U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. and Russia have exchanged new ideas for Ukraine peace talks after he met with his Russian counterpart in Malaysia on Thursday.

One of Russia’s most powerful men, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, is set to visit North Korea this weekend, in a sign of deepening relations between Moscow and Pyongyang as North Korea gets pulled deeper into Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Authorities said the boy died following a strike on a village in Kherson amid Russia's increased bombardment of Ukrainian cities.

One of those key frontline areas is Pokrovsk, a strategic hub in eastern Ukraine, which Moscow has been trying to capture for more than two years. According to the head of Ukraine's army Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, Russia has concentrated some 111,000 troops in that area.

Kyiv was the main target of an hourslong assault that killed at least two people, officials said. The barrage came hours before the top American and Russian diplomats met.

The latest assault included more drones in a single night than Russia used in the entire month of July last year.

Italy said on Thursday that firms that have helped Russia fund its war on Ukraine by doing business with the country should be excluded from profiting from Ukraine's reconstruction. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said earlier that participants at a Rome conference on the economic recovery of Ukraine had pledged more than 10 billion euros ($11.

Latest news and live updates as Marco Rubio meet with Russian foreign minister amid tensions over Ukraine and Trump releases tariff letters to trading partners.