Eight people died and another 10 were hospitalised in Russia when trees crashed into a campsite during a hurricane, authorities said on Sunday.
"According to the latest information, eight people died in Mari El due to the hurricane that took place the day before," said Yevgeny Maslov, mayor of the city of Yoshkar-Ola. Mari El is a Russian region located along the northern bank of the Volga River, and Yoshkar-Ola is its largest city.
The United States tightened the conditions under its visa waivers programme for Hungarian citizens Tuesday due to what it called Budapest's failure to "address the security vulnerabilities" emanating from passports issued since 2011.
Washington has repeatedly criticised Hungary's fast-track passport system brought in by nationalist leader Viktor Orban -- which has seen about a
million people becoming naturalised Hungarians since 2011 -- for being prone to "security breaches".
Most are from countries neighbouring Hungary where around two million ethnic-Hungarians live, a legacy of a post-World War I treaty that shrank the country's borders.
In 2018, the US threatened to scrap visa waivers for Hungarian passport holders after officials uncovered a fraud scheme that has let non-Hungarians allegedly enter the US under false identities.
Hungary's simplified naturalisation process during that period lacked "adequate security measures... to verify identities," said a statement by the US embassy in Budapest.
"In light of... Hungary's decision not to fully address the security vulnerabilities created by its earlier implementation of its simplified naturalisation process, procedures for all Hungarian passport holders to utilise the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) have been modified," it said.
Starting Tuesday, the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) validity period for travel by Hungarian passport holders will be "reduced from two years to one year", it added.
"Additionally, the validity of an ESTA for Hungarian passport holders will be limited to a single use," the statement said.
Countries participating in the visa waiver program are allowed to travel to the US for tourism or business for up to 90 days without a visa, as long as they have obtained an ESTA.
Hungary's interior ministry blasted the US move, saying that Washington's request for "data of Hungarians (living) abroad with dual citizenship" would not be met.
"The safety of Hungarians abroad is at stake. That is why President Joe Biden's government is now taking revenge on the Hungarians!" it said in a statement.
Since taking office in 2010, Orban has regularly clashed with the US and the European Union over charges he has steered Hungary down an authoritarian path.
Close to former US President Donald Trump, Orban has accused the current administration of trying to weaken his government and strengthen the Hungarian opposition.
Russia said Tuesday it had downed another wave of Ukrainian drones aimed at vessels in the Black Sea and Moscow, as an office block in the capital's main business district was struck for the second time in a few days.
"Two Ukrainian (unmanned aerial vehicles) were destroyed by air defence systems over the territory of the Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts of Moscow region," the Russian defence ministry said.
"Another drone was suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed on the territory of the Moscow City," the capital's main commercial district, the ministry said.
On Sunday, Russian defences downed drones in that same district, with debris damaging two office towers, blowing out several windows and scattering documents on the pavement below.
"One flew into the same tower in (Moscow) City as last time," mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Tuesday on Telegram.
"The facade on the 21st floor was damaged," and a number of windows were smashed, the mayor said.
He added that emergency services had gone to the scene and that there was no information on any casualties.
"We heard a big explosion, there was no panic," local resident Arkady Metler, 29, told AFP.
"Nobody should be scared... we cannot do anything but stick together," said Metler.
- 'In shock' -
Other residents were more shaken by the renewed explosion in their neighbourhood.
"After the last attack, everyone was saying, 'They don't hit the same place twice'. But when we woke up this morning we were in shock," Anastasia Berseneva, 26, told AFP.
"I'm not sure whether I will move out or not but I'm thinking probably yes."
Shortly after the drone attack, Moscow's Vnukovo international airport was briefly closed, TASS state news agency reported.
"Vnukovo was temporarily closed for arrivals and departures, the planes are redirected to other airports," emergency services said, according to TASS, which later reported that it had resumed normal operations.
The same airport, to the southwest of Moscow, was briefly closed after Sunday's attack and earlier this month, a volley of drone attacks disrupted air traffic at Vnukovo.
Moscow and its environs, located about 500 kilometres (310 miles) from the Ukrainian border, had rarely been targeted during the conflict in Ukraine until several drone attacks this year.
The Russian defence ministry said Tuesday it also foiled a Ukrainian drone attack targeting patrol boats in the Black Sea.
- 'Act of desperation' -
"During the night, Ukrainian armed forces tried without success to attack with three drones the 'Sergei Kotov' and 'Vasily Bykov,' patrol boats of the Russian fleet," the defence ministry said in a statement.
The three drones were trained on the ships, navigating in waters 340 kilometres (210 miles) southwest of Sevastopol, the base of Russia's Black Sea fleet on the annexed Crimea peninsula.
