A Russian state-backed messenger application called MAX, a rival to WhatsApp that critics say could be used to track users, must be pre-installed on all mobile phones and tablets from next month, the Russian government said on Thursday.

Trump is celebrating his White House summit as significant progress toward peace in Ukraine. Russia is celebrating something else.

Kyrgyzstan's President Sadyr Japarov appealed to the leaders of the United States and Britain on Thursday after London imposed sanctions on Kyrgyz crypto networks it said were being used by Russia to evade sanctions against Moscow.

Moscow has resisted a Putin-Zelensky summit and security guarantees for Ukraine. Trump’s claims that the Kremlin’s position has changed has left analysts puzzled.

Russia has yet again ignored Donald Trump’s bid to hold a summit between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky and said attempts to resolve security issues for Kyiv without Moscow’s participation was a “road to nowhere”.

Russia’s illegal seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 was quick and bloodless, and it sent Moscow’s relations with the West into a downward spiral unseen since the Cold War.

As Trump pushes for peace, Ukraine accuses Russia of a deadly drone and missile strike, "as if there were no efforts by the world to stop this war."

Moscow is preparing to raise taxes and cut spending as it tries to maintain high defence expenditure with Russia's economy creaking under the weight of financing the more than three-year war in Ukraine,