MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday directed drills of the country’s strategic nuclear forces that featured practice missile launches, an exercise that came as his planned summit on Ukraine with U.S. President Donald Trump was put on hold.

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The Kremlin said that as part of the maneuvers involving all parts of Moscow’s nuclear triad, a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was test-fired from the Plesetsk launch facility in northwestern Russia, and a Sineva ICBM was launched by a submarine in the Barents Sea. The drills also involved Tu-95 strategic bombers firing long-range cruise missiles.

The exercise tested the skills of military command structures, the Kremlin said in a statement.

The chief of the military’s General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, reported to Putin via video link that the drills were intended to simulate “procedures for authorizing the use of nuclear weapons.”

While Putin emphasized that the maneuvers had been planned in advance, they came hours after President Donald Trump said Tuesday his plan for a swift meeting with Putin in Budapest was on hold because he didn’t want it to be a “waste of time.”

The decision about the meeting in Budapest, Hungary, which Trump had announced last week, was made following a call Monday between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Lavrov made clear in comments Tuesday that Russia is opposed to an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump, meanwhile, has been shifting his stance all year on key issues in the conflict, including whether a ceasefire should come before longer-term peace talks, and whether Ukraine could win back land seized by Russia during almost four years of fighting.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday emphasized that the planned Putin-Trump summit needs to be thoroughly prepared.

“No one wants to waste time: neither President Trump nor President Putin,” Peskov told reporters. “These are the two presidents who are accustomed to working efficiently with high productivity. But effectiveness always requires preparation.”

The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By MELANIE LIDMAN, Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s prime minister toughened his stance Wednesday by declaring that his country is in charge of its own security and isn’t an American protectorate as he prepared to discuss progress on Gaza’s fragile ceasefire agreement with U.S. Vice President JD Vance.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks ahead of his meeting with Vance appeared aimed easing public concerns that the presence of an envisioned international security force in Gaza could limit Israel’s ability to strike in the devastated territory to thwart future threats.

“We are not a protectorate of the United States. Israel is the one that will decide on its security,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office as he headed into the meeting.

Speaking to reporters before the meeting’s start, Vance acknowledged that the road to peace is strewn with huge hurdles but at the same time tried to maintain the buoyant tone he sounded Tuesday on his arrival to Israel.

“We have a very, very tough task ahead of us, which is to disarm Hamas but rebuild Gaza to make life better for the people in Gaza, but also to ensure that Hamas is no longer a threat to our friends in Israel. That’s not easy,” Vance said. “There’s a lot of work to do, but I feel very optimistic about where we are.”

Vance is also meeting Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday. He is accompanied by U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

Questions abound on next steps of ceasefire plan

Uncertainty remains over the deployment of an international security force in Gaza and who will govern the territory. Vance said Tuesday officials are brainstorming on the composition of the security force, mentioning Turkey and Indonesia as countries expected to contribute troops.

Britain is also sending a small contingent of military officers to Israel to assist in monitoring the ceasefire.

Palestinians walk trough the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

As Vance’s meetings got underway, Israel said it completed the identification of the bodies of two more hostages that were handed over by the Red Cross to the Israeli military in Gaza on Tuesday.

Authorities identified the deceased hostages as Arie Zalmanovich and Tamir Adar who were killed in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, which triggered the two-year war.

Since the ceasefire began on Oct. 10, the remains of 15 hostages have been returned to Israel. Another 13 still need to be recovered in Gaza and handed over, a key element to the ceasefire agreement.

Meanwhile, the burial of 54 Palestinians is set for Wednesday at a cemetery in Deir al Balah, Gaza. The bodies were displayed outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis ahead of the burial.

Funeral prayers for Palestinians

Dozens of people, some carrying Palestinian flags, gathered outside the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis for funeral prayers over the bodies of 54 Palestinians clad in white shrouds.

The unidentified bodies were among 165 that Israel sent back to Gaza last week. They will be transported to Gaza’s central city of Deir al-Balah for burial.

A senior health official in Gaza said some bodies bore “evidence of torture” and called for an investigation.

Israel has not provided identification for the bodies or explained their origins. They could include Palestinians who died during the Oct. 7 attacks, detainees who died in custody or bodies that were taken from Gaza by Israeli troops during the war.

So far, authorities in Gaza have identified 52 of the returned bodies, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Charity says an armed group took over its Gaza facility

A top Palestinian nongovernmental organization that offers mental health services to people in Gaza said Wednesday that there had been an “armed raid and brutal takeover” of one its facilities in the territory last week.

The Gaza Community Mental Health Programme said an “armed group” it didn’t identify stormed the facility in Gaza City on Oct. 13, seized the building, expelled guards by force and put up their own families there.

“This blatant attack and serious crime represents a flagrant violation of all laws and norms,” the group said.

It was unclear why the organization waited more than a week to report the takeover, but it said that although it had made immediate requests for authorities to intervene, there had been no “concrete action” to return the facility “despite repeated promises to evacuate.”

They urged Palestinian authorities to act immediately and called on countries sponsoring the ceasefire to “intervene decisively.”

