington and Beijing. But Mr. Yoon, of the conservative People Power Party, argues that the current approach has left South Korea without enough say in its own national security. Despite Mr. Moon’s overtures, North Korea has returned to missile tests and its talks with Washington and Seoul have stalled. “We shall stand on the right side of history wit...

KYIV, Ukraine—A Russian airstrike hit a maternity hospital in the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, local authorities said, as Moscow’s invasion has shifted to a new, more destructive phase aimed at civilian targets.Video footage released by the Mariupol mayor’s office showed wounded people being pulled out of the partially collapsed hospital complex. A wide, deep bomb crater was visible, with signs that the blast, which took place around 5 p.m. local time Wednesday, had knocked down trees and torched cars. Nobody was killed in the blast and 17 people were wounded, officials said. Mariupol has faced more than a week of Russian shelling that has cut off water and power in the city of over 400,000, where remaining residents have been hunkering down in basements. More than 1,200 c...

The United Arab Emirates said it would push the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to pump more oil as crude prices rocket to near record highs during Russia’s war on Ukraine.The decision marks a departure for the Persian Gulf oil producer after months of standing with its ally Saudi Arabia, which has stuck with an alliance with Moscow on energy issues that has allowed oil prices to climb to $139 a barrel in recent days, the highest in 14 years. Until now, the U.A.E. and other OPEC members had said the rise in price wasn’t because of oil shortages, so therefore didn’t require a response from the group. “The U.A.E. has been a reliable and responsible supplier of energy to global markets for more than 50 years and believes that stability in energy markets is critical to the gl...