President Donald Trump is “optimistic” he can achieve peace in Ukraine on the heels of the successful hostage exchange in the Middle East, a White House official told POLITICO.

This will be the fourth consecutive winter of outages since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Kyrylo Budanov, Head of Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU), has said that Russia would have long since lost the war without the support of its allies. Quote: "Russia would have lost this war long ago,

Russian drone and missile strikes caused blackouts across large swaths of Ukraine, damaged residential buildings and injured at least 20 people in Kyiv, authorities said.

Gennady Trukhanov has served as mayor of the southern port city of Odesa, which has been heavily bombarded by Moscow, since 2014. He denied the accusations and said he would appeal at the country's top court. Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian presidential office for comment.

Almost 900 miles from Ukraine’s borders, a fire erupted at a Russian oil refinery on Saturday. The blaze – a result of a strike by Ukrainian long-range drones, according to sources in the country’s security services – was the third at the facility in the last month alone.

The Kremlin will negotiate only if missiles and drones bring the pain of war home to Russians, Ukrainian officials say.

Ukrainian drones targeted and damaged 16 Russian fuel tanks at the Morskoi Neftianoi Terminal in Russian-occupied Feodosia, Crimea, on the night of Oct. 13.