Since last sitting down with Ukraine to talk peace, Russia has launched four of its five largest drone attacks against the country, killed more than 340 of its civilians and continued to peddle its false narrative about the unprovoked war it has been waging for more than a decade.

Trump administration in talks with Capitol Hill to amend the Graham-Blumenthal legislation imposing sweeping sanctions on Russia, including 500% tariffs on countries doing business with Moscow.

Ukrainian and Russian delegations met again in Istanbul on Monday to take part in the next round of U.S.-brokered peace talks.

Ukraine’s security service released footage Wednesday of its attack on Russian war planes at multiple airbases across the country. In the span of a few hours on Sunday, nearly a third of Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet was destroyed or damaged with cheaply made drones sneaked into Russian territory, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukraine reviews Russia's ceasefire terms after failed talks. Zelenskyy emphasizes no rewards for Putin and highlights NATO's importance in curbing Russian aggression.

Russian and Ukrainian delegates met in Istanbul on Monday for their second set of direct peace talks, a day after Kyiv launched a shock drone attack on Russia’s nuclear-capable bombers, in an operation that President Volodymyr Zelensky said was a year and a half in the making.

Russian and Ukrainian officials are due to hold peace talks in Istanbul with no sign they are any closer to an agreement.

U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs may have put an end to the Bank of Japan's rate-hike cycle, with the chance of further interest rate increases fading fast due to the expected hit to exports, former BOJ policymaker Takako Masai said on Thursday.

It was already hard to imagine a breakthrough emerging from the direct talks between Russia and Ukraine set to be renewed in Istanbul on Monday.

It restated Moscow's demands that Ukraine become a neutral country - ruling out membership of NATO - and that it protect the rights of Russian speakers, make Russian an official language and enact a legal ban on glorification of Nazism. Ukraine rejects the Nazi charge as absurd and denies discriminating against Russian speakers.