Russia said on Saturday it had ​recalled its ambassador to Armenia for consultations in protest at its rapprochement with the European Union as a June 7 election nears.

Formally allied ⁠to Russia, the Caucasus nation of around three million people has been deepening ties with the West in recent years despite its economic dependence on Moscow.

"The Ambassador ⁠of the Russian Federation ​to the ⁠Republic of Armenia, S.P. Kopyrkin, has been recalled to Moscow for consultations in connection with ⁠steps taken by the Armenian leadership toward rapprochement with ​the ⁠European Union," Russia's foreign ‌ministry said in a statement about envoy Sergei Kopyrkin. A Russian-led economic union of former Soviet republics also said ‌on Friday it would consider ‌suspending Armenia for seeking EU membership and called on Yerevan to hold a referendum.

Opinion polls for the June election show ⁠pro-Western prime minister Nikol Pashinyan's party running ahead of the pro-Russian opposition.

US president Donald Trump has endorsed Pashinyan, who swept to power in a 2018 revolution and was re-elected in 2021.

Armenia says Russia failed to protect it during fighting with neighbouring Azerbaijan, with ‌which it was long at odds over Nagorno-Karabakh, ​a formerly breakaway region that had an ethnic ‌Armenian population which ⁠Azerbaijan retook in 2023.

Russia says Western countries ⁠are meddling in Armenia in order to weaken Russian influence in ‌the former Soviet ​Union.

There was no immediate ‌response from Armenia to ​the Russian envoy's recall.

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk responded to a Russia’s drone strike over Romania on Friday.

In a post on social media on Saturday, he called on Nato to take the words of deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council seriously when he implied that the EU countries could face provocation.

“Poland, Baltic states, now Romania. More and more Russian provocations. Yesterday the former president @MedvedevRussiaE said that the peaceful sleep of the EU citizens is over.

“Everyone in NATO should finally start taking these facts and words seriously”

Russia expects to run at least $28bn over budget on its Ukraine war spending this year as advances slow and Kyiv gathers momentum with strikes across the border.

A letter from finance minister Anton Siluanov in February urged the cabinet to freeze around ₽2.9 trillion Russian roubles ($40.8bn) in planned non-war-related spending this year, warning that the ₽2trn overspend could rise to as much as ₽4trn in a “negative scenario”, according to the Financial Times.

Mr Siluanov also anticipated that Russia would overspend on the war by a further ₽4trn in 2027 and 2028.

Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone strike killed two people travelling in a car in the Belgorod border region early on Saturday.

Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the drone hit a vehicle in the village of Nikolskoye, south of the regional capital, killing two passengers instantly and injuring two others. Emergency services were dispatched to the scene.

The region, which borders northeastern Ukraine, has faced repeated shelling and drone strikes since the start of the war because of its proximity to the frontline.

Kyiv has not publicly commented on the reported attack.

Russia has repeatedly accused Ukraine of targeting civilian areas in the region, while Kyiv says strikes inside Russian territory are aimed at military and logistics infrastructure supporting Moscow’s invasion.

Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Friday that Russia was preparing a “massive” new strike against Ukraine as Kyiv renewed calls for western allies to accelerate deliveries of Patriot air defence systems.

In a Telegram post and later video address, the Ukrainian president said intelligence assessments indicated Moscow was preparing intensified attacks in the coming days. “We understand what Russia is preparing for and what it is counting on,” Zelensky said, urging Ukrainians not to ignore air raid alerts.

Zelensky also defended Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russian infrastructure, saying Kyiv would continue targeting Russia’s logistics networks and oil industry to weaken its war effort. “We are defending ourselves actively,” he said. “Everything that makes it harder for Russia to wage war helps bring peace closer.”

He added that Ukraine was working “with all partners” to strengthen air defences amid escalating Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities.

Vladimir Putin has questioned whether a drone that struck an apartment building in Romania was Russian, despite Romanian authorities and Nato attributing the incident to Moscow.

The strike hit a residential building in the border city of Galați on Thursday during a wider Russian attack near the Danube, injuring two people and prompting Bucharest to summon Russia’s ambassador.

Speaking on Friday, Putin said it was “too early” to determine the drone’s origin and suggested it could have been Ukrainian instead. “Who said this was a Russian drone? Has anyone conducted an examination?” he said, adding that Russia was willing to jointly analyse the debris with Romania.

Putin compared the incident to previous cases in Poland and the Baltic states where, he claimed: “The first reaction is always the same: ‘The Russians are coming.’”

Putin also criticised European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen for accusing Russia of crossing “another line” with the strike, while Nato chief Mark Rutte said the alliance would defend “every inch” of its territory.