Vladimir Putin has said Russia will use all weapons at his disposal if it considers it has come under direct attack in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad. Addressing the Valdai foreign policy forum, Putin insisted Russia was not threatening anyone and merely responding to statements by Western leaders that Moscow was preparing for war in 2029 or 2030. Throughout this week, Russia has accused Nato of preparing to blockade its territory, which borders Lithuania and Poland, warning that it would even be prepared to use nuclear weapons if the West tried to cut off Kaliningrad from the rest of Russia. Nato has sought to calm the situation, stressing it is a defensive alliance and urging Moscow to stop its nuclear threats. Western allies have faced a surge in so-called hybrid warfare incidents blamed on Russia, particularly in Poland and the Baltics in recent months.

Russia's State Duma elections will be held in occupied territories of Ukraine including Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia without OSCE election observers.

Is the war entering a new phase? Russia's parliamentary election: Who's on the ballot, and why it matters Share Russia's parliamentary election: Who's on the ballot, and why it matters on social media Russians head to the polls from Friday to Sunday to elect members of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament, in the first parliamentary election to be held since the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The vote comes as Russians face a slowing economy as well as Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries and warehouses far from the front line. United Russia, the governing party that backs President Vladimir Putin, is expected to keep its dominant position. The authorities are presenting the election as a chance for voters to have their say.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with the governor of Novgorod region in Moscow on Monday. When Russian President Vladimir Putin imposed harsh censorship laws in the wake of his 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a major Russian publishing house took drastic action. Faced with trawling through the thousands of volumes it had published over the previous 20 years in light of the new restrictive criteria, the Eksmo-AST group trained an artificial intelligence agent to highlight books and passages that risked falling foul of the law so they could be removed from bookshelves. The publisher conducted some 20,000 checks, and 600 volumes were handed over to external experts for additional reviews, Oleg Novikov, the group's president, told Russian state television. "We're here on the frontier of technological progress," he said.

Is the war entering a new phase? Several civilians have been killed and more than 20 others wounded overnight as Russia and Ukraine continue to attack each other with waves of drones to try to shift momentum in the more than four-year-long war. Russia launched 863 drones at Ukraine over the last 24 hours, the Ukrainian General Staff said on Sunday. Russian forces shot down 389 Ukrainian drones during the night, the country's Ministry of Defence said, including over Tatarstan, other Russian regions, and the occupied Crimean Peninsula. Russia carried out two drone attacks near Ukraine's border with NATO member Poland, Polish and Ukrainian officials said.

Is the war entering a new phase? Russia has struck Kyiv after a three-day pause in attacks on the Ukrainian and Russian capitals expired, following a visit by two US envoys that yielded no tangible progress towards peace. Two residential buildings were damaged by Russian air raids early on Tuesday, city officials in Kyiv said. Drones hit buildings in the capital city as well as in the Boryspil and Fastiv districts on the outskirts of Kyiv, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine. An air raid alert, published by the Kyiv city military administration, urged residents to take shelter due to the threat of an "enemy" drone attack.

The talks in Kyiv were rich in symbolism. The fact they had to travel by train because they could not risk flying and running the gauntlet of Russian drones - weapons launched on the orders of the man at whose table they sat in the Kremlin only hours ago. The symbolism of Ukrainian President Zelensky greeting Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner at Kyiv's Saint Sophia Cathedral, not only an icon of Ukraine's ancient history, but also just a few yards from where Russian drones hit the headquarters of the country's security services on Friday. You did not have to join too many dots to work out the point Zelensky was making. Both sides held talks for several hours; they were later joined by some European national security advisers, including the UK's National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell.

Is the war entering a new phase? US envoys meet Putin: What's behind latest diplomacy on Russia-Ukraine war? Share US envoys meet Putin: What's behind latest diplomacy on Russia-Ukraine war? on social media US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have held talks with President Vladmir Putin in Moscow, in what appears to be new efforts by the Trump administration to end the Russia-Ukraine war. US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the envoys were bringing "a proposal to end the war" - Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II - and a senior Russian official said it was an "important peacemaking visit". Both Moscow and Kyiv announced a three-day ceasefire to coincide with the latest trip.

Trump's peace envoys to visit Moscow and Kyiv over weekend Image caption, Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, and Witkoff have visited Russia multiple times - but are yet to hold talks in Ukraine US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will visit Russia and Ukraine this weekend, as efforts to end the war appear to be gathering pace. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed he will meet with the envoys on Sunday, after they visit Moscow on Saturday to hold talks with meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Witkoff and Kushner have led US President Donald Trump's efforts to broker a peace deal, but a gulf remains between the two warring sides. Earlier on Friday, Zelensky said a Russian drone hit the office of Ukraine's security chief Oleksandr Poklad in Kyiv. Poklad appears to be unharmed.