Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten faced mounting pressure Sunday after two people died in a traffic accident linked to a farmers’ protest, while his government was drawn into a separate controversy over a prominent statesman’s comparison involving Israel and Nazi Germany.

Amid mounting military cooperation, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reaffirmed deepening ties with Russia in a message to President Vladimir Putin as Pyongyang marked the anniversary of “independence from Japan’s colonial rule,” state media reported Sunday.

The Russia-Ukraine war rapidly escalated Sunday as more than 800 Ukrainian drones targeted Russia in Ukraine’s largest such attack this year, killing at least seven people, officials said.

Firefighters backed by Dutch military helicopters battled Belgium’s largest wildfire on record Sunday as flames swept through nearly 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of nature reserve and threatened areas near the German border, while deadly blazes raged elsewhere in Europe, including Greece.

Iran-backed Hezbollah threatened to retaliate after Israel said Saturday it had killed a commander of the group in an attack that killed at least 11 people.

Kevin Rideout, an American missionary pilot kidnapped by suspected Islamist militants in Niger’s capital, Niamey, in October last year, has been released and is in U.S. custody, U.S. President Donald J. Trump confirmed Friday.

Concerns are mounting over increasing violence against Christians and churches across Europe after dozens of churches, religious symbols and worshipers were targeted in July, including cases involving bodily waste, arson and the stabbing of a woman praying in an Irish Catholic church.

Hungary’s former ruling Fidesz party suffered a legal setback Friday after the Constitutional Court rejected its challenge to the dismantling of controversial foundations holding vast amounts of state assets, while separate scrutiny intensified over billions of forints in public money spent on former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s social-media operation.

The United States is rapidly approaching another historic fiscal milestone, with the national debt now nearing $40 trillion as Washington continues running massive annual deficits and interest costs consume a growing share of federal spending.

U.S. envoy Jared Kushner met senior Hamas leaders in Egypt on Sunday as the Trump administration intensified efforts to move Gaza toward disarmament and postwar governance, even as Israel continued targeted strikes against terrorist operatives inside the Gaza Strip.