TOP HEADLINES

· The Kremlin has repeated its position that Russia is open to negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict, but that new "territorial realities" could not be ignored.

· Moscow says they have downed Ukraine drones that were targeting civilian infrastructure in Russia.

·  Russia forces have stepped up their drive to encircle the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut where the commander of Ukraine's ground forces described the situation as "extremely tense," while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it is becoming increasingly difficult.

· NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says Ukraine will become a member of the alliance in the "long-term," but added the immediate issue is it being an independent nation.

· Moscow has hit out at the European Union and the U.S. after they adopted their latest packages of sanctions against Russia, describing them as "absurd" and "futile."

· A cyber attack caused some Russian regional broadcasters to put out a false warning on Tuesday urging people to take shelter from an incoming missile attack, the emergencies ministry said.

· Wikimedia has been fined $27,000 in Russia over what authorities said was its failure to remove "fake information" about Russia's actions in Ukraine from their website.

· Russia will not resume participation in the START nuclear arms reduction treaty with the U.S. until Washington listens to Moscow's position, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

· The U.S. welcomes the announcement by Saudi Arabia that it was providing $400 million in humanitarian aid for Ukraine.

· U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says Russia should bear the costs of damage caused by the conflict in Ukraine, but there are "significant legal obstacles" to confiscating major frozen Russian assets.

· France spent more than $670 million last year hosting almost 115,000 refugees fleeing the conflict in Ukraine, the country's top audit body said.

IN DETAIL

Russia open to negotiations but not over new territory 

The Kremlin has repeated its position that Russia was open to negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict, but that new "territorial realities" could not be ignored.

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted Russia would never renounce its claims to four Ukrainian regions that Moscow declared it had absorbed last year following referendums that Kyiv and the West slammed as bogus and illegal.

"There are certain realities that have already become an internal factor," Peskov said. "I mean the new territories. The constitution of the Russian Federation exists, and cannot be ignored. Russia will never be able to compromise on this, these are important realities."

Russia proclaimed it had secured the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions last September in a grand ceremony in Moscow.

The regions were subsequently named as constituent subjects of the Russian Federation in a constitutional decree. Peskov said Russia was open to negotiations if Kyiv accepted Moscow's control over the regions.

"With a favorable state of affairs and the appropriate attitude from the Ukrainians, this can be resolved at the negotiating table. But the main thing is to achieve our goals," he added.

Russian forces do not fully control any of the four regions, and Moscow says it is fighting to "liberate" them from the control of Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Kyiv and the West say this is a baseless pretext for an illegal land-grab.

Ukraine says Russian troops must leave every inch of its territory including the four regions and the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow took control of in 2014, before a peace plan can be discussed.

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