The Kremlin has welcomed a meeting with US president-elect Donald Trump just days after he claimed Vladimir Putin wanted to sit down with him.Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there could be progress on setting up the meeting after Trump is sworn in as US president on 20 January.

Ukraine launches a new offensive in Russia's Kursk region, raising questions about its strategic goals and potential impact on the war's trajectory and upcoming peace talks.

Russia said on Monday its forces had made important gains in eastern Ukraine while continuing to fend off a new Ukrainian offensive inside the Kursk region of western Russia, where a second day of fierce fighting was under way.

Russian military commentators say they are ‘worried’ about the multipronged Ukrainian attack in the border region of Kursk

Ukraine launched a fresh operation in Russia's southern Kursk region, Moscow said on Sunday, after Ukrainian officials and military bloggers reported new attacks from Kyiv in a region where Moscow is eager to reassert its grip.

Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014, as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, the precursor of Russia's invasion in 2022.

Russian forces continue to make costly but consistent gains in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. They are steadily grinding down a pocket of resistance around the town of Kurakhove and are also fighting to envelop the larger nearby city of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian soldiers and officials said.

Ukraine's fresh offensive in Kursk comes nearly six months after Kyiv first sent troops into the western Russian region.

A total of 144 combat clashes have occurred on the battlefield since the start of 9 January, with most of the fighting taking place on the Pokrovsk, Kursk and Kurakhove fronts. Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Facebook,

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that ceasing military support now “will only invite more aggression, chaos and war.”

Ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office, Ukraine’s future course is shrouded in uncertainty as it loses ground to Russia’s far larger military.