Much of Ukraine’s largest Black Sea port was without power, heat and water on Saturday after strikes from Russia, which has shown little appetite for a deal to end the war.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A senior Kremlin official said Friday that Russian police and National Guard will stay on in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas and oversee the industry-rich region, even if a peace settlement ends Russia’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down at least 287 Ukrainian drones overnight into Thursday morning.

Ukraine struck an oil tanker belonging to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet in the Black Sea on Wednesday, according to an official in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

A large warehouse storing medicines in the city of Dnipro was destroyed in a Russian air strike on 6 December. As a result, about $110m worth of medicines were destroyed - estimated at up to 30% of Ukraine's monthly supply.

Zelenskyy indicated the talks were hastily arranged as Kyiv officials scramble to avoid getting boxed in by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has disparaged the Ukrainian leader, painted European leaders as weak, and set a strategy of improving Washington’s relationship with Moscow.

Poland has detained a Russian archaeologist whom Ukraine accuses of unauthorised excavation and plundering historical artefacts in Crimea, Polish authorities said on Thursday, prompting outrage from Moscow which demanded his immediate release.

Ukraine has just handed the US a revised peace plan to end the war with Russia — but Donald Trump isn’t buying it. In a heated moment, he called Europe "weak" and "decaying," expressing frustration with both Kyiv and America's traditional allies.

Russian athletes have informed the International Luge Federation that they have obtained visas to compete in a World Cup race in Lake Placid, New York, next weekend.