During a UN Security Council meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the idea of negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin, stressing that the war in Ukraine cannot be settled by talks but must be ended entirely.

Foreign secretary David Lammy also tore into Mr Putin and said the invasion of Ukraine serves the Russian president’s interests alone. On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces have recaptured a Russian stronghold in Kharkiv’s Vovchansk after intense fighting involving hand-to-hand combat in “densely built-up conditions”,

Russia plans to maintain defense spending at an historic high in 2025 and sees only slight declines in the following two years as President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine shows no sign of ending.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the U.N. was turning a blind eye to excesses committed by Ukrainian forces in their incursion into Russia's Kursk region, launched last month. Lavrov, in an interview with Russia's TASS news agency on the sidelines of the U.

By Simon Lewis and Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday that the war between Russia and Ukraine cannot be calmed by talks alone,