Russia has launched referendums in four occupied areas of Ukraine expected to be used by Moscow to justify annexation, but Kyiv says the voting is mandatory with residents threatened with punishment if they don't take part.
Russia has paved the way for the formal annexation of swathes of Ukrainian territory, backing referendum plans in areas of Ukraine its soldiers control in a move that could sharply escalate the conflict.
The Australian government is now in court over an allegedly "unreasonable" decision to terminate a 99-year lease and expel Russia from its new Canberra embassy site.
Ukraine says it aims to liberate all of its territory after driving back Russian forces in the northeast of the country in a rapid offensive, but called on the West to speed up deliveries of weapons systems to back the advance.
Ukrainian forces have swept further across territory seized from fleeing Russian troops, as Moscow grapples with the consequences of the collapse of its occupation force in northeastern Ukraine.
Operations at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine have been fully stopped as a safety measure, says Energoatom, the state agency in charge of the plant.
Ukrainian forces have seized an expanding area of previously Russian-held territory in the east in a "very sharp and rapid" advance, a Russian-installed regional official says, in a breakthrough that might mark a turning point in the war.
Russia has scrapped a deadline to resume flows via a major gas supply route to Germany, deepening Europe's difficulties in securing winter fuel, after saying it had found faults in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline during maintenance.
Russia has halted gas supplies via Europe's key supply route, intensifying an economic battle between Moscow and Brussels and raising the prospects of recession and energy rationing in some of the region's richest countries.
World leaders are paying tribute to Mikhail Gorbachev, remembering the last Soviet leader as a "one-of-a kind statesman who changed the course of history".
Explosions have erupted overnight near military bases deep within Russian-held areas of Ukraine and in Russia itself, an apparent display of Kyiv's growing ability to wreak havoc on Moscow's logistics far from front lines.
Explosions have rocked an ammunition depot and disrupted trains in Russian-annexed Crimea, the latest such incident in a region Moscow uses as a supply line for its war in Ukraine.
