Ukraine's top diplomatic priority is securing its allies' help to buy and build more air defense systems, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday between meetings with European leaders, as Russia kept up its deadly attacks on civilians and public infrastructure.

Russian strikes hit more than a half-dozen areas of Ukraine behind the front line from Tuesday to Wednesday, killing an 8-year-old boy in the central Cherkasy region and a woman who was in a kiosk near a bus stop that was hit in southern Zaporizhzhia, according to Zelensky and local officials.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said Wednesday that the stability and certainty of China-Russia relations are particularly "precious" in the face of an international landscape intertwined with change and chaos.

During a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Beijing, Xi said the strong vitality and exemplary significance of the friendship treaty between the two countries stand out even more under such a backdrop.

Famine. Massacres. And now badly needed food and other supplies are under strain. Sudan on Wednesday enters a fourth year of war that's being called an "abandoned crisis," as a new conflict in the Middle East throws into shadow the fighting that has forced 13 million people to flee their homes.

Sudan has been described as the world's largest humanitarian challenge, notably in terms of displacement and hunger. There is no end in sight to the fighting between the military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces that witnesses and aid groups say has laid waste to parts of the vast Darfur region.

U.S. President Donald Trump told the New York Post on Tuesday that a second round of Iran talks could happen in Pakistan "over the next two days," after a first round ended at the weekend without a deal.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney returns to Parliament on Tuesday with more power after he secured a majority government by sweeping three special elections.

Carney's Liberals now have 174 of the 343 seats in the House of Commons and won't need support from opposition parties to pass legislation after winning three districts that became vacant after last year's election.

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will co-chair a conference Friday in Paris, bringing together non-belligerent nations willing to participate in a mission in the Strait of Hormuz “when security conditions allow.”

Other participants will take part via videoconference, Macron’s office said. European and other partners are ready to contribute to a “purely defensive mission aimed at restoring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz,” the statement said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met Tuesday in Berlin with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose country is one of Ukraine's biggest supporters, as Kyiv battles to defeat Russia's all-out invasion, now in its fifth year.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was also holding talks with his counterpart, Mykhailo Fedorov, the former Ukrainian digital transformation chief who took up his new post in January and is credited with advancing military drone technology.

A former student opened fire at a high school in southeast Turkey on Tuesday, wounding at least 16 people before killing himself, an official said.

The 18-year-old attacker, armed with a shotgun, fired randomly at a vocational high school in Siverek, Sanliurfa province, before hiding inside the building. He later killed himself with the same shotgun, Gov. Hasan Sildak said.

The leaders of China and Spain on Tuesday pledged to strengthen their relations and work to safeguard multilateralism at a time when the world is being impacted by various conflicts, including the recent war in Iran, during a meeting in Beijing on Tuesday.

"We should strengthen communication, consolidate mutual trust, cooperate closely, oppose the world's retrogression to the law of the jungle, and jointly safeguard genuine multilateralism," said Chinese President Xi Jinping during a reception for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez at the Great Hall of the People.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Monday a ceasefire between the United States and Iran was "holding" and that efforts were underway to reach an agreement after weekend talks failed to do so.