More Russian migrants are traveling through Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S., driven in part by an expanding U.S. government effort to allow more asylum seekers to cross the border legally.

About 12,500 Russians entered the U.S. through ports of entry with Mexico between October, the start of the government’s budget year, and December. Most are expected to ask for asylum once they settle in the U.S., often citing government crackdowns since the start of the war in Ukraine and the mobilization announced in September to draft more troops.

DNIPRO, Ukraine—Russia is regrouping its forces in eastern Ukraine and launching offensives along five lines of attack, Ukraine’s armed forces said on Saturday as officials in Kyiv and Western capitals continue to warn of a major Russian push to gain territory.

The main focus of Russia’s offensive remains the besieged city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, which it is seeking to surround and capture. The Ukrainian military said it had repelled multiple attacks, inflicting significant losses for the Russians.

At Sue Schmidt’s gas station and roadhouse off a remote highway in the Australian Outback, employees usually watch out for snakes when they are walking outside. But this week, they were looking for something else: A tiny capsule of radioactive material that sparked a search along a roughly 900-mile stretch of the road.

The capsule, used in mine equipment, went missing while in transit from a Rio Tinto PLC mine to Perth, Western Australia’s state capital. As the search dragged on over the past week, Ms. Schmidt and her employees grew wary of cleaning up the bottle caps and coins that they usually find outside the roadhouse, fearing that any shiny object could be the capsule that would hit them with a dangerous dose of radiation.

MOKOWE, Kenya—Kenya is asking the U.S. to pay for the expansion of a joint counterterrorism base, raising concerns in Washington that the East African country could turn to China if the Americans balk, according to U.S. officials. 

The Kenyan military has drawn up plans for a new runway long enough to handle jet fighters at Manda Bay Airfield, a hub for U.S. and Kenyan operations against al-Shabaab, al Qaeda’s affiliate in neighboring Somalia, the U.S. officials said.

Russia is preparing to launch a major new offensive against Ukraine in the coming weeks, a top Ukrainian security official said, adding to mounting concerns in Kyiv and the West that the Kremlin is preparing a renewed push to seize large areas of the country.

“Russia is preparing for maximum escalation,” said Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, in an interview with Sky News published online early Wednesday local time. “It is gathering everything possible, doing drills and training.”

PARIS—Masses of French workers took to the streets for the second time in two weeks, piling more pressure on President Emmanuel Macron‘s plans to raise France’s retirement age and threatening further walkouts that could grind much of the country to a halt.

Striking teachers and railway, health and oil workers staged marches in dozens of cities as a part of a nationwide day of action called by unions to force the government to back down from its pension overhaul. Train, subway and bus services were severely curtailed, and dozens of flights were canceled. Many schools and nurseries remained closed.