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

Russia said on Wednesday attempts to resolve security issues relating to Ukraine without Moscow's participation were a "road to nowhere", sounding a warning to the West as it scrambles to work out guarantees for Kyiv's future protection.

Russia bombed Ukrainian villages and cities near the front in the hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Washington for meetings with President Donald Trump and top European leaders, and then attacked again overnight — Russia’s largest bombardment this month, according to the Ukrainian air force.

Putin’s delegation gifted Mark Warren, a retired fire inspector for the Municipality of Anchorage, a Ural Gear Up motorcycle with a sidecar, one week after a television crew’s interview with Warren went viral in Russia.

State news agency RIA Novosti has reported that a gunpowder workshop at the facility caught fire and triggered an explosion.

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,

For years, Donald Trump criticized presidents for empty threats. He often pointed to then-President Barack Obama failing to enforce his “red line” on Syria using chemical weapons. During his first term in 2017, Trump called it a “blank threat” that cost us “in many other parts of the world.”

Russia’s troops are continuing their slow war of attrition in eastern and northern Ukraine, even as the conflict enters a pivotal phase with a series of high-level meetings that are part of U.S.

President Donald Trump has spent the past several days on a diplomatic sprint, setting the groundwork for a potential trilateral meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss pathways to end the yearslong war.

President Trump had suggested a meeting between Russia and Ukraine’s leaders could be a potential next step on the path to peace. Russian state news media barely mentioned the idea.

The White House laid out the next steps for Russia-Ukraine peace talks. Pete Hegseth’s personal security requirements are straining an Army protective unit. Jeanine Pirro, D.C.’s top prosecutor, confirmed a major change to gun policy.