KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A senior Kremlin official said Friday that Russian police and National Guard will stay on in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas and oversee the industry-rich region, even if a peace settlement ends Russia’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

A large warehouse storing medicines in the city of Dnipro was destroyed in a Russian air strike on 6 December. As a result, about $110m worth of medicines were destroyed - estimated at up to 30% of Ukraine's monthly supply.

Ukraine struck an oil tanker belonging to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet in the Black Sea on Wednesday, according to an official in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Zelenskyy indicated the talks were hastily arranged as Kyiv officials scramble to avoid getting boxed in by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has disparaged the Ukrainian leader, painted European leaders as weak, and set a strategy of improving Washington’s relationship with Moscow.

Ukraine attacked Lukoil PJSC’s Filanovsky oil field in the Caspian Sea, according to a person familiar the matter, widening the scope of its strikes on Russian energy infrastructure just as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is under US pressure to agree to a peace deal largely on the Kremlin’s terms.

Victoria Eduardovna Dubranova faces up to 32 years for allegedly helping Russian-backed cyber groups in attacks on critical infrastructure.

Moscow will give its blessing to a ceasefire only after Ukraine’s forces have withdrawn from the front line, Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said in comments published Friday in Russian business daily Kommersant.

The president said he had exchanged “pretty strong words” with European leaders, while Russia signaled it saw itself as increasingly on the same page as the U.S.