Russia attacked a Ukrainian energy facility in the southern Odesa region overnight, leaving 51,800 households without power.

Energy workers are working to restore the electricity as soon as possible, energy company DTEK said in a statement on Telegram.

New drone footage shows a devastated Ukrainian town nearly encircled by Russian forces near the city that Moscow this week claimed to now control.

Some destruction is so fresh that smoke was still rising in the footage shot in the past few days.

“They are trying to simply erase the (town) from the face of the earth,” said Oleksii Hodzenko, press officer of the drone battalion of the 38th Marine Brigade, whose soldiers were still fighting inside Myrnohrad Wednesday.

Senior Ukrainian and European officials have accused Russia of not pursuing "any kind of peace" and wasting the world’s time.

Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper said the Russian president Vladimir Putin "should end the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace".

Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha called on the Russian leader to "stop wasting the world's time".

“Russia must end the bloodshed it has started. If this doesn’t happen and Putin just spits into the world’s face once again, there must be consequences. Russia must stop wasting the world’s time, which must be the time for peace,” he said.

Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsahkna said Putin "has not changed course", adding: "It's pretty obvious that he doesn't want to have any kind of peace."

French president Emmanuel Macron urged Chinese leader Xi Jinping to cooperate more closely on geopolitics, trade and the environment, as the European Union seeks China's help to end the war in Ukraine.

"Now, more than ever, dialogue between China and France is vital," Macron told his host during their meeting at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.

"I propose a positive three-fold agenda for our relations, one of geopolitical stability, of economic rebalancing, and of environmental sustainability,” he said.

"We have to continue to rally in favour of peace and stability in the world," he added, referring to the conflict in Ukraine. "Our ability to work together is decisive."

Additionally, Xi told Macron that China remained committed to promoting peace in Ukraine and Gaza.

Turkey is telling Russia, Ukraine, and all other parties to keep energy infrastructure out of their conflict and wants energy flows to continue uninterrupted, energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar said after a series of attacks off Turkey's Black Sea coast.

Ukraine, which is targeting Russia's oil exports as Moscow bombards its power grid, has taken responsibility for an attack by sea borne drones on two empty tankers heading towards a Russian port last week.

But it denied any link to another incident on Tuesday in which a Russian-flagged tanker loaded with sunflower oil said it had come under drone attack.

"Hopefully, this horrible war will end. But as of today also, we say to all the parties - Russia and Ukraine - to keep the energy infrastructure out of this war," Bayraktar told journalists in embargoed comments.

"We need to keep the energy flows uninterrupted," he said, adding that routes like the Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline should be kept safe.

Sir Keir Starmer said Vladimir Putin "is dragging his feet, not wanting to come to the table, not wanting to reach an agreement".

Conservative MP for Harwich and North Essex Sir Bernard Jenkin asked the prime minister at Prime Minister's Questions: "Could the Prime Minister give his assessment of the latest news that President Putin has again turned down terms for peace in Ukraine, and in the light of his extraordinary outburst designed to destabilise our understanding of the truth, he did say Russia is ready for war with Nato. How ready are we?"

Sir Keir said: "Can I thank him for raising this and I updated the House last week on the attempts to get a lasting peace. We all know that Putin is the aggressor here.

"We all know that Putin is dragging his feet, not wanting to come to the table, not wanting to reach an agreement.

"We have to continue to put pressure on in every conceivable way. That is in supporting Ukraine with capability and resource, but also ensuring that our sanctions, acting with allies, do as much damage to the economy in Russia as we can, and pressure that we can put on, will continue to do so, but he's absolutely right to raise it. I thank him for doing so."

Vladimir Putin begins his first trip to India in four years today.

Putin is scheduled to arrive on the state visit and hold talks with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi tomorrow. They are expected to review progress on bilateral ties, discuss issues of mutual interest and sign interdepartmental and business agreements, both governments said.

India has continued to buy discounted Russian oil, despite warnings from Washington that this is partly keeping Moscow’s revenues afloat to fund the Ukraine war. US president Donald Trump has imposed additional 25 per cent tariffs on Indian imports, raising the total duties to 50 per cent, in retaliation.

His visit comes at a critical time as Washington presses the South Asian nation to curb energy purchases from Russia. The Russian leader will be accompanied by executives from major firms, including Sberbank.

Russia and India aim to lift bilateral trade to $100bn. Russia's central bank said on Wednesday it had opened an office in Mumbai "to advance the interests of the Russian financial sector."

The Kremlin has denied that Vladimir Putin rejected a peace deal brokered by the United States, but even Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s emissaries, could draw no other conclusion after five hours of talks with the Russian president.

Mr Witkoff, the US president’s special envoy, and Mr Kushner, his son-in-law and an informal architect of the Gaza peace plan, reflect their president’s desperation to do a deal. Yet even after these stooges talked to Putin from 7pm until midnight, all that a Kremlin spokesperson would say was that the meeting was “useful, constructive and meaningful”, but that “we are no closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine, and there is much work to do”.

Britain and Germany are united in support of Ukraine, said King Charles, with the two nations ready to “bolster Europe against the threat of further Russian agression”.

Addressing the German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier during a state banquet, the King said the two countries have a “deep friendship” rooted in trade, defence, and the “acknowledgement of past suffering”.

Charles spoke of the “darkest times” of the Second World War, and Mr Steinmeier said the ties between the nations had been “weaked by Brexit” - but both spoke of a strengthening relationship, with a new partnership deal signed in July.