Meanwhile, Moscow is hoping the war in Iran will weaken Ukraine and its allies.

07:55, Thu, Mar 19, 2026 Updated: 07:56, Thu, Mar 19, 2026

RUSSIA-POLITICS-REGIONS

Vladimir Putin has suspended talks over ending the war (Image: Getty)

Any hopes of Russia's invasion of Ukraine have taken a massive setback as warmongering Vladimir Putin has pulled the plug on negotiations with Donald Trump and Vlodymyr Zelenskyy. This comes as Putin needled NATO overnight with strikes in Ukraine as little as three miles to the border with allied state Poland.

The trilateral talks which have been seeking a way to halt the war are paused, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov made clear.
He indicated the cause of the suspension was the start of the conflict between the USA, Israel, and Iran.

He said: "The trilateral group is on pause."

Moscow is hoping that the Middle East war will weaken Ukraine by limiting the supply of Western arms to its foe.

Russia issued a warning to the West with hits on Ukrainian territory close to the NATO border. The SBU security service headquarters in Lviv - 43 miles from the Polish border - was damaged in a drone strike.

U.S. President Trump And Russian President Putin Meet On War In Ukraine At U.S. Air Base In Alaska

Trump met Putin in Alaska last year (Image: Getty)

Head of the Lviv regional administration, Maxim Kozitsky, confirmed there was damage. In Volyn region, the border city of Novovolynsk was plunged into darkness with a Russian strike on an energy facility. This is just three miles from Polish territory.

Mayor Boris Karpus said: "Electricity has been cut off in some parts of the community. There are also disruptions in water supply."

The strikes were by Iranian-designed Shahid drones – the same type Tehran is using to terrorise the Middle East. Residential buildings were hit in Ukrainian port Odesa in another Russian strike on civilians.

Serhiy Lysak, head of the city's military administration, said: "There has been damage to two high-rise apartment buildings, another residence in the city's historic centre as well as private homes."

And there were hits on Synelnykove, in Dnipropetrovsk region. Bilateral talks between Russia and the US, and Moscow and Washington, were ongoing, but these were not about ending the war, said Peskov.

But the three-way talks on ending the war - which have been held in Abu Dhabi and Geneva - are paused, he made clear.