Training to be a Jedi in Moscow’s lightsaber school

Social media users have been sharing false claims that the Ukrainian army sold two of the heavy-duty CAESAR howitzers – given by France – to Russia for $120,000 per unit.

The country's ruling junta is stepping up cooperation with Moscow, after expelling French troops last year. Also in the programme, at least three people have been killed in a shootout between militiamen and police in the Ethiopian capital. Among the dead are fighters from a rebel militia known as Fano. Plus, the art of remembering: painters in Rwanda are keeping the memory of genocide victims alive by drawing their inspiration from photographs.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated in Russia and Kazakhstan as the worst flooding in decades continues. In Orenburg, floodwaters rose higher than official expectations.

Russian peacekeepers will withdraw from Azerbaijan's Nagorgno-Karabakh region, the Kremlin said on Wednesday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the move, responding to a question about reports in the Azerbaijani media about the withdrawal. "Yes, it really is the case," Peskov told reporters.

In the latest speculative fiction from British director Alex Garland, Kirsten Dunst stars as a war reporter documenting a conflict she once never thought possible: a new civil war in the United States. With the US in the midst of another divisive election year, the scenario may seem cliché, but FRANCE 24 film critic Lisa Nesselson says the film is engrossing, entertaining and unsettling.

The ECHR has upheld Lithuania's barring of entry to Russian pop singer Philipp Kirkorov. Lithuania accuses the entertainer of being a "soft power" tool for Russia's propaganda in former Soviet states.