The United Nations has warned that around one million children in Afghanistan are suffering from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition and could die without urgent treatment.

UNICEF said on Tuesday that about 3.7 million children across Afghanistan are suffering from wasting, a condition caused by acute malnutrition.

Tajudeen Oyewale, UNICEF’s representative in Afghanistan, said around one million of these children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, which is considered the most dangerous form of acute hunger.

“If there is no treatment and we are not able to act fast, that one million number are at risk of dying,” Oyewale said during a media briefing in Geneva, speaking from Kabul.

He said the nutrition crisis is worsening across the country, with more than 500,000 children requiring hospital care so far this year for moderate and severe wasting.

According to UNICEF, nearly 40 percent of children admitted to hospitals with severe wasting and medical complications are babies younger than six months. Children under the age of two account for more than 80 percent of severe acute malnutrition cases.

Oyewale said malnutrition is playing a major role in the increasing number of deaths among very young children in Afghanistan.

The situation has also placed growing pressure on hospitals. In July last year, around 6,000 severe malnutrition cases were recorded, while the number rose by about one-third to more than 8,000 cases by July this year.

“In parts of southern Afghanistan, some hospitals are now seeing three or four severely malnourished children for every available bed,” Oyewale said.

U.S. CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow on Tuesday for meetings with Russian officials, U.S. media outlets reported, citing unnamed ​sources.

The trip would be the first known visit to the Russian capital by ‌a U.S. spy chief since Ratcliffe’s predecessor, William Burns, held talks with Vladimir Putin in November 2021. About three months after that meeting, the Russian president launched Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported.

CBS News and Axios ​reported the visit by Ratcliffe, U.S. President Donald Trump’s CIA chief, who served ​as director of national intelligence in Trump’s first term. The outlets did ⁠not say whom he was meeting or what the talks are expected to cover.

The ​CIA declined to comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov neither confirmed nor denied the report, telling ​Reuters President Vladimir Putin did not plan to have a meeting with Ratcliffe.

The U.S. last week asked Ukraine not to launch air strikes around Moscow, St. Petersburg, and some northern territories of Russia on ​Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week because a plane carrying a senior U.S. ​official would be flying to the Russian capital, said a source familiar with the matter.

The source declined ‌to ⁠provide further information. The Financial Times first reported the U.S. message to Ukraine.

On Monday, the U.S. warned countries to cut business ties with Iran or face secondary sanctions, a move aimed at stepping up economic pressure on Tehran to settle the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran ​launched in February.

The U.S. ​has no ambassador ⁠to Russia, which maintains a close strategic partnership with Iran involving extensive military, economic and diplomatic ties.

Tehran supplied Moscow with drones for its ​war against Ukraine. In March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Russia of ​supplying its ⁠version of those drones to Iran.

A Ukrainian intelligence assessment reported by Reuters in April said that Russia has aided Iran with satellite imagery for use in targeting U.S. facilities in the ⁠Middle East.

Moscow ​denies providing such assistance and has said it is ​ready to help resolve the U.S.-Iran conflict.