President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia's air defense were to blame for downing an Azerbaijani jetliner in December that killed 38 people, his first admission of responsibility for the crash in an effort to ease tensions between the neighbors.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday said Donald Trump should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, hours after the US president announced a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.

"Give @realDonaldTrump the Nobel Peace Prize -- he deserves it!" said a post on the official X account of the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel.

Ukraine announced on Thursday it was ordering the evacuation of children and their guardians from towns and villages in and around the eastern frontline city of Kramatorsk, citing an uptick in Russian drone attacks.

"Due to the deterioration of the security situation in certain areas of the Kramatorsk city community, the mandatory evacuation of families with children has been announced," the city council announced in a statement on social media.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen survived a twin confidence vote Thursday in the European Parliament -- challenges that posed no serious threat to her leadership but underscored tensions in the assembly.

Neither of the two motions of censure against the European Commission president secured the minimum 361 out of 720 votes -- with 179 lawmakers backing the one brought by the far-right Patriots and 133 endorsing the challenge by The Left.

An artillery attack by Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces killed 12 people at the main hospital in the besieged city of El-Fasher, two medical sources told AFP on Wednesday.

A doctor and a nurse were among the dead, the medics said, requesting anonymity for their safety.

Ukraine and Russia launched attacks on each other's territory early on Wednesday, leaving at least five people dead, authorities on the two sides said.

Outgoing French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, aiming to calm the political storm triggered by his resignation on Monday less than 24 hours after unveiling his ministers, faced a tight deadline Wednesday to break the deadlock caused by his departure.

Spanish emergency workers on Wednesday recovered the bodies of two missing construction workers in the rubble of a building that collapsed in central Madrid a day earlier. The recovery brought the death toll to four.

The top floor of a six-story building under renovation collapsed and pancaked the floors below on Tuesday afternoon.

Russia is waging a "targeted gray zone campaign" against Europe, including airspace violations, sabotage and cyberattacks that will only escalate if the Kremlin is not challenged, the European Union's top official warned on Wednesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron is running out of wiggle room. The abrupt resignation of his prime minister Monday — Macron's fourth in more than a year of almost ceaseless political upheaval — puts the French leader in a bind.