Russia’s Defense Ministry claims that Russian troops have fought their way into the center of a strategically important eastern Ukraine town and raised the Russian flag there after a monthslong battle.

With Russia wearing down Ukraine’s stretched forces and U.S. President Donald Trump pressuring the two sides to end their nearly 3-year-old war, Kyiv and some of its European allies are discussing how that might be achieved in a way that would guarantee Ukraine’s future security.

Videos showed fireballs over a facility in Ryazan, 110 miles southeast of Moscow. Kyiv is seeking to disrupt Russian military logistics and put pressure on the country’s economy by striking its oil industry.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks published on Friday that he saw no objective signs that Ukraine or the West were ready for peace talks despite all their increasingly loud statements about the need for such talks.

I would say they are pragmatic and trusting relations. I can’t help but agree with him that if his victory had not been stolen in 2022, then maybe there would not have been the crisis in Ukraine that arose in 2022.

Russia has lost about twice as many men to death and serious injury as Ukraine. But the trends favor the Kremlin.

Russia launched a barrage of drones in an overnight attack on Ukraine on Friday, killing three civilians and damaging residential and commercial buildings, officials said. The interior ministry said that drone debris had killed two men and a woman in the central Kyiv region,

Donald Trump pledged to end the conflict in Ukraine, but the war has proved tough to solve. Now, he says he'll sanction Russia.

The response comes after Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko criticized NATO's 2008 Bucharest Summit declaration, calling it "catastrophic for European security."

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called on the European Union to pressure Ukraine to re-establish the transit of Russian gas to Europe and linked the issue to extending sanctions against Moscow.

Russia has had battlefield momentum but its recent territorial gains have been at the expense of high personnel losses.