Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said that his country and Armenia have agreed on about 80 percent of a peace treaty. "We can achieve peace in the Southern Caucasus," Aliyev said at the 50th International Cernobbio Forum in Italy, adding that the two countries had begun the process of border delimitation and demarcation. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said recently that 13 of 17 articles of the draft treaty had been agreed upon. Baku continues to insist it wants a reference to Nagorno-Karabakh's unification with Armenia removed from the Armenian Constitution. Azerbaijan retook control of the breakaway region in September 2023 following a lightning offensive. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service, click here.

Hungary has reiterated its threat to send asylum seekers to Brussels to put pressure on the European Union into canceling heavy fines against Budapest over its strict anti-migration policies. Standing in front of a row of passenger buses, Parliamentary Secretary of State of the Human Resources Ministry Bence Retvari said on September 6 that Hungary will “offer these illegal migrants, voluntarily, free of charge, one-way travel to Brussels…after the implementation of the European procedure.” He didn’t elaborate what status asylum seekers would have if they were to be transported. The European Court of Justice recently ruled Budapest must pay $223 million for continuously violating the bloc’s migrations rules and a daily fine of $1 million for each day of delay. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Hungarian Service, click here.

Serbian opposition legislators questioned Interior Minister Ivica Dacic on September 6 over the alleged mistreatment of activists protesting against a controversial lithium-mining project in the Balkan country. The Serbian opposition has accused the police of intimidating activists during a string of protests against the mine in recent weeks. Allegations include claims that authorities have relied on arrests, wiretaps, and arbitrary detention at border crossings to harass activists. "We demanded that the Interior Ministry submit a report on its actions against activists during the period from June to August this year," said Bogdan Radovanovic, a parliamentarian from the opposition Green-Left Front.

The European Union needs closer cooperation on markets and defense but not on political issues such as migration, where major differences between countries make this impossible, Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on September 6. "There are issues, even existential issues, to which we don't have common answers, this is war and peace, migration, gender, labor-based society, full employment," Orban told a conference in Cernobbio, Italy. "If you force us to come together on issues we don't agree, you disintegrate the European Union," he said.

A court in the Polish capital, Warsaw, on September 6 issued arrests warrants for three Belarusian men over their roles in the forced landing in Minsk of a commercial flight from Athens to Vilnius in May 2021 with dissident blogger Raman Pratasevich aboard.

The Wyborcza.pl website reported on September 6 that the warrants were issued on charges of "capture of an aircraft" and "illegal deprivation of freedom" for the former chief of the Belaeronavigatsia air navigation company, Leanid Churo; the head of the air-traffic control shift, Yauhen Tsyhanau; and an unidentified KGB officer who was present in the air-traffic control booth during the operation to land the Ryanair passenger jet.

The charges were filed after Polish investigators obtained data from a 42-year-old Belarusian dispatcher who fled to Poland in summer 2021.

After the plane was forced to land in Minsk in May 2021, Belarusian police arrested Pratasevich and his then-girlfriend, a Russian citizen, Sofia Sapega.

Pratasevich, who fled Belarus in 2019, worked as an editor at the Poland-based Nexta Live channel on Telegram that extensively covered a violent crackdown on unprecedented protests in Belarus following an August 2020 presidential election that the opposition and Western governments say was stolen by authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has run the country with an iron fist since 1994.

In early May 2023, a Minsk court sentenced Pratasevich to eight years in prison, and his co-defendants, Stsyapan Putsila and Yan Rudzik, who were tried in absentia, to 20 years and 19 years in prison, respectively, on charges stemming from their online coverage of the 2020 anti-Lukashenka protests.

Weeks later, Pratasevich told journalists he had received a pardon from Lukashenka.

Sapega was sentenced to six years in prison in May 2022 on a charge of administering a Telegram channel that published the personal data of Belarusian security forces.

Sapega was released and allowed to return to Russia in June 2023 after Lukashenka pardoned her.

Lukashenka, who denies stealing the election, has cracked down hard on the opposition, whose leading members were either jailed or forced to flee the country out of fear for their safety.

