Long reputed to be Russia-friendly, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has often railed against the continuation of the EU sanctions, claiming that they impose an intolerable burden on the Hungarian economy and provide no solution for the carnage in Ukraine.

A Ukrainian drone attack last week forced a refinery in Ryazan, southeast of Moscow, to suspend operations. Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday that 49 Ukrainian drones had been downed over the country overnight, including 25 in the southern Rostov region and eight in the Volgograd region.

Putin has indicated that he will not view any peace agreement with Ukraine as binding, the Institute for the Study of War said.

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.

Ukrainian forces fighting around Velyka Novosilka claim its Russian takeover will amount to nothing more than a flag-raising exercise

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine expressed condolences to family and friends of those killed in a Russian strike that targeted an apartment block in Sumy, and stressed the importance of continued international pressure on Russia over such terror.

Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections in 2024 did not come as a surprise in Kyiv. Instead, Ukrainian authorities are now focused on building institutional ties with the incoming administration and closely monitoring appointments to foreign policy positions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Ukraine could find a legal way to hold peace talks with Russia on ending their nearly three-year-old war, but Moscow sees no willingness on Kyiv's part to engage.

Billions of dollars of investment may be needed to rebuild Ukraine's power systems, brought to the brink of total decimation after relentless attacks by Russia.

Viktor Medvedchuk said that the legitimacy of the Ukrainian negotiators is crucial for the Ukrainian people, first of all, because serious guarantees of the agreements that will be signed after the en

Kyiv launches fresh drone assault on Putin's oil refineries inside Russia - Volgograd governor Andrei Bocharov says a fire temporarily broke out after a Ukrainian drone attack