U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday made his first cabinet appointment after his decisive election win, while signaling his intent to ditch the outgoing administration's policies by talking to Vladimir Putin.

Russian missiles, bombs and drones battered three regions of Ukraine in targeted nighttime attacks, officials said Friday, as Russia mounts an intensified aerial campaign that Ukrainian officials say they need more Western help to counter — even as doubts deepen over what Kyiv can expect from a new U.S. administration.

Since the war began almost three years ago following Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor, the Russian military has repeatedly used its superior air power to blast civilian targets across Ukraine. More than 10,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the conflict, according to the United Nations.

As he bid farewell to Washington in January 2021, deeply unpopular and diminished, Donald Trump was already hinting at a comeback.

"Goodbye. We love you. We will be back in some form," Trump told supporters at Joint Base Andrews, where he'd arranged a 21-gun salute as part of a military send-off before boarding Air Force One. "We will see you soon."

Rioters "actively sought out Israeli supporters to attack and assault them" after a soccer match, Amsterdam authorities said Friday as Israel announced it was sending planes to the Dutch capital to fly fans home.

An unknown number of Israeli supporters were injured in the Thursday night violence that was condemned by the leaders of both the Netherlands and Israel as antisemitic.

Joe Biden's name wasn't on the ballot, but history will likely remember Kamala Harris' resounding defeat as his loss too.

As Democrats pick up the pieces after President-elect Donald Trump's decisive victory, some of the vice president's backers are expressing frustration that Biden's decision to seek reelection until this summer — despite long-standing voter concerns about his age and unease about post-pandemic inflation as well as the U.S.-Mexico border — all but sealed his party's surrender of the White House.

After Germany's government coalition collapsed in a dramatic fashion when Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner of the pro-business Free Democrats, Scholz said he would lead the country with a minority government, despite calls from opposition leaders on Thursday for early elections.

The chancellor said the minority government would be made up of his Social Democrats and the Greens until early next year — even as the leader of the biggest opposition bloc in parliament, Friedrich Merz from the center-right Christian Democrats, called for an immediate no-confidence vote and new elections.

French President Emmanuel Macron told a European leaders' gathering Thursday that the continent must assert its security independence from the United States -- and defend its "interests" over those of geopolitical rivals.

"We must not delegate forever our security to America," Macron said, arguing that returning U.S. leader Donald Trump would legitimately "defend the interests of the American people" and asking: "Are we ready to defend the interests of the European people?"

Dozens of Russian drones targeted the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in a nighttime attack that lasted eight hours, authorities said Thursday, as Russia kept up its relentless pounding of Ukraine after almost 1,000 days of war.

Russian forces fired lone drones and swarms of drones that entered Ukrainian airspace from various directions and at a variety of altitudes, officials said, in an apparent attempt to stretch air defense systems and unnerve city residents.

The verdict of U.S. voters was more decisive than most pundits and analysts had predicted. Now the world waits to see whether the election of Donald Trump as president for a second time is as destabilizing many American allies fear.

Trump secured victory Wednesday after surpassing the 270 electoral college votes needed to win. In a victory speech before the official declaration, he vowed to "put our country first" and bring about a "golden age" for America.

Russia said Wednesday it had "no illusions" about a second Donald Trump administration but would work with him and seek to achieve its "goals" in Ukraine when he takes office.

"We are under no illusions about the American President-elect," Moscow's foreign ministry said in a statement. It added it will "work with" a new U.S. administration and prioritize achieving its "set goals" in Ukraine, saying its conditions on ending the conflict "are unchanged and are well known in Washington".