Russia says it wants Britain and France to become part of wider nuclear arms control talks with the United States as Washington continues to seek China's inclusion in the negotiations.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that the country expects to receive a second payment from its $5bn IMF programme after fulfilling all its agreed commitments, news wires reported. He said Ukraine had fulfilled its reform commitments, passing legislation to open the land market, overhaul the judicial system and strengthen the central bank. "We have done everything as I promised ... and everything that we need for Ukraine," Zelensky told reporters.

Israel is taking seriously allegations that spyware developed by an Israeli company was used against public figures worldwide, Defence Minister Benny Gantz told his French counterpart during a visit to Paris on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Israeli defence chief Benny Gantz met French Defence Minister Florence Parly in part to share initial findings from an Israeli government assessment of exports to France by NSO Group, which sells the Pegasus spyware.

US President Joe Biden met on Wednesday with Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya at the White House, in a strong show of support for pro-democracy protesters who say she won last year's election, AFP reported. "I was honored to meet with @Tsihanouskaya at the White House this morning," Biden said in a tweet, referring to the exiled opposition figure leading the fight against strongman Alexander Lukashenko. "The United States stands with the people of Belarus in their quest for democracy and universal human rights," he added.

Fully vaccinated travelers from the United States and much of Europe will be able to enter Britain without quarantining starting next week, UK officials said Wednesday, AP reported. The British government said people who have received both doses of a vaccine approved by the FDA in the US or by the European Medicines Agency, which regulates drugs for the European Union and several other countries, will be able to take pre- and post-arrival coronavirus tests instead of self-isolating for 10 days after entering England.

The UK economy would grow faster than previously expected this year on the back of fast vaccination rollout, shows a paper, issued by the International Monetary Fund. The Fund said that the prospects of rich and poor nations diverged more due to differing access to Covid vaccines, BBC elaborated. The forecast for the UK reaches as high as 7% growth of GDP.

The leader of Tunisia’s Islamist party and speaker of parliament that his party is working to form a “national front” to counter President Kais Saied’s decision to suspend the legislature, fire top government officials and take control of the fragile democracy amid the country’s multi-layered crisis.

Armenia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that three of its troops were killed and two more were wounded in clashes with Azerbaijani forces on the border between the two ex-Soviet nations, which have been locked in a decades-long tug-of-war over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said two of its servicemen were wounded Wednesday.

Senior US and Russian officials began talks on Wednesday on strategic nuclear stability, with a fresh mandate from their presidents who held a summit in Geneva last month, Reuters reports .

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday nominated his longtime aide Mark Gitenstein as ambassador to the European Union while his administration looks to prioritize relations with the 27-nation bloc, AFP reported. Gitenstein served under former president Barack Obama as ambassador to Romania, where he has ancestral ties, using his position to push against abuses of power and in favour of privatization in the young democracy.