Funding Ukraine with a reparations loan based on immobilised Russian assets would be the most "effective" of three options being considered by the European Union to help Kyiv, the head of the bloc's executive Commission said on Thursday.

Ukrainian drones have struck a major oil refinery in Russia’s Volgograd region for the second time in nearly three months, according to Ukraine’s general staff.

In fact, Putin has recently told the truth perhaps for the first time ever. Fighting is truly in the Russian genes. Looking at Russia (the muscovite tsardom and empire) reveals that periods of complete, absolute peace, when it did not wage any wars, wasn’t involved in external or internal conflicts, were few and far between.

The attack by Russian missiles and drones targeted the capital, Kyiv, and the large cities of Dnipro and Kharkiv, as well as several smaller municipalities.

Nighttime Ukrainian strikes have disrupted power and heating supplies to two major Russian cities near the Ukrainian border.

The Kremlin said on Thursday that Ukraine would have to negotiate with Russia "sooner or later" and predicted that Kyiv's negotiating position would get worse by the day.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin believes it was a mistake to break up the Soviet Union in 1991 and many Russians agree with him. The fourteen new nations created or revived when the Soviet Union was dissolved believe otherwise.