With reporting by Wyborcza.pl

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed for more weapons support from its Western allies on September 6, as Washington announced it would provide an additional $250 million in military assistance to Kyiv.

Speaking at a gathering of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Zelenskiy also called on allies to allow Ukraine to use the weapons they provided to strike deeper inside Russia -- something the United States has opposed out of concern it could further escalate the war.

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"We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the divided territory of Ukraine but also on Russian territory so that Russia is motivated to seek peace,” Zelenskiy said at the meeting with top U.S. military leaders and more than 50 partner nations.

"We need to make Russian cities and even Russian soldiers think about what they need: peace or Putin," he told the gathering hosted by U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Russian forces have made gains in eastern Ukraine around the city of Pokrovsk, a crucial supply hub for the Ukrainian military. Moscow’s military gains have continued despite a surprise cross-border incursion by Ukrainian forces into Russia's Kursk region last month.

Kyiv claims its army has captured about 1,300 kilometers of Russian territory and killed or wounded about 6,000 Russian soldiers.

While the incursion has put Russia on the defensive, "we know Putin's malice runs deep," Austin said in remarks to the media ahead of the meeting. Russian forces continue to press on, especially around Pokrovsk, Austin said.

Announcing the new $250-million security assistance, Austin said the package will provide "more capabilities to meet Ukraine's evolving requirements."

The Associated Press quoted a U.S. defense official as saying on condition of anonymity that the assistance is expected to include ammunition for HIMARS precision rocket launchers, artillery rounds, and anti-tank and anti-air weapons.

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Since 2022, the member nations of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group together have provided about $106 billion in security assistance to Kyiv. The United States, Ukraine's biggest supporter during the conflict, has provided more than $56 billion of that total, according to Pentagon.

Zelenskiy was expected to meet with Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz later on September 6.

As the allied partners met, Russia continued its persistent drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian cities and regions. At least five people were wounded in the latest Russian attacks across Ukraine, Kyiv said on September 6, adding that air defenses shot down 27 out of 44 Russian drones launched overnight.

A missile attack in the morning on September 6 damaged residential buildings and injured three people in the northeastern Kharkiv region, local authorities said.

Overnight attacks wounded two people, damaged at least 12 homes, and impacted power lines and gas pipelines in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, officials said. Falling debris from a downed Shahed drone in the western Lviv region caused fire at a warehouse, destroying four vehicles, according to local authorities.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

The Russian Interior Ministry on September 5 added self-exiled military observer Yan Matveyev to its wanted list on unspecified charges. In May 2023, the Justice Ministry added Matveyev to the list of "foreign agents." Matveyev has refused to follow the law requirements to mark his online materials as made by a foreign agent. Russian courts fined him twice in absentia for refusing to comply. According to the law on foreign agents, a repeated violation of the law within one year may lead to a criminal case. Russian authorities have been accused of using the law on foreign agents to muzzle independent media and dissent. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities, click here.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov, in his first public comments since his arrest in France late last month, expressed surprise that he was interrogated and told by investigators that he "may be personally responsible for other people's illegal use" of the popular messaging app.

Durov said in a lengthy blog post that he was arrested and questioned for four days after arriving in in Paris because "the French authorities didn’t receive responses from Telegram" regarding their complaints.

He was charged on August 28 with several crimes related to alleged illicit activity on the messaging app but avoided jail after posting a $5.5 million bail and was released on the condition that he remain in France and report to a police station twice a week.

French prosecutors accuse the 39-year-old Durov of complicity in allowing drug trafficking and the sharing of sexual images of children on Telegram, and of refusing to share documents demanded by authorities investigating illegal activity on the app.

But the Russian-born Durov -- who has citizenship in France as well as Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Caribbean archipelago of St. Kitts and Nevis -- said his arrest was "misguided."

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"Telegram has an official representative in the EU that accepts and replies to EU requests," Durov wrote. "If a country is unhappy with an Internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself."

He denied any suggestion that the app is an "anarchic paradise" and defended efforts to monitor its 950 million users, saying that "we take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day."

