Aiming to create a "buffer zone," Russian forces have seized villages near Sumy, Ukraine’s northern regional capital. As 50,000 Russian troops accumulate on Ukraine’s border, the Sumy region prepares for a renewed large-scale offensive. More than 200 settlements are under evacuation orders after Russia advanced deeper into Ukrainian territory.

A Ukrainian official says a Russian missile hit a front-line region in Ukraine, killing a child and injuring another.

Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine on Saturday killed at least two people, including a 9-year-old girl, officials said, as uncertainty remains about whether Kyiv diplomats will attend a new round of peace talks proposed by Moscow for early next week in Istanbul.

Russia dramatically intensified missile and drone attacks across Ukraine this month in an effort to sap Ukrainians’ morale – but it is also stepping up ground attacks in many areas along the long frontline,

Zaur Gurtsiev, a retired Russian commander who led airstrikes on the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol died in a blast Thursday in Russia, authorities said.

The European Union should revisit the question of how hundreds of billions of euros in frozen Russian assets can be used to finance Ukraine, a top German official said.

A bipartisan pair of US senators met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Friday and urged stronger sanctions against Russia, while uncertainty swirls over whether the next round of peace talks will move ahead in the coming days.

“Russia has one of the lowest projected long-term growth rates and one of the highest levels of country risk in the world,” says Heli Simola, senior economist at the Bank of Finland in a blog post. “Only Belarus offers an equally lousy combination of growth and risk.”