A senior Kremlin official has said Russia can hold direct talks with Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, provided he travels to Moscow to speak with his Russian counterpart.

“We have never refused and do not refuse this kind of contact," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said, adding that Moscow is prepared to ensure Zelensky's security and working conditions if he comes to Russia.

It isn't the first time Russia has said Zelensky should travel to Moscow if he wants a leaders' summit with Putin. Kyiv has dismissed the suggestion as a non-starter given the security threat the Ukrainian president would face.

Ushakov's remarks come after Ukraine's foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said Zelensky is ready to meet Putin to resolve the two key issues in the peace talks, including territorial questions and the future of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

A senior Kremlin official has rejected a report claiming Russia has sustained the largest number of troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since the Second World War.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov snubbed the findings and said people should only trust casualty figures shared by the Russian defence ministry.

“I don’t think such reports can and should be viewed as reliable information,” Peskov told reporters at a daily briefing yesterday.

Russia has rarely released any details of its casualties in Ukraine and the figures it does put out are widely considered to be understatements.

A report from US think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies said Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025.

Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian intelligence has indicated that Russia was preparing “a new massive strike” as he reminds world leaders that any attack will discredit the peace process.

“The United States, Europe, and all our partners have to understand how this discredits diplomatic talks,” Zelensky said.

“Every single Russian strike does.”

Trilateral negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and the US are due to resume in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, following the first round of "constructive" talks over the weekend.

The trilateral negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the United States to reach a resolution on the war in Ukraine are set to continue in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, the Kremlin said.

A first round of three-way talks on ending the four-year war took place in the same location last weekend.

The US secretary of state Marco Rubio said there might be a US presence in the follow-up Ukraine talks, but president Donald Trump's top envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had taken part in the previous round of talks last weekend in Abu Dhabi, will not be participating.

The talks last weekend, which included a rare face-to-face engagement between Russian and Ukrainian officials, ended without a deal, but Moscow and Kyiv said they were open to further dialogue.

More discussions were expected next Sunday in Abu Dhabi, said a US official who spoke to reporters at the time.

US secretary of state Marco Rubio has hinted that Ukraine and Washington are getting closer to agreeing on security guarantees in the ongoing talks.

On being asked if security guarantees for Ukraine were agreed to by the US and Ukrainian sides, he said: "I think you could argue they're agreed to from our side of the equation. There's obviously a Russian dynamic at play here.”

“And of course, any security guarantees would come into play after the conflict would end," Rubio said.

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that Washington told Ukraine it must sign on to a peace deal with Russia to get US security guarantees.

A Bangladeshi man, Maksudur Rahman, was reportedly lured from his tropical homeland to Russia with the promise of a janitorial job, only to find himself thrust onto the front lines of the war in Ukraine within weeks.

An investigation by The Associated Press has uncovered a pattern where Bangladeshi workers are enticed to Russia under false pretences of civilian employment, subsequently coerced into combat roles.

Many of these individuals faced threats of violence, imprisonment, or even death if they refused. Mr Rahman, among three Bangladeshi men who managed to escape the Russian military and spoke to AP, recounted how he and fellow workers were instructed to sign Russian documents upon arrival in Moscow, which later proved to be military contracts.

French president Emmanuel Macron said he had spoken to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday to express his condemnation of Russia's latest attacks and assured that power generators are being sent to Ukraine.

The recent wave of Russian attacks have knocked out power and heating systems in much of Ukraine, as both countries target each other's energy infrastructure.

Zelensky said that he briefed Macron on the frontline situation and Russian losses.

“And, of course, we discussed how to strengthen our energy resilience. In the near future, Ukraine will receive generators from France. There will also be additional deliveries this year of French aircraft, missiles for air defence systems, and aerial bombs,” he said, thanking the French leader.

The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides of Russia's war on Ukraine could hit two million by the spring, a report has warned - with Russia suffering the largest number of troop deaths recorded for any major power in any conflict since the Second World War.

The study by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies revealed the slow, deadly grind of the conflict, and comes before the fourth anniversary of the Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

The report said Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025. "No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II,” the authors said.

It estimated that Ukraine, with its smaller army and population, had suffered between 500,000 to 600,000 military casualties, including up to 140,000 deaths.

A senior US envoy engaged in negotiations to end the war in Ukraine is not aware of the date when the invasion took place and that the war-hit nation does not have a vice-president, officials said.

Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and real estate developer-turned-peace envoy Steve Witkoff are helming the peace talks for the Trump administration.

Without naming which envoy made the blunder, an official involved in the talks told the Kyiv Independent that a US negotiator referred to the head of the president’s office, Kryrlo Budanov, as Ukraine’s vice president.

Ukraine does not have a vice president under its constitutional framework. The president, Volodymyr Zelensky at present, is the head of state. The authority is temporarily passed on to the chairperson of parliament if the president cannot perform duties.

The US official also did not know basic facts about the war. On being asked if the peace push from the Trump administration was aimed at ending the war by its fourth anniversary on 24 February, the US envoy said he was not aware of when the full-scale invasion began.

“I wasn't aware of what that anniversary date was," the envoy answered. "I don't think we feel pressure to because we have a four-year anniversary,” he said.

He also falsely claimed that Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine has lasted longer than the Second World War.

"I think it's the longest war now. It was longer than World War II. At this point, it's been going on."