Russia bombarded Ukraine’s second-largest city with massive strikes in the early hours of Saturday, its mayor said, one night after Moscow carried out one of the war’s largest aerial assaults on Ukraine.

Videos of an object breaking up in the sky over Kazakhstan sparked rumors of a failed launch of Putin's deadly nuclear-capable ballistic missile.

Russia asked the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Friday to mediate between Moscow and Washington to resolve the question of what to do with U.S. nuclear fuel stored at a Ukrainian power plant controlled by Russian forces.

But halting progress, ever-more deadly drone attacks and unmoving negotiating positions seem to have taken their toll. On Thursday, Trump used a striking analogy to concede the warfare was nowhere near over, and that he did not, at that moment, feel it was best to intervene.

Ukraine's Operation Spiderweb took out more than a third of Russia's strategic cruise missile carriers, Kyiv officials said.