Moscow said it had retaken two villages outside the town of Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region. Ukrainian officials did not immediately comment on the claim.

The Volgograd refinery has been targeted by Kyiv’s forces on several occasions since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, most recently in a drone attack on February 15. Russia’s defence ministry said that it had shot down 126 Ukrainian drones, 64 of which were destroyed over the Volgograd region.

President Donald Trump appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to spare the lives of thousands of Ukrainian troops he said were in a “very bad and vulnerable position” and avoid what he said would be a massacre unlike anything since World War II.