Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow ‘plugging gaps in army with navy and nuclear personnel’ due to heavy casualties

The Kremlin reiterated its invitation for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to visit Moscow for peace talks on Thursday.

It follows the countries latest exchange of their war dead and rumours that an agreement has been reached to stop striking each other’s energy infrastructure.

A US official told Axios on Saturday that Zelensky and Putin were “very close” to setting up a meeting after US-brokered talks, which are to continue this weekend.

A Russian drone attack killed three people in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region overnight, authorities said Thursday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Moscow is planning another large-scale barrage despite plans for further U.S.-brokered peace talks at the weekend.

The Zaporizhzhia strike caused a major blaze in an apartment building, according to emergency services.

Firefighters also worked through the night to put out fires in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where two people were injured, officials said.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence reports indicate Russia is assembling forces for a major aerial attack. Previous large attacks, sometimes involving more than 800 drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles, have targeted the Ukrainian power grid.

Ukraine has diversified its gas supplies following continuous Russian bombardment, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday.

“We are ensuring a reliable gas supply for Ukrainians despite all challenges,” he wrote on X/Twitter on Thursday.

“We continue to import sufficient volumes. Supply routes have been significantly diversified.”

Attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have left hundreds and thousands in the country without power during one of the country’s coldest winters.

Zelensky was forced to declare a state of emergency earlier this month.

Ukraine is working with satellite firm SpaceX to stop Russian drones using Starlink to operate, the country’s defence minister said on Thursday.

Reports suggested that Starlinks had been found on Russian long-range UAVs in Ukraine, which are resistant to traditional signal jamming, allowing the military to manually fly drones into Ukrainian targets.

“We are grateful to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and personally to Elon Musk for the quick response and the start of work on resolving the situation,” Ukraine's defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov wrote on Telegram.

The leader of Russia’s Chechnya region says he is “against negotiations” and believes that the country should continue the war “to its conclusion”.

“I believe the war must be taken to its conclusion... I am against negotiations,” Ramzan Kadyrov told reporters at the Kremlin, where President Vladimir Putin was meeting the president of the United Arab Emirates.

Ukraine will be hit by extremely low temperatures at the beginning of next week, posing a threat to winter crops, according to emergency services and agricultural analysts.

All regions except southern Ukraine will be affected by the freezing conditions between 1 February to 4 February.

“We consider the current cold spell to be extremely dangerous for winter crops across a significant part of Ukraine,” analyst Barva Invest said on Telegram.

Temperatures will plummet to -30C after they dropped to -20Cin early January, easing to above-zero figures this week.

One of Donald Trump’s senior envoys for Ukraine has sparked alarm after making a series of blunders during crucial peace talks, according to a report.

The unnamed official is said to have made several comments that exposed a basic lack of knowledge about the war between Ukraine and Russia during trilateral peace talks in Abu Dhabi last week.

The talks, set to continue this weekend, are the first between the three countries since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022 - but the comments have led to fears that inexperience and misunderstanding by US officials could pose a risk to Kyiv.

Among the incorrect statements allegedly made during the meetings are errors about how long the war has been going on, when it started and whether or not the country has a vice president.

"General [Kyrylo] Budanov is now their vice president," the official is reported to have said during a meeting with reporters, according to the Kyiv Independent. Ukraine does not have a vice president and Budanov has recently been appointed as head of the President’s office.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said that he does not know what security guarantees have been agreed between the US and Ukraine, according to the country’s state media.

President Volodymyr Zelensky previously said that a security guarantee agreement was “100 per cent ready” while secretary of state Marco Rubio said that it was dependent on the surrender of the Donbas region

Ukraine is seeking guarantees that would ensure that Russia could not continue to expand into its territory or invade again.

Russia and Ukraine have carried out a new exchange of their war dead, allowing relatives of those killed to bury their loved ones.

Russia handed over 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers and Kyiv handed back the bodies of 38 Russian soldiers in return, according to Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky.

Ukraine’s coordination centre for prisoner exchanges confirmed the exchange had taken place. The last exchange took place in October 2025 with both sides accusing each other of stalling new exchanges.