Mr Putin’s war against Ukraine inadvertently led to an end to the hitherto intractable conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which is now struggling to break free of Russia’s grip and make peace with Turkey.

The Russian leader is convinced that Moscow’s battlefield superiority is growing, and that Ukraine’s defenses may collapse in the coming months, according to people close to the Kremlin.

For a fleeting moment, Ukraine’s conflict may have come full circle. In the past 48 hours, US President Donald Trump has perhaps said his most forcefully direct words yet on arming Ukraine. And in the same period,

Ukraine's air force says that Russia has fired a record 728 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine overnight as well as 13 missiles.

As Russia seeks to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defences, the US has resumed deliveries of some weapons including precision-guided rockets.

Moscow will inform media as soon as new dates agreed upon with Kyiv, Dmitry Peskov tells briefing - Anadolu Ajansı

Russia currently occupies about a fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea, nearly all of Luhansk, and large portions of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, along with parts of Sumy and Kharkiv.

These demands – virtually unchanged since the beginning of the war – include a lifting of sanctions against Russia and no Nato membership for Ukraine, while also insisting that Kyiv must accept limits on its future military forces and recognise Russia’s annexation of Crimea and four regions on the Ukrainian mainland.

The US president said he will send weapons to Nato, which he said would pay and then give the weapons to Ukraine.