In the past, the Russian president said that any peace deal should respect the “realities on the ground”, hinting that Moscow wants to keep all the territories it currently occupies in Ukraine.

Despite the losses, Russian troops are making progress on the front, which is why Putin's negotiating position is strengthening. In his style, he tries to impose the conditions for starting talks, says Prof.

Ukrainian drones hit an oil refinery 250 miles east of Moscow in a huge wave of attacks on Russian power plants, say military sources. A large fire exploded at the refinery in Kstovo city in the Nizhny Novgorod region following the attack, the Ukrainian military said, adding it was assessing the scale of damage there.

A Russian drone attack on a residential block killed nine people including three elderly couples in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, officials said on Thursday.