Russia and Ukraine made conflicting battlefield claims on July 4, with Moscow insisting it had captured the key eastern city of Kostyantynivka and Kyiv rejecting the assertion.
The Russian Defense Ministry urged Ukraine to respond by noon Moscow time on July 5 to its proposal for a six-hour cease-fire on July 6 to enable Kyiv to collect the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers it said had been killed.
The Russian ministry said its forces had seized control of Kostyantynivka, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later told reporters it had been fully captured, offering no evidence.
In a separate undated video released by the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked Russian troops and described the city's alleged capture as being of "major strategic importance."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the claims as "just another Russian lie."
"If Kostyantynivka were under Russian control, then perhaps Putin would have no problem meeting me there to find a diplomatic way to finally end this war," Zelenskyy wrote on social media.
Peskov responded that Zelenskyy is welcome to come and talk in Moscow. The exchange was part of an ongoing back-and-forth over the possibility of talks between Putin and Zelenskyy on ending Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth year.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly called for a meeting in a third country. Putin has refused, suggesting he is ready to meet Zelenskyy only in Moscow, an idea the Ukrainian president has rejected.
A day earlier, Russia launched a nightlong guided bomb attack on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, killing at least four people and wounding dozens, while Ukraine struck targets around Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, including an oil terminal and a naval base, according to Ukrainian officials.
"This is one of the central areas of the city of Sumy. It's a place where people come for evening walks," RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service correspondent Alyona Yatsyna reported from the scene shortly after the strike late on July 3.
Images from the ground showed holes in the five-story building, as Regional Governor Serhiy Kryvosheyenko announced that some residents might be temporarily relocated to local dormitories.
Kryvosheyenko said a child was among those killed in the attack, adding that six more children, two of them in serious condition, were among the 27 people injured.
An air raid siren could still be heard in Sumy on the morning of July 4, with local monitoring channels reporting that Russian forces had launched Shahed drones toward the city as emergency services were still working to clear the rubble.
The shelling of Sumy came two days after a devastating Russian attack on Kyiv that killed 31 people, injured more than 100, and marked the biggest assault on the Ukrainian capital this year, described by local residents as a "nightmare."
The drone and missile strikes on the city destroyed and damaged homes and left streets strewn with shattered glass, charred trees, and burned-out cars.
Later on July 4, a Russian glide bomb hit a supermarket in central Kramatorsk, local prosecutor's office reported, leaving at least five people, including an 11-year-old boy, injured.
Zelenskyy vowed that Ukraine would respond to the latest strikes.
Kyiv Mourns Victims Of Major Russian Drone And Missile Attack
Following the latest attacks across Ukraine, he also called for increased pressure on Moscow "so that this terror comes to an end."
"Those Russia will listen to are, without a doubt, the United States, the other G7 and G20 countries, and Europe," Zelenskyy wrote on X on July 4. He is due to attend a NATO summit in Ankara next week.
Ahead of that event, Zelenskyy said he spoke by phone with US President Donald Trump, saying they discussed the frontline situation and on the status of diplomacy.
"There is a real prospect of ending this war, and America's resolve will be crucial. We agreed to continue the conversation in person during the NATO summit in Ankara," he wrote on Telegram.
The Kremlin said Putin also spoke by phone with the US president to discuss the situation in Ukraine. The White House did not immediately comment.
"The presidents naturally addressed the issue of a settlement in Ukraine, taking into account, in particular, Donald Trump's upcoming participation in the NATO summit in Turkey on July 7 and 8," Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov said.
After the attack on Kyiv, Russia's military said the assault was in response to "terrorist attacks" against Russian "civilian infrastructure," as it came amid weeks of Ukrainian drone strikes targeting Russian oil refineries.
The campaign has caused nationwide fuel shortages inside Russia and stoked discontent among Russians who were previously largely unaffected by the country's all-out war, now in its fifth year.
Early on July 4, the governor of Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, Aleksandr Beglov reported on Telegram that a major Ukrainian drone attack had targeted the area.
While Beglov's post stopped short of saying what had been targeted in the city, some 800 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border, Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels showed pillars of smoke rising from a local oil terminal.
The Ukrainian military later confirmed the strikes, saying they had hit St. Petersburg's oil terminal, "one of the largest oil product transshipment terminals in the Baltic region," as well as a Russian naval base on the island of Kronstadt in the Leningrad region. Zelenskyy later shared footage on his social media account showing what appeared to be footage of the strikes.
Russia's militayr reported that hundreds of drones were shot down by the country's military overnight.
Diplomatic efforts led by the Trump administration have stalled in recent months, as Washington has focused on the war with Iran and the turmoil in the Middle East.
Kyiv and Moscow remain far apart on negotiating terms, with the Kremlin sticking to its hard-line stance and offering no compromise on its demand for full control of Ukraine's key Donbas region in the country's east.