Durov said Telegram also publishes daily transparency reports and that he had personally helped set up a hotline on Telegram to help the French authorities deal with the threat of terrorism.

"Sometimes we can’t agree with a country’s regulator on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country," he wrote. He singled out Russia and Iran, where the encrypted app is a popular and safe means of communication among citizens and during protests, as places where Telegram was banned because it would not aid authorities' efforts to monitor users.

"When Russia demanded we hand over 'encryption keys' to enable surveillance, we refused -- and Telegram got banned in Russia. When Iran demanded we block channels of peaceful protesters, we refused -- and Telegram got banned in Iran. We are prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles, because we are not doing this for money," Durov said.

He acknowledged that Telegram was "not perfect" and that "growing pains" had "made it easier for criminals to abuse the platform," but Durov said the app was driven by the "intention to bring good and defend the basic rights of people, particularly where these rights are violated."

Kyrgyzstan's first president, Askar Akaev, has filed a request with the Kyrgyz parliament to have his status as a former president restored, lawmaker Cholpon Sultanbekova said on September 5. Akaev was stripped of the status in 2010, five years after he fled to Moscow following anti-government protests. Akaev was facing corruption charges at the time. In 2023, all charges against Akaev were dropped after the statute of limitations expired. Akaev was president from 1990 to 2005. After he left Kyrgyzstan, he avoided returning there for many years. In 2021, he made several short visits to Bishkek to be questioned by the State Committee for National Security. To read the original story from RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service, click here.

Russians are voting for governors and regional legislators in 83 regions and cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, but many opposition candidates barred by the electoral authorities won't be on the ballot. Governors will be elected in 21 regions, while four regions, including the illegally annexed Crimea in Ukraine, will elect regional parliaments. A group defending voters rights, Golos, dubbed the vote an "imitation" of elections, saying it lacks genuine competition. According to Golos, 35 percent of nominees, including all three candidates from the liberal opposition party, Yabloko, were denied registration. In some regions, elections that began on September 6 will last for three days. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

At least five people have been wounded in the latest Russian drone and missile attacks across Ukraine, Kyiv said on September 6, adding that the air defenses shot down 27 out of 44 Russian drones launched overnight. A missile attack in the morning on September 6 damaged residential buildings and injured three people in the northeastern Kharkiv region, local authorities said. Overnight attacks wounded two people, damaged at least 12 homes, and impacted power lines and gas pipelines in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, officials said. Falling debris from a downed Shahed drone in the western Lviv region caused fire at a warehouse, destroying four vehicles, according to local authorities.

Latvia's parliament is debating a draft law that bans vehicles with Belarusian license plates in the Latvian territory. If the bill is approved, the owners of such vehicles would have to either replace the number plates with Latvian ones or remove the vehicles from Latvia by October 31. In July, Latvia banned Belarus-registered passenger cars from entering its territory from Belarus and Russia. Only vehicles of diplomatic or humanitarian missions, persons with reduced mobility driving specially equipped vehicles, and cars crossing through Latvia in transit will be allowed in the country with Belarusian plates. The measure is being taken in accordance with European Union laws to prevent the circumvention of sanctions imposed on Russia and Belarus over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. To read the original story by Current Time, click here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on September 6 will visit Germany, where Ukraine's military backers are meeting days after one of the deadliest strikes of the war and as Russian forces make battlefield gains. Zelenskiy and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will hold one-on-one talks in Frankfurt, according to a German government spokesman, who did not give further details about the Ukrainian leader's program. But German news outlet Der Spiegel reported that Zelenskiy will also attend the gathering of Kyiv's backers, which includes the United States, at the U.S. Ramstein Air Base. The meeting at the base southwest of Frankfurt is being hosted by U.S. defense chief Lloyd Austin.

The top spokesman for the Pakistani Army said on September 5 that since the beginning of 2024 the army has conducted 32,173 anti-terrorism operations in which 193 officers and soldiers have been killed. Major General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said in Rawalpindi that in the past month a total of 4,021 operations were conducted in which 90 suspected militants were killed. He said that the army and law enforcement agencies conduct an average of 130 operations per day. The army has recently stepped up raids against militants, and Chaudhry said the Pakistani Army was "continuing its efforts" to "end terrorism.” He did not identify terrorist groups by name but said foreign elements are training the militants and are involved in the attacks. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal, click here.

