Russian president Vladimir Putin has refused to directly engage with his counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in any upcoming talks to end the war in Ukraine.
Mr Putin, who has spent 25 years in power in Russia, claimed to take issue with the fact that Mr Zelensky has been unable to hold elections since Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
In response, Mr Zelensky said the Russian leader’s statements showed he was afraid of talks and sought to keep the conflict going indefinitely.
On the war front, more than a hundred drones targeted Russian oil facilities, including a nuclear power plant, in a major Ukrainian attack this morning, Russian officials said. The Russian defence ministry said that 104 drones were involved in raids across western Russia, 11 of which were destroyed over the Smolensk region.
This comes as North Korea is set to send more than 100 artillery systems to be used against Ukraine’s forces in the war, officials in Kyiv said.
A close ally of Russia, North Korea is about to double the number of artillery systems it has deployed to Russia’s Kursk region, said Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief.
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