Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv says 2,500 Russian troops trapped on tiny strip of land with artillery destroyed

US treasury secretary Scott Bessent has made clear to Russian finance minister Anton ⁠Siluanov that there will be no economic relief for Russia or agreements on other issues until its war in Ukraine ends, a source ⁠familiar with the ​ministers’ ⁠bilateral meeting told Reuters.

Bessent met bilaterally with Siluanov on the sidelines of a G20 finance leaders meeting in Asheville, North Carolina.

The ​Russian ⁠finance minister’s first in-person ‌G20 appearance since Russia invaded Ukraine has irritated European officials who are working on more ‌sanctions against Russia.

Earlier, a US official told Reuters the focus of the Bessent-Siluanov meeting was president Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine.

Russia’s finance ministry said the two officials discussed financial cooperation within the G20 framework.

When Siluanov tried to discuss areas of mutual interest, the source said Bessent interrupted him and said “nothing is possible until the war is over.”

The US imposed sanctions on Russia’s oil majors in October 2025, but after the US-Israeli war against Iran cut off energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz, Bessent issued licences allowing the sale of seaborne Russian oil stored in tankers to ease supplies, sending some funds to Moscow.

Moscow believes that a moratorium on Black Sea attacks will not bring a peace agreement for the Ukraine war any closer, deputy foreign minister Alexander Grushko has said according to the Interfax news agency.

The Black Sea, a vital grain trading route, has seen Russia and Ukraine pounding each other’s export terminals and grain-carrying vessels, posing a significant threat to the grain-carrying corridors.

Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan said on 31 August that Ankara had prepared a plan for the safe passage of grain and was working on an agreement similar to the 2022 grain deal to allow safe exports – but Grushko’s comments have cast doubt over whether Russia will accept this.

Russian strikes targeted port infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern Black Sea region of Odesa, Ukraine’s emergency service said on Tuesday.

It described the attack as “massive” in its latest update on Telegram.

“The building of a sewing shop was damaged. In the Odessa district, a residential building caught fire, unfortunately, one person was injured.

“Russia also attacked one of the checkpoints in the region. A fire also broke out there, which rescuers were involved in extinguishing.”

One civilian was killed in a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Belgorod region, acting governor Alexander Shuvayev said on Tuesday.

The Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine’s northeastern regions of Kharkiv, Sumy and Luhansk, has repeatedly come under attack by Ukrainian forces.

We’ll bring you more on the strike as it comes in.

In 2023, a year into Russia’s unprecedented invasion of Ukraine, Kyiv was producing around 800,000 drones a year. By 2024, that number had more than doubled to two million.

Fast forward to last month – when President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the country was now churning out more than 10 million units annually with plans to double that number to 20 million by this time next year.

The rapid rate and intensity of production is having an impact. Just this week, Russian president Vladimir Putin was forced to acknowledge that attacks on the country’s refineries and energy infrastructure were having an effect.

“There are no critical consequences from such attacks, there have not been and cannot be,” he told a conference of business and economy leaders, trying to downplay their scale.

However, he added: “But they certainly cause us harm, that is obvious, and we understand, see and know this.”

Finland’s president Alexander Stubb said he is aware of private assurances from China that it would not allow Russia to use nuclear weapons.

On being asked whether Russia could resort to using nuclear weapons, Stubb said: “I had the foreign minister of China visiting me this summer, and I raised the issue.

“And he said, we will never allow it to happen. And I think that’s a pretty good deterrence,” he told Paul Ronzheimer of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.

Russian attacks on Ukraine this year have destroyed about a million textbooks in strikes on publishing houses, officials in Kyiv said.

Classes were due to resume at Ukrainian schools today, but it is not immediately clear whether maybe parents would be willing to send their children in. Schools have air raid shelters, and classes can also be held online.

The destruction of textbooks has potentially delayed deliveries for the start of the school year, Ukraine’s education ministry said.

A plant on the outskirts of Kyiv destroyed this week was in the process of delivering 1.3 million copies of textbooks, almost 10 per cent of the country’s supply, local media reported.

At least nine people were killed ⁠and over a dozen injured in Russian air attacks on Kyiv and the surrounding region this morning, authorities said, in the sixth consecutive day of strikes on the Ukrainian capital.

The Russian defence ministry said its forces hit military and energy facilities in Ukraine’s Kyiv and Odesa, as well as the regions surrounding these cities.

Moscow’s claim has not been verified. However, officials in Ukraine reported casualties including women and children from the overnight attacks.

Eight people were killed and another five wounded ​in ⁠Kyiv, three of them children, and fires broke out in different locations around the capital, emergency service said.

The United States’ move to welcome Russia back to a meeting of G20 countries while denying some journalists access to the gathering dismayed some finance leaders present, deflecting from its bid to focus talks on global economic growth.

As US treasury secretary Scott Bessent opened the meeting, some ministers were surprised and dismayed to see Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov sitting at the G20 table.

This is the first time Russia has attended the forum in person since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Polish finance minister Andrzej Domanski told Reuters he was unhappy to see Russia represented, although he recognised the right of G20 hosts to invite guests.

“We do not trust Russia. They lie constantly and you need to be really, really cautious while discussing with them,” he told Reuters in an interview, stressing that Russia was the aggressor in its conflict with Ukraine.

“So for me it would be very difficult to have any kind of conversation with Russia,” he said.

German finance minister Lars Klingbeil said Europe was preparing a further package of sanctions against Russia, but Siluanov’s presence at the Asheville meeting sent a “quite troubling” signal for US cooperation with the effort.

“I would have wanted greater clarity from the American side that he should not be received here as a normal guest,” Klingbeil ⁠said.

Siluanov also held a bilateral meeting with Bessent that covered financial cooperation within the G20 framework, Russia’s finance ministry said.