Russia has repeatedly painted modern Ukraine as a Nazi state, in a crass distortion of history. Putin had already seized Ukraine's Crimean peninsula eight years earlier, after a revolution that ousted Ukraine's pro-Russian president and replaced him with a more pro-Western government.

Russia will seek a peace deal in Ukraine that safeguards its own long-term security and will not retreat from the gains it has made in the conflict, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday in comments to relatives of soldiers killed there.

I n just three weeks, President Donald Trump has exploded long-standing U.S. foreign policy and sided with Russia against Ukraine and

Ukrainian and U.S. officials began their talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to find a path towards ending the war with Russia, hours after Kyiv's forces launched their largest drone attack on Moscow to date.

Ahead of U.S.-Ukraine talks on the war with Russia, the United States expressed confidence Monday that Ukraine was on board with President Donald Trump's demand it move forward toward a peace deal with Russia.