Ukraine-Russia war live: Trump finally agrees to meet Zelensky as Romania scrambles jets against Russia drone

Ukrainian air defence units shot down at least five drones outside Kyiv and explosions resounded in the city early today, Reuters reported.

Air raid alerts remained in effect in Kyiv and throughout most of central Ukraine.

“Russia has sent waves of suicide drones and attacked Kyiv for the last five hours. Explosions reverberating across the city with Ukrainian air defence clearly audible. The city hasn’t gotten much sleep tonight,” said Christopher Miller, FT’s correspondent in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has called a plan by Volodymyr Zelensky to force Russia to make peace a “fatal mistake” that would have consequences for Kyiv.

In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Such a position is a fatal mistake, a systemic mistake. This is a profound misconception that will inevitably have consequences for the Kyiv regime.”

Peskov said that Russia wants peace, but the issue cannot be forced, adding: “A position based on an attempt to force Russia into peace is an absolutely fatal mistake, because it is impossible to force Russia into peace.”

He said: “Russia is a supporter of peace, but on the condition that the foundations of its security are ensured.”

Zelensky told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday that the war between Russia and Ukraine could not be calmed by talks alone and that Moscow must be forced into peace.

Russia says its forces have captured two more villages in Ukraine and were attacking in the town of Vuhledar, a longtime Ukrainian stronghold. The reports have been denied by Ukrainian officials in the region.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had taken the villages of Hostre and Hryhorivka. The Russia-installed head of Donetsk Denis Pushilin said fighting was taking place inside Vuhledar, which had a pre-war population of 14,000.

However, Ukraine army’s General Staff said there had been eight armed clashes in the Vuhledar area. “Seven enemy assaults were stopped near Vuhledar and Vodiane,” it said in late night report referring to another nearby village. “One battle is still going on. The situation is under the control of Ukraine’s defence forces.”

It made no mention of the two villages Russian officials said their forces had captured further north, but reported 23 clashes in that sector.

Vadym Filashkin, the Ukrainian governor of the region, said Russia’s troops had not reached the outskirts of Vuhledar but it’s reconnaissance groups were operating there. “Our defenders are trying to knock them out. The town has not been captured,” he said in televised comments.

Russia has a weapons programme in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in the war against Ukraine, two sources from a European intelligence agency and documents reviewed by Reuters confirm.

IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey, has developed and flight-tested a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3) in China with the help of local specialists, according to one of the documents, a report that Kupol sent to the Russian defence ministry earlier this year outlining its work.

Kupol told the defence ministry in a subsequent update that it was able to produce drones including the G3 at scale at a factory in China so the weapons could be deployed in the “special military operation” in Ukraine, the term Moscow uses for the war.

The G3 drones can travel about 2,000km (1,200 miles) with a payload of 50kg (110 pounds), according to the reports to the Russian defence ministry from Kupol.

Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based defence think-tank, said the delivery of UAVs from China to Russia, if confirmed, would be a significant development.

“If you look at what China is known to have delivered so far, it was mostly dual-use goods - it was components, sub-components, that could be used in weapon systems,” he told Reuters. “This is what has been reported so far. But what we haven’t really seen, at least in the open source, are documented transfers of whole weapon systems.”

Kupol, Almaz-Antey and the Russian defence ministry have not issued a response to the reports.

Vladimir Putin has lowered the bar for Russia to respond with a nuclear attack, amid ongoing discussions in Washington over Ukraine’s use of Western-provided long-range weapons.

The Russian president has said any conventional attack on Moscow that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country.

Putin claimed that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if Moscow received “reliable information” about the start of a massive launch of missiles, aircraft or drones against it.

Speaking at a meeting of Russia’s Security Council, which considers changes in Russia’s nuclear doctrine, Mr Putin announced that a revised version of the document says that an attack against Russia by a non-nuclear power with the support of a nuclear power will be seen as their “joint attack on the Russian Federation”.

The threat aims to discourage the West from allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with longer-range weapons and appears to significantly lower the threshold for the possible use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.