Kirill Dmitriev, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s envoy, has said that the recent ceasefire with Ukraine in the Russian-controlled city of Oleshky showed what can be achieved when compassion, determination and cooperation come together.

In an event hosted by US first lady Melania Trump with Russian and Ukrainian officials, Dmitriev said Putin also appreciated the US president’s peacemaking efforts.

The Russian military struck ⁠an energy storage battery facility ⁠in ​Ukraine’s ⁠Kyiv region ⁠and a ​cargo vessel ⁠in the ‌Black Sea port ‌of Odesa, ‌the Russian ⁠defence ministry said this morning.

It added that both were ​used for ‌military ⁠purposes.

The attack comes less than 24 hours after Russian and Ukrainian representatives were hosted by the US first lady, Melania Trump, at the White House.

Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said Europe risked ​becoming irrelevant in any Ukraine peace ‌negotiations unless it ends competing diplomatic initiatives and agrees on a single representative ​empowered to speak on its ​behalf.

In a letter to EU Council ⁠president Antonio Costa, Meloni said the proliferation ​of different negotiating formats is making ​Europe less credible and giving the impression it is proceeding in “random order”.

Meloni added that she is not ​seeking a place at the negotiating ​table for herself or Italy, but Rome will ‌not ⁠accept commitments being negotiated without an EU mandate.

“All this is making us look utterly lacking in credibility in handling one of the most complicated dossiers our nations are facing,” she said.

Costa wrote back that he agreed, “Europe needs to act with coherence, unity and determination”

Russian Aerospace Forces have bombarded a power station near the Ukrainian city of Sumy and a military brigade in the Zaporizhzhia region using a FAB-3000 aerial bomb, Russian newswires quoted the defence ministry as saying on Friday.

President Donald Trump confirmed holding talks with Vladimir Putin’s envoy at the White House on Thursday, but did not meet visiting Ukrainian officials.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump acknowledged his conversation with Kirill Dmitriev. “I can’t tell you what I discussed,” Trump said.

Asked if he had met Ukrainian representatives, Trump said he had not.

Officials from both countries were at the White House for an occasion honouring Melania Trump’s work brokering a ceasefire in Oleshky.

Russian president Vladimir Putin met Iranian top security official Mohsen Rezaei at the Kremlin, Iran’s state media reported, after Iranian negotiators met with ⁠mediators to discuss proposals to end hostilities with the US.

Rezaei delivered a message from Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei to Putin, state media said. Putin’s office also said the two ⁠met at the Kremlin.

“Important ​regional ⁠issues were discussed with Mr Putin, and significant conversations took place regarding the post-war period and regional ⁠security arrangements,” Rezaei said after the meeting, referring to ​the ⁠war between Iran and ‌the US.

A Finnish court on Thursday convicted the captain and another crew member of a cargo ship of damaging undersea telecommunications cables in the Baltic Sea late last year.

The Helsinki District Court found the two guilty of aggravated sabotage and gave them prison sentences. The captain was sentenced to three years and six months, and the boatswain to two years and 10 months. National broadcaster Yle reported that the captain is Russian and the boatswain Azerbaijani.

The court also ordered them to pay compensation for the costs of examining and repairing the cables.

Russia could not have continued fighting in Ukraine today had China not been actively involved in the war, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has said.

“I was at a conference in Warsaw the other day, and I complained because there was next to nothing said or debated about China. It was all about Russia. I understand that.

“But as long as we leave China out of the debate, we have surrendered completely to the real threat that we face,” he said on the sidelines of Annual Summit of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

He added: “I have said to the Americans on many occasions in Washington: the road to Taiwan runs through Kyiv. If we forget that, then we will have lost Taiwan because they will see us as weak.”