Ukraine’s justice and energy ministers submitted their resignations amid a high profile corruption scandal.

Anti-corruption watchdogs, which president Zelensky had tried to weaken earlier this year, revealed the findings of a 15-month investigation, resulting in the detention of five people, and another seven linked to about $100m in kickbacks in the energy sector.

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The foreign assets of Russian oil major Lukoil are attracting potential bidders from Egypt to Kazakhstan as time runs out to clear deals before US authorities enforce sanctions.

The US has hit Lukoil with sanctions as part of its effort to bring the Kremlin to peace talks over Ukraine, and has already blocked Lukoil's attempt to sell foreign assets to trader Gunvor ahead of the 21 November sanctions deadline.

The sanctions have also already disrupted Lukoil's operations in Iraq, at pump stations in Finland and a refinery in Bulgaria.

As its empire creaks, governments and partners are hoping to snap up its foreign assets on the cheap.

Washington late last month hit Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia's two biggest oil companies, with sanctions in a move underlining Washington's intent to squeeze Russia financially and force it towards a peace deal that would end the war on Ukraine.

Ukraine's top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, told the New York Post that Russia was concentrating some 150,000 troops on a drive to capture the town, which is much prized by Russia.

Kupiansk is on Russia’s route towards Kharkiv. The other two control the eastern and southern routes to the last remaining Ukrainian redoubts in Donetsk – Kramatorsk and Slaviansk.

Vladimir Putin has thrown a massive effort into the fight for Donetsk, which Moscow has already illegally “annexed”.

The Russian army overran three settlements in the southern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, Kyiv's top military commander said in the latest battlefield update yesterday, as Moscow's forces expand their efforts to capture more Ukrainian territory.

Dense fog enabled Russian troops to infiltrate Ukrainian positions in Zaporizhzhia, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote on the messaging app Telegram, adding that Ukrainian units are locked in "grueling battles" to repel the Russian thrust.

He noted, however, that the fiercest battles are still in the besieged Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, in the eastern Donetsk region, where close to half of all front-line clashes took place over the previous 24 hours.

The cities of Kupiansk and Lyman in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region have also recently witnessed an uptick in combat.

Russia's air defence units destroyed and intercepted 130 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russian regions, the country’s defence ministry said in an early morning update.

Of these, at least one drone targeted Moscow and seven targeted Crimea, the defence ministry said.

Russia does not disclose the total number of drones used in attacks to target its various cities.

The Kremlin said there had been contact between Britain's national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, and Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov but that the dialogue did not work out.

The Financial Times reported that Powell had tried to open up a back channel to the Kremlin because Britain and its European allies feared the administration of US president Donald Trump could sideline their interests over Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Britain had shown no desire to listen to Russia's position on the Ukraine conflict.

“There were indeed contacts," Peskov said. "A dialogue took place, but it did not continue."

He did not say when the conversation took place.

“During this contact there was an acute desire of the interlocutor to talk about the position of the Europeans and there was a lack of any intention or desire to listen to our position,” Peskov said.

“Given the impossibility of exchanging views, the mutual dialogue has not developed,” he said.

Two Ukrainian ministers have resigned from their positions in the Kyiv government after a £76m energy sector corruption scandal linked to a key ally of president Volodymyr Zelensky broke out.

Justice minister German Galushchenko and the energy minister Svitlana Hrynchuk quit yesterday after Mr Zelensky called for their dismissal.

The president said that he supported anti-graft agencies in their investigation into energy sector corruption.

"First of all, there should be maximum transparency in the energy sector, in all processes absolutely," Zelensky said in a video address. "It is very difficult for everyone in Ukraine now. It is absolutely abnormal that there are still some schemes in the energy sector,” he said.

Justice minister Galushchenko earlier said on Facebook he supported his suspension as "a civilised and appropriate scenario" and vowed to defend himself, without sharing more details of the probe.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said he hoped Washington would take no actions liable to escalate the Ukraine conflict.

Lavrov said US president Donald Trump had long advocated dialogue with Russia, had sought to fully understand the Russian position on Ukraine and "demonstrated a commitment to finding a sustainable peaceful solution".

"We are counting on common sense and that the maintaining of that position will prevail in Washington and that they will refrain from actions that could escalate the conflict to a new level," Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency TASS.

The Russian minister did not acknowledge Moscow’s role in increasingly attacking Ukraine in its winter offensive.

Lavrov's comments were originally part of an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera. Tass said the Italian daily had declined to publish the interview.

Lavrov said Trump had acknowledged that one of the reasons behind Russia's actions was enlargement of the Nato alliance and the deployment of its infrastructure close to its border.

"In essence, that is what Russian president Vladimir Putin and Russia have been warning about for the last 20 years," Lavrov was quoted as saying.

The Institute for the Study of War said Russia's siege of Pokrovsk, where it has deployed elite drone operators and "spetsnaz" special forces soldiers, has been slow-moving because its military commanders are spreading their resources widely.

Russia is pursuing several offensive operations across the theater simultaneously and is having difficulty extending logistical operations, the Washington-based think tank said late Tuesday.

Russia's corrosive war of attrition has been costly in terms of casualties and armour, however, and Ukraine has held it to incremental battlefield gains.