NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte says a US peace proposal has helped bring Kyiv and Washington closer together on the way toward ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, Europe's biggest and deadliest conflict since World War II.

The fresh attacks came amid renewed efforts at meetings in Geneva to secure a US-led peace deal acceptable to both Russia and Ukraine, despite Vladimir Putin showing no sign he wants the war to end.

The world’s attention was fixed on talks between Ukraine and the U.S. in neutral Geneva over the weekend. Delegations from both countries have redrafted conditions of an earlier peace plan, which although it has not been officially released,

From the front-line city of Pokrovsk in eastern Donetsk, to Zaporizhzhia in the south, there is little doubt that Russia is making advances. But, battlefield monitors suggest the picture is not quite so bleak for Ukraine as Trump and Putin suggest.

Ukraine signaled that key sticking points remained in peace talks with the US after senior officials hailed progress in winning more favorable terms for Kyiv from a proposal backed by Donald Trump.