Russia-Ukraine War Latest News LIVE: Russia suspending gas supplies to Poland, Bulgaria over ruble payments

The surge in oil prices due to the Ukrainian war has pushed up inflation in India, which needs monetary tightening and measures to address structural weaknesses to improve growth potential, said a senior IMF official. According to estimates, the country's economy is likely to grow at 8.2 per cent in 2022-23, down 0.8 per percentage points, said Anne-Marie Gulde-Wolf, Acting Director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department.

The Mexican government said Tuesday that COVID-19 has passed from a pandemic to an endemic stage in Mexico, meaning authorities will treat it as a seasonally recurring disease. Mexico never enforced face mask requirements, and the few partial shutdowns of businesses and activities were lifted weeks ago. “It is now retreating almost completely,” said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Officials in Poland and Bulgaria said Tuesday that Russia is suspending their countries' natural gas deliveries after they refused to pay for their supplies in Russian rubles. The governments of the two European Union and NATO members said Russian energy giant Gazprom informed them it was halting the gas supplies starting Wednesday.

Thirty-six years after the world's worst nuclear disaster, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday that Russian troops risked causing an accident with their “very, very dangerous” seizure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Standing under an umbrella during a rain shower outside the damaged plant, agency Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said that while radiation levels are normal, the situation is still “not stable.” Nuclear authorities have to “keep on alert." Russian troops moved into the radiation-contaminated Chernobyl exclusion zone in February on their way toward the Ukrainian capital. They withdrew late last month as Russia pulled its forces from areas near Kyiv and switched its focus to fighting in eastern Ukraine. The site has been back in Ukrainian hands since then and disrupted communications have been restored.

Syrian air defenses were active early Wednesday as Israel carried out attacks near the capital, Damascus, state media reported. There was no immediate word on casualties. State media said the attacks occurred shortly after midnight without saying whether they were Israeli air raids or surface-to-surface missiles. The attacks came hours after the Israeli military said an Israeli drone crashed on the Syrian side of the border Tuesday, adding that an investigation was opened into the case.