Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday that an African initiative could be a basis for peace in Ukraine but that Ukrainian attacks made it hard to realise.
He was speaking at a press conference after meeting African leaders in St Petersburg on Friday and hearing their calls for Moscow to move ahead with their plan.
"There are provisions of this peace initiative that are being implemented," he said. "But there are things that are difficult or impossible to implement."
Reuters reported in June that African mediation in the conflict could begin with confidence-building measures followed by a cessation of hostilities agreement accompanied by negotiations between Russia and the West.
Putin said that one of the points in the initiative was a ceasefire. "But the Ukrainian army is on the offensive, they are attacking, they are implementing a large-scale strategic offensive operation... We cannot cease fire when we are under attack."
On the question of starting peace talks, he said, "We did not reject them... In order for this process to begin, there needs to be agreement on both sides."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has rejected the idea of a ceasefire now that would leave Russia in control of nearly a fifth of his country and give its forces time to regroup after 17 grinding months of war.
A new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas in the United States that goes into effect on Sunday will be levied per petition and will not be applied to existing visa holders re-entering the country, the White House clarified.
A Chinese journalist jailed for four years after documenting the early phases of the COVID-19 outbreak from the pandemic's epicentre was sentenced on Friday to four more years in prison, Reporters Without Borders said.
Israel's military kept up its assault on Gaza City and the wider Gaza Strip on Saturday, dismantling underground shafts and booby-trapped structures in attacks that left 34 Palestinians dead, according to Gazan health authorities.
World leaders gather in New York this coming week for a UN General Assembly dominated by US President Donald Trump's return to the rostrum, war in Gaza and Ukraine, rising Western recognition of Palestinian statehood and nuclear tensions with Iran.
Russia launched a major drone and missile attack on Ukraine overnight, killing three people and injuring dozens, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday.
President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan attended a military parade to mark the Day of Serbian Unity, Freedom and the National Flag alongside the country's leader Aleksandar Vučić.
Eight convoys carrying diverse Emirati humanitarian aid crossed into the Gaza Strip through the Egyptian Rafah Border Crossing within the framework of ‘’Operation Chivalrous Knight 3”.