KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A senior Kremlin official said Friday that Russian police and National Guard will stay on in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas and oversee the industry-rich region, even if a peace settlement ends Russia’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

Ukraine struck an oil tanker belonging to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet in the Black Sea on Wednesday, according to an official in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

Russia's Central Bank filed suit against a Belgian bank that has about $217 billion in Russian assets to stop the EU from loaning cash to Ukraine.

Russia is pushing to take over all of eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, where one resident tells NPR that she feels her "life depends on how our guys at the front hold on."

Ukraine said Thursday its long-range drones had struck a major offshore oil platform in the Caspian Sea this week, signalling an expansion of its target list in a mounting campaign to cut off Russian energy revenues funding its war.

Ukraine attacked Lukoil PJSC’s Filanovsky oil field in the Caspian Sea, according to a person familiar the matter, widening the scope of its strikes on Russian energy infrastructure just as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is under US pressure to agree to a peace deal largely on the Kremlin’s terms.

Victoria Eduardovna Dubranova faces up to 32 years for allegedly helping Russian-backed cyber groups in attacks on critical infrastructure.

The president said he had exchanged “pretty strong words” with European leaders, while Russia signaled it saw itself as increasingly on the same page as the U.S.