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Azerbaijan has admitted mistakenly shooting down a Russian Mi-24 military helicopter over Armenia, killing two crew members and injuring a third.

In a statement, Azerbaijan apologised, offering to pay compensation.

Russia said a missile downed its Mi-24 accompanying a column of Russian troops in Armenia, where Russia has a base. It comes amid fierce fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenian separatists for Nagorno-Karabakh. But the helicopter was not downed near those clashes.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, but has been run by ethnic Armenians since 1994.

In the statement, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said the Russian Mi-24 was shot down at 18:30 local time “on the Nakhchivan section of the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border”.

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A Russian soldier is on the run after he hacked an officer to death with an axe then shot and killed two more soldiers at a base near the southern city of Voronezh, investigators say.

The military is searching for the fugitive – named as Private Anton Makarov – at the Baltimor airbase, the Investigative Committee (SK) says.

The soldier reportedly seized the officer’s pistol, which he used to kill the other two, in the attack on Monday. A fourth soldier was shot and wounded.

RIA Novosti news agency reports that hundreds of Omon and Sobr special forces soldiers are hunting for the fugitive. Voronezh is about 465km (290 miles) south of Moscow. It is not clear why the soldier attacked the officer and opened fire.

A man who slit the throat of a 10-year-old boy as part of a string of random attacks has been jailed for life.

Carlos Vinodchandra Racitalal, 33, targeted victims unprovoked at various locations in Leicester, his trial heard. He drove into a five-year-old girl and attacked a mother, who was with her two young children, and a lone shopper.

The judge said it was no exaggeration to say the 10-year-old boy “came within millimetres of death”.

Racitalal, formerly of Finsbury Road, was convicted of attempted murder on Thursday and sentenced earlier to 21 years at Leicester Crown Court.

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Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has resigned from office, announcing that a special court at The Hague is indicting him for war crimes.

There was no immediate confirmation from The Hague. But a special prosecutor submitted accusations in June covering Kosovo’s 1998-9 independence war against Serbia. Mr Thaci denies any wrongdoing.

His decision comes hours after veteran Kosovo politician Jakup Krasniqi was arrested and taken to the Hague.

Mr Krasniqi, a 69-year-old former spokesman for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) who is also a former Kosovo president, was detained in a raid on his home by EU police. He faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

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The UK’s terrorism threat level has been upgraded from “substantial” to “severe”.

The move means security chiefs believe that an attack is highly likely but there is no specific intelligence of an imminent incident. The move follows Monday night’s shooting in Vienna in which four people died.

Last week, three others died in a knife attack in Nice, France, and a teacher was murdered in Paris last month.

Home Secretary Priti Patel said the British people should be “alert but not alarmed”. “This is a precautionary measure following the horrific events of the last week in France and last night in Austria and is not based on a specific threat.”

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