Moscow has hoped to mend relations with the United States while continuing to wage war in Ukraine, but Mr. Putin’s insistence on pushing his offensive has come at a diplomatic cost.

ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russians and Ukrainians were one people, "and in that sense the whole of Ukraine is ours," and said he did not rule out Russia taking control of the Ukrainian city of Sumy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened for the first time to seize Ukraine's north-eastern city of Sumy. "We do not have the goal of capturing Sumy, but in principle I do not rule it out," he said on Friday at the annual St Petersburg International Economic Forum,