President Joe Biden quietly has authorised Kyiv to launch US-supplied weapons at military targets inside Russia that are supporting an offensive against the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, four US officials said on Thursday

Ukraine’s military intelligence service said yesterday its forces had used naval drones to destroy two Russian patrol boats off Moscow-annexed Crimea.

Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday that if US President Joe Biden missed a peace summit organised by Kyiv in Switzerland next month, it would be like a standing ovation for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A Russian strike on a crowded DIY hardware store in Kharkiv killed 16 people and wounded dozens more, Ukrainian prosecutors said yesterday morning, the death toll rising as the country’s second-largest city reeled from two attacks a day earlier.

Russian forces have become “bogged down” trying to capture the Ukrainian border town of Vovchansk but have intensified their offensive elsewhere on the eastern front, Ukraine’s top general said yesterday.

Russia pounded Kharkiv with missiles yesterday, killing seven people inside a printing house, and President Volodymyr Zelensky chided Ukraine’s western allies for not providing enough military support to rebuff Russian attacks.

The deputy head of the Russian army's General Staff has been accused of taking bribes and arrested, investigators said on Thursday, the latest in a slew of high-profile cases of alleged corruption to shake the military's top brass

Ukraine attacked a number of villages in Russia’s Belgorod border region and the occupied eastern city of Lysychansk yesterday, killing two people, authorities and Russian media said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an exclusive interview with AFP on Friday he expects Russia to step up its offensive in the northeast and warned Kyiv only has a quarter of the air defences it needs to hold the front line

President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that Russian forces advancing in Ukraine’s northeast were carving out a buffer zone to protect Russia from attacks and said the West was “sick in the head” if it thought it could dictate terms to Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Thursday with counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing as he seeks greater support from China for his war effort in Ukraine and his isolated economy

Russia has launched a cross-border ground offensive into Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region and fighting there is ongoing, the Ukrainian defence ministry and a high-ranking military source said yesterday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday fired the head of the department responsible for his personal protection after two of its officers were detained this week over an alleged assassination plot

Ukraine said yesterday it had unravelled a Russian plot to assassinate senior Ukrainian political and military figures, including President Volodymyr Zelensky.

President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to hold nuclear weapons drills involving the navy and troops based near Ukraine, the defence ministry said today

Russia said yesterday its armed forces had seized the village of Ocheretyne in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the latest in a string of small territorial gains for Moscow.

Ukraine said yesterday it had foiled 55 Russian attacks in the eastern Donetsk region, a day after it admitted to a worsening situation on the front line.

Ukraine and Russia both accused each other of deadly strikes on civilians yesterday, as US lawmakers prepared to vote on a $61 billion aid package Kyiv hopes will boost its flagging war effort.

The US House of Representatives on Saturday with broad bipartisan support passed a $95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from Republican hardliners.

A Ukrainian attack on a military airfield in Russian-occupied Crimea on Wednesday seriously damaged four missile launchers, three radar stations and other equipment, Ukraine’s military spy agency said yesterday.