The death toll from a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Poltava rose to 55 on September 5, the Interior Ministry said, adding that the number of wounded also rose and now stands at 328. The strike on a military communications institute on September 3 partially destroyed the institute's six-story educational building, the ministry said on Facebook. "Probably, there are still people under the rubble. Search-and-rescue operations are ongoing," the ministry said. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that two ballistic missiles hit the grounds of the institute and a nearby hospital. The attack, one of the worst in the war, triggered widespread condemnation. Washington denounced it as "another horrific reminder of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's brutality."

A grand jury in the U.S. state of Maryland has charged six Russians, including five who are officers in Russia's military intelligence agency (GRU), with conspiracy to hack into computer systems and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The indictment, unsealed on September 5, alleges that the Russians conspired to hack into computer systems associated with the Ukrainian government in advance of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Their original targets included Ukrainian government systems and data with no military or defense-related roles and later included computer systems in countries around the world that were providing support to Ukraine, including in the United States, the U.S. Justice Department said in a news release. The whereabouts of the men are unknown, and the Justice Department has issued a reward for information leading to their arrest.

Russian TV presenter Dimitri Simes, who served as an adviser to former President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, and his wife, Anastasia, have been charged with violating U.S. sanctions in connection with alleged schemes to benefit Russian broadcaster Channel One.

The couple is charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), one count of conspiracy, and one count of money laundering.

If convicted, they each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each count, the Justice Department said on September 5.

Following an FBI raid on the Simes’ Virginia home on August 16, the Justice Department alleges that the couple participated in the violation of U.S. sanctions by providing services to Channel One, a state-owned Russian broadcaster that was sanctioned by the United States in 2022.

The department said Simes was a presenter and producer of programming for Channel One and for his services received $1 million, a personal car and driver, a stipend for an apartment in Moscow, and a team of 10 employees from the broadcaster.

Simes, 76, as an adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign, arranged an important 2016 foreign policy speech in which Trump outlined a vision for greater cooperation with Russia. According to a 2019 report by special counsel Robert Mueller, who was assigned to look into whether Trump's campaign had colluded with Russia, Simes also sent Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner a letter detailing potential talking points for Trump about Russia.

The Justice Department also announced on September 5 a second indictment, naming only Anastasia Simes, alleging she participated in a separate scheme to benefit Russian oligarch Aleksandr Udodov through the buying, selling, and shipping of art from the United States to Russia. The department accused Anastasia Simes of receiving reimbursements and a service fee from Udodov, who was designated for sanctions in 2023 by the United States.

The Justice Department said the couple remains at large and are believed to be in Russia.

Simes, born in Moscow in 1947, emigrated to the United States in 1973 and later became a U.S. citizen. He served as an informal adviser to President Richard Nixon and regularly traveled with Nixon to the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries.

In 1994, Nixon named him to head the Center for the National Interest, which at the time was called the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom. Simes retired from the position in 2022.

The White House called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to "stop interfering" in U.S. elections after he stated his support for Vice President Kamala Harris at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on September 5. According to Meduza, Putin said, “Our favorite, so to speak, was Mr. Biden. He has withdrawn from the race, but he recommended supporting Ms. Harris. And we will do so. We will support her." National Security Council spokesman John Kirby responded by saying Putin "shouldn't be favoring anybody one way or another." Kirby added that the only people who should determine who the next president is are the American people, adding, "We would greatly appreciate it if Mr. Putin would...stop talking about our election, and...stop interfering in it."

A Moscow court on September 5 sent three officers of a notorious immigration center in Sakharovo, near Moscow, to pretrial detention for at least two months on corruption charges. Abdulgazip Mustapayev, Olga Adakina, and Rudik Teknedzhyan were charged with fraud. Investigators say the trio extorted money from migrants awaiting deportation, promising expedited trips to their homelands. The center has been known for its cruel treatment of migrant workers from Central Asian and the Caucasus. Many migrants who went through Sakharovo have claimed they were humiliated, beaten, and deprived of their money while being held there. To read the original story by Current Time, click here.

