France has started the withdrawal of its military from Chad with the departure of two warplanes that were based in the capital N'Djamena, the French army said, two weeks after Chad said it was ending its defence cooperation pact with Paris.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy used his first meeting with Donald Trump since the U.S. election to explain Ukraine's need for security guarantees in any negotiated end to the war with Russia, two sources familiar with the Dec. 7 discussions said.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will travel to Paris to attend the re-opening of Notre-Dame cathedral on Saturday, and could use the trip to hold talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, two diplomatic sources said.

Iran is "dramatically" increasing the amount of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% of weapons grade, that it is able to produce, the watchdog's chief Rafael Grossi told Reuters in an interview.

The fall of France's government on Wednesday and the failure to pass a budget could make it difficult for Paris to ramp up its support for Ukraine despite President Emmanuel Macron's repeated promises to help Kyiv for as long as necessary.

Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport and cancelled all flights on Saturday, three military sources told Reuters, as rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad said they had reached the heart of the city.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has urged his NATO counterparts to issue an invitation during a meeting in Brussels next week to Kyiv to join the Western military alliance, according to the text of a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.

The ceasefire deal took shape over weeks of talks and was uncertain until the final hours.

A French plan to significantly reduce its military presence in West and central Africa risks backfiring and further diminishing the former colonial power's influence in the region at a time when Russia is gaining ground.

European and Iranian diplomats meet on Friday to discuss whether they can engage in serious talks in the coming weeks to defuse tensions in the region, including over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme, before Donald Trump's return to the White House.

The aim is to pressure Iran into entering negotiations on new restrictions on its nuclear activities.

Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants on Thursday for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence chief and a Hamas leader for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Russia launched an intercontinental ballistic missile from its southern Astrakhan region during a morning attack on Ukraine on Thursday, Kyiv's air force said, the first time Russia has used such a powerful, long-range missile during the war.

U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Wednesday he hopes Iran's move towards capping its stock of uranium just short of weapons grade will hold, as his agency's board was set to pass a Western-drafted resolution that could derail that.

U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein said he will travel to Israel on Wednesday to try to secure a ceasefire ending the war with Lebanon's Hezbollah group after declaring additional progress in talks in Beirut.

A UN peacekeeping patrol in Lebanon comprising French troops came under fire on Tuesday, France’s foreign ministry said, adding that none of its forces

A senior U.S. mediator said on Tuesday there was a "real opportunity" to end the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah and that gaps were narrowing, signalling progress in Washington's efforts to clinch a ceasefire.

European delegates at the G20 summit in Brazil were unhappy with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's decision to end talks and issue the group's final statement a day early to curtail prickly discussion on the war in Ukraine, sources said.

Intensifying efforts for a truce in Lebanon have brought into focus the role of the country's army, which would be expected to keep the south free of Hezbollah weapons but is neither willing nor able to confront the Iran-backed group, seven sources said.

Vladimir Putin is open to discussing a Ukraine ceasefire deal with Donald Trump but rules out making any major territorial concessions and insists Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO, five sources with knowledge of Kremlin thinking told Reuters.

Iran has offered not to expand its stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, near the roughly 90% of weapons grade, and made preparations to do that, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in confidential reports to member states on Tuesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that a major Russian air barrage against Ukraine on Sunday showed that Russian President Vladimir Putin "does not want peace and is not ready to negotiate".

The resolution would task the IAEA with issuing a "comprehensive report" on Iran's nuclear activities, which would put further focus on Iran's failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites.

Soldiers scramble through trenches under a haze of yellow smoke, machine gunfire booms across the fields, invisible drones buzz overhead and voices scream in Ukrainian "Watch out!"