Around 10,000 Russian soldiers are fighting in Russia&s Kursk region, about 90 sq km of which is controlled by Ukraine, Ukraine&s top military commander said.

The director of Italy&s Uffizi Galleries has sharply criticised social media-obsessed tourists after a visitor posing for a photograph tripped and gashed a 17th-century oil painting.

A leading Belarusian opposition figure, freed from prison by president Alexander Lukashenko, said yesterday his wife would continue to lead the exiled movement, and urged supporters to keep fighting for change and the release of political prisoners.

At least 20 people were killed and dozens injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the Mar Elias Church in the Dweila neighbourhood of Syria&s capital Damascus yesterday, health authorities and security sources said.