The Romanian government is in the final stages of donating a Patriot missile system to Ukraine in the midst of Ukraine’s ever-increasing calls for more support from the West. On September 5, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis signed a bill allowing for the donation of the system, which is expected to be deployed as part of Ukraine's air defenses. Now, the government will issue an order for the donation to be carried out. The Patriot system is only one of two functioning in Romania. The government agreed to donate it on the condition that Bucharest's allies will replace it with another Patriot system at a later date. To read the original story on RFE/RL's Romanian Service, click here.

Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya has accused the Belarusian government of being behind the vandalism of organizations that cater to Belarusians living in Lithuania, including a help center for refugees, a cultural center, and a Belarusian Orthodox church. Tsikhanouskaya condemned the incidents, which took place in Vilnius overnight on September 4-5, saying they were “obviously aimed at sowing enmity between Belarusians and Lithuanians.” Natallya Kalehava, the director of the Dapamoha (Help) center for Belarusian refugees, said that graffiti appeared near the center that read: “There is no place for Belarusian parasites here.” Also overnight, unknown assailants fired a pneumatic weapon at the window of a Belarusian Orthodox parish church and unknown individuals broke windows of the Belarusian Culture Center in Vilnius. The Lithuanian police have been informed about the incidents. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Belarus Service, click here.

Azerbaijani journalist Afqan Muxtarli -- who in 2017 was abducted in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, and subsequently transferred to Azerbaijan, where he was convicted of smuggling, illegally crossing the border, and using force against a government official -- has won a lawsuit against Georgia and Azerbaijan at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

The ECHR ruled on September 5 that Georgia violated Article 3 (prohibition of torture) and Article 5 (right to liberty and security) of the European Convention on Human Rights by not investigating Muxtarli's claims that he was abducted in Georgia, ill-treated, and illegally transferred to Azerbaijan.

The court also ruled that Azerbaijan violated Article 5, Paragraph 3 of the convention, which states: "Everyone arrested or detained in accordance with the provisions of paragraph 1.c of this article shall be brought promptly before a judge or other officer authorized by law to exercise judicial power and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time or to release pending trial."

The ruling also says that Azerbaijan violated the convention's Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life).

The ECHR ordered Georgia to pay 12,500 euros ($13,830) and Azerbaijan 8,500 euros ($9,405) to Muxtarli.

In January 2019, a Baku court sentenced Muxtarli to six years in prison on the charges, which he, his supporters, and rights groups called politically motivated.

In mid-March, 2020, a Baku court ordered Muxtarli's early release from prison and allowed him to fly to Germany, where he reunited with his wife and daughter.

Human Rights Watch said at the time that Muxtarli developed serious health complications in prison and did not receive adequate medical care.

Georgian authorities said at the time that they had opened an investigation into the abduction and suspended a number of counterintelligence and border police officials.

Muxtarli's lawyer, Archil Chopikashvili, told RFE/RL on September 5 that Georgia failed to provide any information on how Muxtarli turned up in Azerbaijan after living in Tbilisi.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic says he will not attend a key summit in Russia next month, despite receiving an invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Vucic told reporters on September 5 that he cannot attend the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) summit on October 22-24, because Serbia will "have important guests at that time." Vucic has recently denied having close ties with Putin, saying he hasn't met with the Russian leader since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine began in early 2022. But many other high-ranking officials in Serbia, including Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin, have maintained that Russia remains a close Serbian ally. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Balkan Service, click here.

A Moscow court on September 5 sentenced blogger Aleksandr Shpak, who now lives abroad, to eight years in prison on charges of distributing false information about the Russian military. The sentence in absentia stems from a video about the destruction by Russian forces of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine in June 2023 that Shpak posted on Instagram. Shpak condemned the dam's destruction in the video, calling the Russian troops "rashists" -- a derogatory word used by Russia's critics to compare Russian troops to fascists. The video was later removed from Instagram. Shpak currently resides in the United States. To read the original story by RFE/RL's Russian Service, click here.

