President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that large-scale Russian attacks overnight in various parts of Ukraine showed Moscow was avoiding negotiations about ending the more than three-year-old war.

Russia launched a massive overnight assault on Ukraine, firing 614 projectiles in what marks the most extensive aerial strike in three weeks. The Ukrainian Air Force reported intercepting or electronically jamming 546 drones and decoys, along with 31 missiles. Despite these efforts, strikes landed in 11 locations, including in Western Ukraine.

Russia launched a rare drone and missile attack on western Ukraine overnight, officials said Thursday, striking targets including an American-owned electronics plant and injecting further uncertainty into the U.

Vladimir Putin is demanding that Ukraine give up all of the eastern Donbas region, renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters.

The second Oval Office meeting in six months between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went off smoothly, in sharp contrast to their disastrous encounter in February.

Russia struck an American business with cruise missiles overnight in one of the largest aerial attacks of the war so far, Ukraine has said.

Young people laugh as they play basketball on Moscow's leafy boulevards, couples relax playing chess on outdoor tables opposite the Bolshoi Theatre, and in the evenings show-offs drive expensive cars around trendy areas full of busy cafes.

Russian troops currently control about 20% of Ukrainian territory, but the Ukrainian constitution forbids giving up territory or trading land.

Russian companies are widening their campaign to find young African women to help fill a labor shortage, heightening concern many are being deployed in the Ukraine war effort. The latest drive is in South Africa,

Moscow is preparing to raise taxes and cut spending as it tries to maintain high defence expenditure with Russia's economy creaking under the weight of financing the more than three-year war in Ukraine,