TOP HEADLINES

· U.S. President Joe Biden used France's Emmanuel Macron visit to Washington to pronounce his unity with Paris on holding Moscow to account for the Ukraine war, while expressing willingness to speak to Russia's Vladimir Putin.

· The Kremlin, in turn, said President Putin was open to negotiations with Ukraine, but a mutual basis for talks was proving difficult because the U.S. does not recognise its claimed "new territories" in Ukraine.

· Several Ukrainian embassies abroad have received "bloody packages" containing animal eyes, Ukraine's foreign ministry said on Friday.  The packages, soaked in a liquid with a distinctive colour and smell, were sent to Kyiv's embassies in Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia and Italy, to general consulates in Naples and Krakow, and the consulate in Brno, spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko wrote on Facebook.

· The European Union has reached a tentative agreement on a $60-a-barrel oil price cap to squeeze Moscow's export earnings. The move still needs approval from all EU governments, while Poland, which had pushed for a low cap, is yet to confirm its support.

· Ukraine has lost somewhere between 10,000 and 13,000 soldiers so far, according to a presidential adviser, but other estimates have put the figure much higher.

· Moscow and Kyiv have swapped 50 service personnel in the latest prisoner exchange between the two sides.

· Russian rockets have hit Kherson, knocking out power in the city where electricity had only been recently restored nearly three weeks after Russian troops fled the strategic urban hub.

· Kyiv's Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko has told residents to stock up on water, food and warm clothes in the event of a total blackout caused by Russian strikes.

· The Ukraine war has shown that Europe is too reliant on the U.S. for its own security, according to Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin. "I must be brutally honest with you, Europe isn't strong enough right now. We would be in trouble without the United States," she said.

· Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure have added up to $1 billion a month to previous estimates of $3-$4 billion needed to keep the county's economy going next year, according the head of the International Monetary Fund.

· The International Atomic Energy Agency hopes to reach a deal with Russia and Ukraine to create a protection zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by the end of the year, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog said.

IN DETAIL

Biden talks Ukraine with Macron in Washington

U.S. President Joe Biden said he would be willing to speak directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the war during Emmanuel Macron's state visit to Washington, but said there was no sign of that happening for now.

However, Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron added they would hold Russia to account "for widely documented atrocities and war crimes, committed both by its regular armed forces and by its proxies" in Ukraine.

Biden told reporters he was prepared to speak with the Russian president "if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he's looking for a way to end the war," adding that Putin "hasn't done that yet".

There are currently no political talks under way to end the conflict, which Russia began on February 24 as a "special military operation" claiming its aim was to disarm its neighbour and root out leaders it characterises as dangerous nationalists.

Macron said he would continue to talk to Putin to "try to prevent escalation and to get some very concrete results," such as the safety of nuclear plants.

Repeated shelling around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has raised concern about the potential for a nuclear accident just 500 km (300 miles) from the site of the 1986 Chornobyl disaster, the world's worst nuclear accident.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it hoped to reach an agreement with Moscow and Kyiv on setting up a protection zone at the Russian-held plant by the end of the year.

Biden and Macron's comments follow Russia on Thursday accusing the U.S. and NATO of playing a direct and dangerous role in the war, saying Washington had turned Kyiv into an existential threat for Moscow which it could not ignore.