Putin

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two and warned that Moscow would defend itself with the might of all its vast arsenal if faced with a nuclear threat from the West. The blunt warning from Russia's paramount leader, whose country has more nuclear warheads than even the United States, marks the biggest escalation of the war since Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and was accompanied by a decision to call up 300,000 extra reservists.

a country that shares an 830-mile-long border with Russia, announced this week that it is to halve its cap on the number of visa applications from Russian citizens.  Currently, 1,000 Russians can apply for Finnish visas each day, but as of September 1 that number will drop to 500. Jussi Tanner, director general for consular services at Finland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told CNN that a maximum of 20% of those slots will be allocated for tourist visas, meaning no more than 100 tourist visas will be available per day. The move comes after Estonia, another European Union nation that borders…