Tuesday's attacks were the latest in a series of drone assaults -- including on the Kremlin and Russian towns near the border with Ukraine -- that Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.
On Monday, a missile strike on a residential building killed six and wounded dozens in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's hometown of Kryvyi Rig.
Without mentioning a particular attack, Zelensky warned Sunday that the conflict was coming to Russia.
"Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia -- to its symbolic centres and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process," Zelensky said Sunday.
The Kremlin on Monday called the recent strikes on the capital an "act of desperation" by Ukraine following setbacks on the battlefield.
Ukraine began its long-awaited counteroffensive in June but has made modest advances in the face of stiff resistance from Russian forces on the frontline.
Myanmar reduced ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi's 33-year prison sentence by six years in a partial pardon on Tuesday, as the junta struggles to quell bloody resistance to its rule.
The country has been ravaged by violence in the two years since Suu Kyi was deposed in a coup and hit with 19 criminal cases ranging from corruption to breaching Covid-19 rules.
There have been concerns for the 78-year-old Nobel laureate's health and the junta moved her from prison to a government building last week.
"Six years imprisonment will be reduced," junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun told reporters after it was announced she had been pardoned in five cases.
Suu Kyi still faces 14 cases despite the pardon. Rights groups have condemned the legal battle against her as a sham designed to remove a popular democratic leader from the public eye.
Former Myanmar president Win Myint, who was also removed in the 2021 coup, was granted a four-year reduction in relation to two cases, the junta spokesman said.
- 'Cruel games' -
"She couldn't be freed completely, although some sentences against her were pardoned. She still has to face 14 cases. Only five cases out of 19 were pardoned," a legal source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said.
Tuesday's announcement was part of an amnesty of more than 7,000 prisoners to mark Buddhist Lent, including 125 foreigners who are to be released and pardoned.
An unspecified number of prisoners facing the death penalty also had their sentences reduced to life imprisonment, the announcement said.
David Mathieson, an independent analyst on Myanmar, said the partial pardon was a "cynical ploy to tell the world that there might be some kind of political resolution coming. When we know that there is not".
"I think they are just playing cruel games with a political prisoner," Mathieson told AFP.
"All the charges against her are absurd and shaving six years off 33 isn't mercy."
- Still popular -
Suu Kyi was detained on the night of the coup in February 2021 and has only been seen once since -- in grainy state media photos from a bare courtroom in the military-built capital Naypyidaw.
She was required to attend almost daily hearings in the junta court to hear cases against her ranging from corruption to possession of illegal walkie-talkies and flouting coronavirus restrictions.
In July, Thailand's foreign minister met Suu Kyi, the first known meeting with a foreign envoy since she was detained, although details of what they discussed are not known.
She remains popular in Myanmar, even after her international image was tainted by a power-sharing deal with the generals and her failure to speak up for the persecuted Rohingya minority.
But many of those fighting for democracy since the coup have abandoned her principle of non-violence and taken up arms to try and permanently root out military dominance of Myanmar's politics and economy.
As a result, much of the Southeast Asian country is in armed conflict, with thousands killed since the coup, more than a million displaced according to the United Nations, and the army struggling to assert its dominance.
According to a local monitoring group, more than 3,800 people have been killed since the coup, a figure the junta puts at 5,000.
With unrest raging, the junta announced on Monday it would extend a state of emergency by six months, which is likely to delay elections promised for August.
The military cited alleged widespread voter fraud during elections in November 2020 as a reason for its coup, which sparked huge protests and a bloody crackdown.
Those polls were won resoundingly by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, with international observers saying at the time the polls were largely free and fair.
Myanmar regularly grants amnesties to thousands of prisoners to commemorate holidays or special Buddhist dates.
The junta released some 23,000 prisoners after the 2021 coup in a move that human rights groups feared at the time was aimed at freeing up space for military opponents.
More than 24,000 people have been arrested since the military booted Suu Kyi's government from power, according to a local monitoring group.
Almost 20,000 remain behind bars, according to the latest figures.
The Kremlin on Monday described a recent drone attack on Moscow as an "act of desperation" by Ukraine following setbacks on the battlefield.
"It is obvious that the counteroffensive is not a success," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, adding that it was "very difficult" for Ukrainian forces on the front.
"In an act of desperation, the regime in Kyiv is turning to such terrorist attacks," Peskov said.
"All possible measures have been taken to defend civil infrastructure" against Ukrainian strikes, he added.
Russia on Sunday said it had downed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow in an attack that damaged two office towers in a business district.
Ukraine began its long-awaited counteroffensive in June but has made modest advances in the face of stiff resistance from Russian forces on the frontline.
