French President Emmanuel Macron said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is like a “war from the early 20th, even the 19th century," calling Russia "one of the last imperial colonial powers." The French president also accused the Kremlin of launching “a new type of hybrid world war” by opting to make information, energy, and food into “military instruments placed at the service" of the war, AFP reports. President Macron is on a visit to Benin.

France could provide Germany 20 terawatt hours of gas, or 2% of German consumption, during winter months if needed in the context of the conflict in Ukraine, French energy ministry officials said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

The Italian company Eni said it would receive about 27 million cubic metres of gas from Russia's Gazprom on Wednesday, down from the daily average volumes of around 34 million in recent days, Reuters reports.

Talking to The Times, outgoing Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said he believes he has made powerful enemies in Russia when he ended the nation's reliance on it for gas supplies, and added: “We have curbed corruption locally, but we have discovered that we have a bigger enemy: Russian infiltration. We failed to understand that corruption and Russian influence are the same thing. Corruption is Moscow’s best foreign policy tool in the Balkans.”