President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff will travel next week to Moscow as momentum builds for a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has described the situation surrounding the war in Ukraine as "volatile" and "dangerous" and accused Russia of having no "real intent" of engaging in peace talks. Her comments came shortly before Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was "premature" to speak about striking a peace deal.

Kenya, Nepal, Tajikistan. They say they were deceived by Russia into joining a war they did not want to fight.

Ukraine struck a heat and power station in the Moscow region on Sunday with drones, triggering a major fire and cutting off heating for thousands in one of Kyiv's biggest attacks to date on a power station deep inside Russia.

A U.K. patrol ship has intercepted a Russian corvette and a tanker in the English Channel, according to the Defense Ministry.

An overnight drone strike triggered a fire at the Shatura power plant supplying Moscow, as Russia and Ukraine step up attacks on energy infrastructure amid a peace plan pushed by the Trump administration.

From the front-line city of Pokrovsk in eastern Donetsk, to Zaporizhzhia in the south, there is little doubt that Russia is making advances. But, battlefield monitors suggest the picture is not quite so bleak for Ukraine as Trump and Putin suggest.

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian air defences shot down eight drones en route to Moscow on Monday, the city's mayor said, a day after a Ukrainian strike on a power and heat station cut off heating for thousands outside the Russian capital.

As Washington ramps up its negotiations with Ukraine and Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump expresses optimism that a peace deal could be close, there are still some very critical and contentious issues on which Kyiv and Moscow are in deep disagreement.