On our part, we must do everything we can to ensure that this war ends next year. We have to end it by diplomatic means,” Zelenskyy told Ukrainian radio.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin leader’s first publicly announced conversation with the sitting head of a major Western power in nearly two years.

Estimates from researchers in the U.S. in July suggested that the Kremlin faces eye-watering costs for its payouts to troops injured in the war in Ukraine.

Russia is changing the rules for payments made to soldiers wounded in the war on Ukraine as the costs of the invasion pile up.

The rate of Russian deaths in the war against Ukraine has reached record levels since the war began. Over 78,000 Russian soldiers were killed at the front, according to BBC News. The calculations by the Russian service of the BBC and Mediazona,

Russian troops, including soldiers disguised as Ukrainians, briefly broke through the frontlines in the northeast, a sign that Moscow is successfully pressuring Kyiv. Four waves of Kremlin fighters descended on the re-conquered city of Kupiansk on Wednesday,