Russia and Ukraine pounded each other with heavy overnight missile attacks as diplomatic efforts to end the war faltered, with the White House saying there were no imminent plans for presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to meet.
Ukrainian officials said yesterday that Russian attacks had killed six people, including two children, in Kyiv and the nearby region, and forced power outages nationwide.
Ukraine's military said late on Tuesday that it used Franco-British Storm Shadow air-launched missiles to strike a chemical plant in southern Russia's Bryansk region.
Putin and Trump spoke last week and agreed to hold a summit in Hungary that the Kremlin said could take place within a couple of weeks.
But following a phone call on Monday between the two countries' top diplomats, the White House said the next day that Trump had no plans to meet Putin "in the immediate future". Trump said he did not want to have a wasted meeting - something Moscow also says it wants to avoid.
Russian officials said, however, that preparations continued for a summit.
The delay came after Russia reiterated to the US its previous terms for reaching a peace deal, including that Ukraine cede control of the whole of the southeastern Donbas region, three sources told Reuters.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday backed US leader Donald Trump's proposal to make the current front line the basis for negotiations with Russia, but doubted his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin would accept it.
Trump "proposed 'Stay where we stay and begin conversation'," Zelensky told reporters during a brief visit to Oslo.
"I think that was a good compromise, but I'm not sure that Putin will support it, and I said it to the president," he said.
He visited Norway yesterday, the first leg of a European tour aimed at shoring up support for Kyiv amid a string of deadly Russian attacks, reports AFP.
In a separate development, Putin oversaw a test of Russia's nuclear forces on land, sea and air to test their readiness and command structure.
The Kremlin said in a statement that the test included the practice launch of a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile, a separate missile launch from a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, and the launch of missiles from strategic bombers.
Through the first nine months of his second term, Trump has pressed for an end to the conflict, the deadliest in Europe since World War Two.
Sharply critical at times of Zelensky, he has also expressed frustration and disappointment with Putin - but has not followed through on his repeated threats of new sanctions against Moscow.