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The Kremlin said Wednesday that its army's recent battlefield successes in Ukraine had bolstered its position in talks to end the fighting, as both Moscow and Kyiv prepared for more negotiations with the United States.US President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner negotiated into the early hours with Vladimir Putin but no breakthrough for a peace settlement was announced.The Kremlin said the two sides had failed to find a "compromise" on the crucial issue of territories and that Ukraine's participation in Nato remained a "key" question in the talks.The White House had previously voiced optimism about its plan to end Europe's worst conflict since World War II but that hope appeared to fade Wednesday, with Moscow saying it had found parts of the plan "unacceptable".Witkoff and Kushner brought an updated version of a US plan to end the war.Russia's advance in eastern Ukraine gathered pace last month and Putin has said in recent days that Moscow is ready to fight on to seize the rest of the land it claims if Kyiv does not surrender it."The progress and nature of the negotiations were influenced by the successes of the Russian army on the battlefield in recent weeks," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov — who took part in the US-Russia talks — told reporters, including AFP."Our Russian soldiers, through their military exploits, have helped make the assessments of our foreign partners regarding the paths to a peace settlement more appropriate," he added.Moscow insisted it was incorrect to say Putin rejected the plan in its entirety.It also said Russia was still committed to diplomacy, despite Putin's stark warning that Moscow was prepared to fight Europe if it wanted war."We are still ready to meet as many times as is needed to reach a peace settlement," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.The fresh talks come as Nato pledges to buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of US arms for Kyiv.Nato chief Mark Rutte said it was positive that peace talks were ongoing but that the alliance should make sure that "Ukraine is in the strongest possible position to keep the fight going".Russian troops have been grinding forward across the front line against outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian forces.Earlier this week, Moscow claimed to have captured the important stronghold of Pokrovsk but a Ukraine army unit fighting in the city said urban combat was still ongoing."The enemy is bogged down in urban combat for Pokrovsk and currently cannot seize the city using weapons," the 7th Air Assault Corps said. According to Ukrainian online map project DeepState, most of the city is occupied by the Russians.European countries have expressed fears Washington and Moscow will reach agreements without them and have spent the last weeks trying to amend the US plan so that it does not force Kyiv to capitulate.In Moscow, tensions with Europe were palpable, with Putin delivering an exceptionally hawkish statement on Tuesday."We are not planning to go to war with Europe, but if Europe wants to and starts, we are ready right now," he said.Britain has downplayed Putin's hawkish messaging, calling it "yet more Kremlin claptrap from a president who isn't serious about peace".Moscow went to war in Ukraine in February 2022, saying it wanted to prevent Kyiv joining Nato — a prospect that Ukraine and the Western alliance have called a pretext to start the fighting and that they say was not going to happen.Since the full-scale offensive, Kyiv has said that joining the Western alliance would protect it from future Russian attacks.Trump has repeatedly ruled out Ukrainian membership in the bloc.Ushakov said the issue was "key" at the talks.Zelensky's top negotiator Rustem Umerov held a lengthy meeting with European security advisors on Wednesday as the Kyiv team was expected to meet Trump's envoys later."I gave my colleagues a detailed update on the negotiations in Geneva and Florida, and on the next steps in the diplomatic process," Umerov said."It's important that Europe stays an active part of this," he added.Zelensky has said that any peace deal for the conflict should make sure Moscow will not attack again.Moscow's offensive in Ukraine, which has killed thousands, has also been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent at home unseen since the Soviet era. 

An AI-powered robot danced for President Vladimir Putin Wednesday at an exhibition put on by Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, designed to showcase the company's technological advances. The performance, which was shown on state TV, showed the Kremlin chief standing opposite the humanoid robot as it explained to him what it was before dancing to what it said was its favourite track. "My name is Green.I am the first Russian humanoid robot with embedded artificial intelligence. This means that I am not just a programme on a screen, but a physical embodiment of technology," the robot told Putin. Sberbank says the robot's software will be constantly upgraded, that it has the potential to perform physical tasks, and that a pilot project will see it integrated into parts of its business.The unusual event was watched closely by Putin's bodyguards, one of whom stood between the robot and the Russian leader afterwards to make sure it moved away from him and did not get too close. Putin called the robot's performance "very beautiful" and thanked it before continuing his tour.The performance comes days after the Moscow presentation of another Russian robot purported to harness AI - called Aidol - went wrong after the robot fell flat on its face shortly after appearing on stage. Putin also inspected one of Sberbank's new generation smart cash machines which with the help of a camera can give customers a summary of their health based on 10 indicators such as pulse and blood pressure.Putin said at that event that he'd been through one of his regular health checkups recently and that everything was fine with him.

A teenage Russian street musician who has spent nearly a month in jail after singing anti-Kremlin songs was handed more jail time on Tuesday in a case rights activists say shows how stifling wartime censorship has become.Diana Loginova, 18, who sings in a group called Stoptime, was arrested in her native St. Petersburg last month after giving a series of impromptu street concerts in the heart of Russia's second city in which she belted out cover versions of songs penned by Kremlin critics with sometimes subtle anti-war and, in one case, anti-Putin lyrics.Loginova, whose performances prompted young passers-by to sing along and saw the band swiftly build a social media audience of over 50,000 followers, has already been jailed twice after video of the concerts went viral online and attracted the attention of the authorities.A court in St Petersburg ruled Tuesday she should spend a further 13 days in jail on a new public order offence. Alexander Orlov, the band's guitarist and her fiance, was also handed another 13 days in jail by the same court.Authorities in Russia have cracked down hard on critical voices since Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022. They argue that society must be as united as possible, at a time when they say it is locked in a proxy war with the West.Singers who are critical of the authorities have fled the country and are cast as traitors by pro-Kremlin politicians and have often been designated as "foreign agents" — a label which has negative Soviet-era connotations related to foreign espionage.Loginova, a music student who performs under the stage name Naoko, was initially jailed for 13 days for a public order offence after her performance of a banned track, the "Swan Lake Cooperative", by exiled anti-Kremlin Russian rapper Noize MC, went viral on social media.The Swan Lake track caught the authorities' eye because the famous ballet by Piotr Tchaikovsky is seen as a symbol of political change by some in Russia: it was shown on state TV after the death of Soviet leaders and during a 1991 coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president.Loginova's performance of another track disliked by the authorities — *You Are a Soldier by singer Monetochka, who like Noize MC has left the country and is designated a "foreign agent" — got her into further trouble and saw her fined 30,000 roubles ($369) for discrediting the army and she was separately handed another 13-day jail sentence for "petty hooliganism"Tuesday, she was handed another 13 days, her third consecutive sentence.Amnesty International says Loginova and her band mates have been subjected to "carousel arrests", a practice the rights group said is used to prolong deprivation of liberty without filing criminal charges by rearresting them immediately when one period of so-called administrative detention ends."Their only 'crime' is singing songs that challenge the suffocating official narrative," said Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Eastern Europe.Court records show that Loginova faces more charges for discrediting the army, which could see her hit with another fine at a later date.Irina, her mother, told reporters Tuesday after the court ruling that she thought her daughter and her bandmates had done nothing wrong and did not know why their concerts had attracted so much attention from the authorities and from the media.