The Russian leader, who is attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) forum in China's Tianjin City, said he would discuss the Alaska meeting with leaders attending the summit.

The plane landed safely at Plovdiv International Airport in the country’s south-central region on Monday.

The commission's spokesperson Arianna Podestà said that Ms Von der Leyen would continue her planned tour of the seven European Union nations bordering Russia and Belarus.

“We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming,” Ms Podestà said.

The plane landed safely at Plovdiv International Airport in the country’s south-central region on Monday.

The commission's spokesperson Arianna Podestà said that Ms Von der Leyen would continue her planned tour of the seven European Union nations bordering Russia and Belarus.

“We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming,” Ms Podestà said.

“We have received information from the Bulgarian authority that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia.”

Russian president Vladimir Putin dangled the prospect of peace in Ukraine when he met with his US counterpart Donald Trump in Alaska’s Anchorage last month.

The two met on 15 August, but did not agree a ceasefire. Instead, it was Trump who changed his tune – adopting the Russian line that a ceasefire wasn't necessary, and only a full peace agreement could end the war.

In the weeks that followed, Russia has significantly amped up its missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, a development Trump's treasury secretary Scott Bessent has called "despicable".

This graph from the Institute for the Study of War shows the spike in Russian attacks after the summit between Putin and Trump.

That period includes three overnight bombardments that involved 500 or more drones plus missiles, and one of the most devastating air raids on Kyiv since the war began.

China's Xi Jinping is set to convene today with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for their first trilateral gathering, while Donald Trump and other Western leaders watch from afar.

Kim and Putin will join the Chinese president to watch the massive military parade tomorrow in Beijing to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and China's fight against Japan's wartime aggressions.

North Korea’s Kim crossed into China in the early hours today aboard his special train, en route to the capital Beijing. Xi and Putin, meanwhile, gathered at the Great Hall of the People for a meeting with Mongolia's leader expected to touch on a vast gas pipeline project and bilateral talks.

In the talks, Putin thanked his "dear friend" Xi for the warm welcome and said the close communication showed Russia's relations with China were at an "unprecedentedly high level", according to a video posted on the Kremlin's official Telegram messaging app.

"We must continue to take a clear stand against hegemonism and power politics," Xi told a gathering of more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries at a summit yesterday, in a thinly veiled swipe at his geopolitical rival across the Pacific Ocean.

The gathering of what Western analysts have dubbed the 'Axis of Upheaval' could build on a mutual defence pact signed by Russia and North Korea in June 2024, and a similar alliance between Beijing and Pyongyang, an outcome that may alter the military calculus in the Asia-Pacific region.

The union of the three leaders, two of whom are rendered global pariahs over their war efforts, underscore the Chinese president's influence over authoritarian regimes intent on redefining the Western-led global order, while Trump's isolationist stance strains long-standing US alliances.

The internal affairs minister, Ihor Klymenko, said the suspect was detained in the western Khmelnytskyi region within 36 hours of the shooting, with the help of dozens of Lviv and national police officers and Security Service of Ukraine employees.

Pupils across Ukraine returned to school on Monday, embarking on a new academic year under the shadow of Russia’s ongoing invasion, with many lessons now taking place underground.

Since the war began in February 2022, schools have innovated to keep education alive.

In Bobryk, a village in the northern Sumy region, close to the front line, one school moved its classrooms into a basement two years ago.

This drastic step was taken as air raid alerts could stretch for up to 20 hours, paralysing surface-level classes.

Principal Oleksii Korenivskyi emphasised the critical importance of their work, stating: "We must do everything so this generation is not lost. Time is the only thing you cannot make up.

“This is our future, and we must give it everything we have."

A civilian has been killed as a result of an overnight Russian airstrike on the city of Bila Tserkva in the Kyiv region, local officials said this morning.

"A body of a man was discovered while firefighters were putting out a fire at a garage complex that got on fire as a result of the attack," said Mykola Kalashnyk, regional governor, on his Telegram channel.

"Damage has been reported across multiple parts of the city. Windows in several multi-storey residential buildings were shattered, and fires broke out in (several) areas,” he said.

More than 300 people were evacuated from their apartments overnight following a Ukrainian drone attack on the Rostov region, Yuri Slyusar, the governor of the southern Russia region, said this morning.

"An unexploded (drone) shell was discovered in one of the apartments," Slyusar said on his official Telegram channel.

"As a precaution, 320 residents of the building are being evacuated," he said.

He said that the attack damaged several apartment buildings and sparked small fires in the region. Three people, including a child, were lightly injured, Slyusar said.