Russia was planning to attack Ukraine from the Kursk region before Ukraine launched its cross-border incursion last month, Ukraine’s top military commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy, said in an interview broadcast on September 5, after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the incursion has not affected Moscow’s special military operation.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

Syrsky said in an interview with CNN that he considers the operation in Kursk a success because it reduced the threat of an enemy attack.

"We prevented them from acting. We moved the fighting to the enemy's territory so that he could feel what we feel every day," he said.

According to Syrskiy, Moscow has transferred tens of thousands of troops to the Kursk region, including some of its best airborne assault units.

Syrskiy also admitted that Ukraine is under significant pressure in the Pokrovsk area, but he said that Ukrainian forces have so far succeeded in stopping the Russian advance there.

"Over the past six days, the enemy has not advanced a single meter in the Pokrovsk area. In other words, our strategy is working," he said.

Syrskiy said that the ability of Russian forces to maneuver and deploy reinforcements from other directions has been limited and "this weakening is undoubtedly felt in other areas."

In recent weeks, the front line in the Donetsk region has moved closer to the strategically significant city of Pokrovsk, which in the first two years of the full-scale war was deep behind the front line.

Since its surprise incursion into Kursk, Kyiv claims to have seized control of more than 1,200 square kilometers of Russian territory, while Russian forces have pushed ahead with their effort to capture Pokrovsk.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview with U.S. broadcaster NBC this week that the aim of the incursion was to accrue Russian territory and troops for future exchanges, emphasizing that Ukraine does not need Russian territory.

"Our operation is aimed at restoring our territorial integrity. We capture Russian troops to replace them with Ukrainian [ones]," he said. "We tell them, you know, we need our military soldiers in exchange for Russian ones. The same attitude is to the territories. We don't need their land."

Putin, speaking on September 5 at the Eastern Eurasian Forum in Russia's Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, claimed that by sending troops into the Kursk region Ukraine had weakened its forces in its eastern Donbas region.

"The enemy's goal was to make us get nervous, mess around, move our troops from one site to another, and stop our offensive in key directions, first of all in the Donbas," Putin said. "Did the enemy manage to do so? No, it managed nothing."

Putin claimed that Russia's forces "stabilized the situation and started gradually pushing the enemy from the territories along the border." The move left Ukraine without the means to "contain our offensive" in eastern Ukraine, Putin said.

"To the contrary, by sending its sufficiently big and well-trained units to the border districts, the enemy weakened itself on key fronts, while our troops have expedited their offensive operations," he said.

Putin has previously called the Ukrainian incursion "a provocation" and publicly said it left Russia with no reason to negotiate with Kyiv. He backtracked from that position on September 5, saying that "we never refused to hold negotiations." However, he said in Vladivostok that any peace talks must take into account Moscow's long-standing conditions -- that parts of Ukraine occupied by Russian troops must remain under Moscow's control. Kyiv has rejected these conditions.

Putin also hinted in Vladivostok that when talking about possible talks, Kyiv must take into consideration the future losses it faces.

"It sometimes seems to me that those who now lead Ukraine are aliens or some sort of foreigners. As a matter of fact, they simply do not think, and I am serious about this. You know, [they have] such colossal losses. What can they do further, I do not understand," Putin said.

Putin's statements came as Russian forces targeted the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, with more overnight drone strikes. The Ukrainian military said that several other regions, including the northern Chernihiv and northeastern Sumy regions, were targeted by Russian drones.

In the Sumy region, the government expanded the mandatory evacuation from five towns in two districts.

Sumy Governor Volodymyr Artyukh discussed evacuation measures during a meeting in Glukhiv, one of the areas where shelling has intensified.

In view of the destruction of infrastructure and housing, the regional authorities decided to expand the list of settlements for mandatory evacuation, he said. The order now includes Glukhiv, Esman, and Svesa in the Shostkinsky district, and Manukhivka and Ivanivka in the Konotopsky district.

With reporting by Current Time and RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service