On Russian state TV a news bulletin shows images of a five-storey building reduced to rubble. Teams of rescuers are sifting through debris. On a severely damaged façade there's a sign: What happened here early on Friday has sparked Russian accusations, Ukrainian denials, an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council and vows of retribution by the Kremlin. The town of Starobilsk is in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine: in the Luhansk region which Moscow claims to have annexed. Russian officials accuse Ukraine of a carrying out a drone attack on the college dormitory.

Brutal raid on woman's birthday party highlights rise of Russian vigilante group Katya was about to blow out the candles on her 30th birthday cake when masked men burst into the nightclub hired for her party, and began physically and verbally attacking her friends. They called us faggots and lesbians. I could hear violence from every corner, she told a BBC World Service investigation. Her mother was told to get down on all fours, she says. The swoop was instigated by a vigilante group, called Russkaya Obshina, that wants to accelerate President Vladimir Putin's agenda to stamp out what he describes as Western liberalism, and promote traditional family-oriented values.

Could Ukraine hold a presidential election right now? Will Europe use frozen Russian assets to fund war? How can Ukraine rebuild China ties? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Trump spurns Kremlin's Putin residence attack claim, Russia kills 2 in Kyiv United States President Donald Trump has dismissed claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin's residence had been attacked by Ukraine as the war grinds on, saying he did not "believe that strike happened", after having initially accepted the Kremlin's version of events at face value. On Sunday night, Trump, on board Air Force One, told reporters that "nobody knew at that moment" whether a report about the alleged incident was accurate.

Is the fall of Pokrovsk inevitable? Is Trump losing patience with Putin? A Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Balakliia killed three people and wounded 10, including three children, a regional military official in the Kharkiv region said on Telegram on Monday. At least two people were killed and three were injured in Russian shelling of the Nikopol district in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, Vladyslav Haivanenko, the acting head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, wrote on Facebook. Russian troops captured three villages across three Ukrainian regions, the RIA news agency cited the Russian Ministry of Defence as saying on Monday.

Trump says he will meet Putin in Hungary for Ukraine talks after'very productive' call US President Donald Trump says great progress was made during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, with the pair agreeing to face-to-face talks in Hungary. He said the call, the first with Putin since mid-August, was very productive, adding that teams from Washington and Moscow will meet next week. Trump did not confirm a date for his meeting with Putin in Budapest. The Kremlin said work on the summit would begin immediately after the extremely frank and trustful call. The talks came a day before Ukraine's President Zelensky was to visit the White House, and with Trump weighing whether to arm Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles capable of striking deep into Russia.

India casts doubt on Trump's claim Modi will stop buying Russian oil India's foreign ministry has said it is not aware of a phone call in which US President Donald Trump claimed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi agreed to stop purchasing Russian oil. On Wednesday, Trump said his Indian counterpart had assured me today that it would end Russian oil imports, a move the US has pushed for in a bid to increase economic pressure on the Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine. But asked about the call on Thursday, an Indian government spokesman cast doubt on Trump's account, saying he was not aware of any conversation between the two leaders taking place the previous day. The Indian government had earlier said discussions were still ongoing with the US over its Russian oil purchases. India has become a key energy customer for Russia since the outbreak of the war, partly allowing the Kremlin to withstand the impact of Ukrainian allies slashing oil and gas imports, the country's biggest export market.

Ukraine intends to strike deep into Russia following a large Russian drone attack that left 60,000 Ukrainians without electricity, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said. Speaking on Sunday after a meeting with his top general, Oleksandr Syrskii, the Ukrainian president confirmed the new planned strikes on X. Both sides have intensified their air strikes in recent weeks, with Moscow attacking Ukraine's energy and transport systems as well as launching deadly strikes in recent days on civilian areas in Kyiv and Zaporizhia, and Ukraine targeting Russian oil refineries and pipelines. Overnight, Russian drones hit four energy facilities in Ukraine's Odesa region, according to the private energy company DTEK. The strikes left 29,000 people without electricity, local authorities reported.

Kyiv, Ukraine – There is a Persian word millions of Ukrainians fear. Shahed – also spelled as Shaheed or Shahid, originally a Quranic term for "martyr" or "witness" – is the name given to the triangular, explosives-laden, Iranian-designed drones that became a harrowing part of daily life and death in wartime Ukraine. These days, they are assembled in the Volga-region Russian city of Yelabuga and undergo constant modifications to make them faster, smarter and deadlier during each air raid that involves hundreds of drones. Their latest Russian versions shot down in Ukraine earlier this month have artificial intelligence modules to better recognise targets, video cameras and two-way radio communication with human operators. "The word'Shahed' will forever be cursed in Ukrainian next to'Moscow' and'Putin'," said Denys Kovalenko, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kovalenko's face and arms were cut by glass shards after a Shahed exploded above his northern Kyiv neighbourhood in 2023.

Russia mounted an intense missile and drone barrage of the Ukrainian capital overnight, killing four people, Ukrainian officials said, as powerful explosions reverberated across the city. The attack followed a warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin, conveyed via U.S. leader Donald Trump, that the Kremlin would hit back after Ukrainian drones destroyed several strategic bomber aircraft in attacks deep inside Russia. Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said 20 people were injured, 16 of them in hospital, in addition to the four deaths. The city's metro transport system was disrupted by a Russian strike that hit and damaged a train between stations, Kyiv's military administration said. In the Solomenskiy district, a Russian drone slammed into the side of apartment building, leaving a gaping hole and burn marks, a Reuters photographer at the scene said.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Finishing a cigarette with a final deep puff outside a hospital building in central Kyiv, a wounded Ukrainian drone operator sums up Russian President Vladimir Putin's readiness to end the Ukraine war along the current front lines. "Don't trust these leaks, the … vampire is just dragging the talks out," Arseny, a 31-year-old recovering from a cranial wound that left him blind in one eye, told Al Jazeera while standing near a blossoming apple tree. He referred to a Financial Times report on Tuesday that suggested that Putin could "relinquish" Moscow's claims on four partly-occupied Ukrainian regions. In September 2022, seven months after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, Moscow recognised the regions as part of Russia even though it did not fully control them – and began losing some occupied areas within weeks. In return for the Kremlin's concession, the US may recognise Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula Moscow annexed in 2014, as part of Russia, and "acknowledge" the Kremlin's de facto control over the four regions' occupied parts, the Financial Times claimed, citing officials familiar with the talks.