Efforts to resume peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have once again hit a deadlock, as fresh military strikes on both sides have undermined diplomatic momentum.
Ukraine accuses Russia of attempting to use the attacks as leverage in negotiations, while the Kremlin maintains it is responding to ongoing provocations and protecting its national interests.
Senior officials from the UK, US, France, Germany and Ukraine — though without representation from top diplomats — gathered in London on Wednesday to discuss peace negotiations between Moscow and Kiev.
In the latest attacks on Ukraine’s capital Kiev, Russian strikes killed at least nine people and wounded more than 80 — one of the deadliest attacks on the capital in the three-year war.
The Ukrainian State Emergency Service said the attack also damaged residential buildings.
Russia has accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of undermining the consultations in London by showing he was prepared to torpedo the peace process at any cost.
Zelensky returns from South Africa trip
An attack on Kiev prompted President Zelenskyy to cut short his visit to South Africa and urgently return home.
"I am cancelling part of the programme for this visit and will return to Ukraine immediately after the meeting with the President of South Africa," Zelensky, who arrived in the country hours earlier, said on social media.
His first visit to Africa comes just weeks after South Africa, for the first time, supported a UN General Assembly resolution criticising Russia for the war.
South Africa, which has close ties with Russia through BRICS, was sanctioned by the Trump administration over domestic land reform policies.
US presses Ukraine for minerals deal
US President Donald Trump has told reporters at the White House that he believes he has a deal with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to settle the war in Ukraine.
However, he also implied on Wednesday that a deal with Zelenskyy remains elusive, adding that the Ukrainian leader has been more difficult to deal with than Putin.
Separately, Vice President JD Vance warned that the US would "walk away" unless Russia and Ukraine agree to a peace deal, as envoys from Washington, Kiev, and European nations gathered for downgraded talks in Britain.
"We've issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it's time for them to either say 'yes', or for the United States to walk away from this process," Vance told reporters in India on Wednesday.
"That means the Ukrainians and the Russians are both going to have to give up some of the territory they currently own," he added.
US Treasury chief Scott Bessent told Ukraine's PM Denys Shmyhal during a meeting in Washington on Wednesday that the two countries should sign a key resource extraction deal "as soon as possible."
Ukraine remains firm on its territorial integrity and sovereignty, despite speculation about conceding Crimea to Russia.
Russia, for its part, has blamed Zelenskyy for expressing a willingness to discuss a ceasefire only on his own terms, while accusing European “hawks” of encouraging the Ukrainian president to continue the war regardless of the casualties.
Right to use of nuclear weapons
As the talks falter and the US threatens to walk away from the negotiation table, Moscow's top security official, Sergei Shoigu, said on Thursday that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons if it faces aggression from Western countries, according to the TASS news agency.
Shoigu, who served for over a decade as Russia's defense minister before being appointed to head its powerful Security Council in a government reshuffle last year, cited amendments to Moscow's nuclear doctrine approved by President Vladimir Putin last November.
Under the new terms, Russia could consider a nuclear strike in response to a conventional attack on Russia or its ally Belarus that "created a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) their territorial integrity."
"...in the event of foreign states committing unfriendly actions that pose a threat to the sovereignty and territory integrity of the Russian Federation, our country considers it legitimate to take symmetric and asymmetric measures necessary to suppress such actions and prevent their recurrence," Shoigu said.
