The Times interviewed Russian soldiers who said they face a brutal fight to dislodge determined Ukrainian forces from a sliver of Russian land. Trapped civilians fear catastrophe.

The US president says he's "disappointed", after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed surprise his country was not invited to Tuesday's talks in Saudi Arabia.

Ukrainian forces launched a drone attack on the city of Enerhodar near the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, the Moscow-installed regioanl governor said. The drones hit a car park roughly 300 metres (0.2 miles) from one of the plant’s reactors, Yevgeny Balitsky wrote on Telegram.