Israelis to bid farewell to a Thai hostage killed on Oct. 7, 2023

Israelis were set on Wednesday to bid farewell to a Thai farmworker whose body will be repatriated to his native Thailand later in the day.

Sonthaya Oakkharasri was killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, and his body was held in Gaza until it was returned last weekend.

A statement by the Families’ Headquarters for the Return of the Abductees said a gathering will be held at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv to pay last respects to Oakkharasri, calling him a “devoted father and farmer who dreamed of establishing his own farm.”

In the 2023 attack on Israel that started the war, Hamas killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people as hostages.

The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count. The ministry maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. Israel has disputed them without providing its own toll.

MADRID (AP) — Spanish police have busted a criminal group dedicated to stealing your seat. Literally.

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Spain’s National Police said Wednesday that they had arrested seven people suspected of stealing more than 1,100 chairs from outdoor seating areas at restaurants and bars in Madrid and another nearby municipality in just two months.

The group of six men and a woman worked at night to pilfer the chairs from 18 different establishments in Madrid and Talavera de la Reina, a smaller city to the southwest of the capital, in August and September. The estimated impact of the stolen property was around 60,000 euros ($69,000), according to police.

The suspects, who face charges of theft and belonging to a criminal organization, resold the chairs in Spain but also in Morocco and Romania, police said.

In Spain, many restaurants and bars leave tables and chairs, which are usually made of metal or hard plastic, outdoors during the night. The chairs will normally be kept in stacks and chained down.

By THOMAS ADAMSON, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — The Louvre reopened on Wednesday to long lines beneath its landmark Paris glass pyramid, just three days after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world for its audacity and scale.

The thieves slipped in and out of the world’s most visited museum — making off with eight pieces from France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some officials compared to the burning of Notre-Dame cathedral in 2019.

The Sunday raid — steps from the Mona Lisa and valued at more than $100 million — has put embattled President Emmanuel Macron and Louvre chief Laurence des Cars under fresh scrutiny. It comes just months after a staff strike warned of chronic understaffing and under-resourced protections, with too few eyes on too many rooms, raising pointed questions about security failures.

Crowds bunched at the barriers as they were being removed Wednesday, a coda to frantic forensic work and staff briefings that had taken place. Inside, the scene of the crime — the Apollo Gallery housing the Crown Diamonds — stayed sealed, a folding screen obscuring the doorway at the gallery’s rotunda entrance.

Three days on, the stolen jewels remain missing and the thieves are still at large.

France acknowledges failings

Authorities say the thieves spent less than four minutes inside the Louvre on Sunday morning: a freight lift was wheeled to the Seine-facing façade, a window was forced open and two vitrines were smashed.

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Then came the getaway on motorbikes through central Paris. Alarms had gone off drawing agents to the gallery and forcing the intruders to bolt.

“We have failed,” Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said, noting that the ability to plant a freight lift undetected on a public way projects “a very negative image of France.”

As it reopened, the Louvre declined questions from The Associated Press to detail any reinforced protocols. It said no uniformed police were posted in the corridors. With school holidays swelling demand, the day was fully booked and access limited in places.

Wednesday’s opening followed a routine closer on Tuesday, a day when the museum is normally shut.

The loot

The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.

They also made off with an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.

One piece — the emerald-set imperial crown of Empress Eugénie, with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.

Fears the jewels will be destroyed

Prosecutor Laure Beccuau valued the haul at about $102 million, a “spectacular” figure that still fails to capture the works’ historical weight. She warned the thieves would be unlikely to realize anything close to that sum if they pry out stones or melt the metals — a fate curators fear would pulverize centuries of meaning into anonymous gems for the black market. The jewels remain missing; no arrests have been announced.

Beccuau said expert analyses are underway; four people have been identified as present at the scene, and roughly 100 investigators are mapping the crew and any accomplices.

The heist has sharpened scrutiny of the museum’s security and brought its president-director, Laurence des Cars, before the Senate’s culture committee on Wednesday — though top officials have refused to remove her.

Questions about Louvre’s security overhaul

All this comes after President Emmanuel Macron’s government announced new measure in January for the Louvre — complete with a new command post and expanded camera grid that the culture ministry says is being rolled out.

It also raises hard questions, including whether Sunday’s breach is tied to staffing levels, and how uniformly the upgrades in the overhaul are being applied.

Protection for headline works is airtight — the Mona Lisa is behind bulletproof glass in a climate-controlled case — yet the break-in exposed seams elsewhere in a 33,000-object labyrinth. For many French, the contrast is a public embarrassment at the landmark.

There is another raw nerve: the issue of swelling crowds and overstretched staff.

A June staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing delayed opening. Unions argue that mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates pressure points where construction zones, freight access and visitor flows intersect.

On Wednesday, the Louvre’s other star attractions — from the Venus de Milo to the Winged Victory of Samothrace — were open again. But the cordoned-off vitrines in the Apollo Room, guarded and empty, told a different story: one of a breach measured not just in minutes and euros, but in the fragility of a nation’s patrimony.