Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested Ukraine be placed under a form of temporary administration to allow for new elections and the signature of key accords to reach a settlement in the war, Russian news agencies reported early on Friday.

Putin’s comments, during a visit to the northern port of Murmansk, come amid U.S. attempts to forge a settlement to the conflict by re-establishing links with Russia and engaging with both Moscow and Kyiv, in separate talks. The Kremlin leader said he believed U.S. President Donald Trump truly wanted peace, Reuters reported.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has left hundreds of thousands of dead and injured, displaced millions of people, reduced towns to rubble and triggered the sharpest confrontation for decades between Moscow and the West.

Putin’s suggestion of a temporary administration appeared to address his long-held complaint that Ukraine’s authorities are not a legitimate negotiating partner as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has stayed in power beyond the May 2024 end of his mandate.

“In principle, of course, a temporary administration could be introduced in Ukraine under the auspices of the U.N, the United States, European countries and our partners,” Putin was quoted as saying in talks with seamen at the port.

“This would be in order to hold democratic elections and bring to power a capable government enjoying the trust of the people and then to start talks with them about a peace treaty.”

He said Trump’s efforts to proceed with direct talks with Russia – in contrast with his predecessor Joe Biden, who shunned contacts – showed the new president wanted peace.

“In my opinion, the newly elected president of the United States sincerely wants an end to the conflict for a number of reasons,” the agencies quoted him as saying.

A White House National Security Council spokesperson, asked about Putin’s remarks on temporary administration, said governance in Ukraine was determined by its constitution and the people of the country.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

European leaders have pressed on with their own efforts, pledging after a meeting in Paris on Thursday to strengthen Kyiv’s army to ensure it was the cornerstone of future security in Ukraine.

France and Britain tried to expand support for a foreign “reassurance force” in the event of a truce with Russia, although Moscow rejects any presence of foreign troops in Ukraine.

UKRAINE REJECTS NOTION OF ILLEGITIMACY

Zelenskiy has rejected any notion questioning his legitimacy, saying Ukraine is barred by law from holding elections under martial law and holding a poll in wartime conditions would in any case prove impossible.

Zelenskiy has repeatedly accused Putin in recent days of wanting to press on with the conflict.

The Trump administration has proposed a new, more expansive minerals deal with Ukraine, according to three people familiar with the ongoing negotiations and a summary of a draft proposal obtained by Reuters.

Trump has said a minerals deal will help secure a peace agreement by giving the United States a financial stake in Ukraine’s future.

In his comments, Putin said Russia was steadily moving forward to achieving the goals it had set out in its Ukraine operation.

Russia, Putin said, was in favour of “peaceful solutions to any conflict, including this one, through peaceful means, but not at our expense”.

“Throughout the entire line of military contact, our troops are holding the strategic initiative,” he said.

“We are gradually – perhaps not as quickly as some might like – but still persistently and with confidence moving towards achieving the goals set out at the beginning of this operation,” the agencies quoted him as saying.

More than three years after launching their full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces now hold about 20% of the country, with Moscow declaring four regions annexed. Its forces have also recovered much of the territory it initially lost in a Ukrainian incursion last August into its western Kursk region.

Putin praised the efforts in seeking a solution from the BRICS grouping it promotes as an alternative to traditional alliances – singling out China and India for praise.

He said Russia was ready to cooperate with many countries, including North Korea, to help end the war.

Western and Ukrainian sources say more than 11,000 North Korean troops have been sent to bolster Russian forces in the Kursk region, although Moscow has not confirmed this.

Putin said Russia was also ready to work with Europe, but adding that Europe “conducts itself in inconsistent fashion”.

European countries, he said, were trying “lead us around by the nose, but it’s okay, we’ve become used to it. I hope that we won’t make any mistakes based on excessive trust in our so-called partners.”

A network of companies operated by a secretive Chinese tech firm has been trying to recruit recently laid-off U.S. government workers, according to job ads and a researcher who uncovered the campaign, Reuters reported Wednesday.

Max Lesser, a senior analyst on emerging threats with the Washington-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said some companies placing recruitment ads were “part of a broader network of fake consulting and headhunting firms targeting former government employees and AI researchers.”

Little information is publicly available on the four consultancies and recruitment companies allegedly involved in the network, which in some cases shared overlapping websites, were hosted on the same server, or had other digital links, according to Reuters’ reporting and Lesser’s research.

The four companies’ websites are hosted at the same IP address alongside Smiao Intelligence, an internet services company whose website became unavailable during Reuters’ reporting. 

Reuters could not determine the nature of the relationship between Smiao Intelligence and the four companies.

The news agency’s attempts to track down the four companies and Smiao Intelligence ran into numerous dead-ends including unanswered phone calls, phone numbers that no longer work, fake addresses, addresses that lead to empty fields, unanswered emails and deleted job listings from LinkedIn.

Lesser, who uncovered the network and shared his research with Reuters ahead of publication, said the campaign follows “well-established” techniques used by previous Chinese intelligence operations.

“What makes this activity significant,” he said, “is that the network seeks to exploit the financial vulnerabilities of former federal workers affected by recent mass layoffs.”

Reuters could not determine if the companies are linked to the Chinese government or whether any former federal workers were recruited.

Asked about the research, three intelligence analysts told Reuters the network appeared to be a prime example of how foreign-linked entities are trying to gather intelligence from staff fired or forced into retirement by President Donald Trump and billionaire tech tycoon Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington told Reuters in an email that China was unaware of any of the entities allegedly involved in the campaign and Beijing respects data privacy and security.

A White House spokesperson said China was constantly trying to exploit the United States’ “free and open system” through espionage and coercion.

“Both active and former government employees must recognize the danger these governments pose and the importance of safeguarding government information,” the spokesperson said.

One of the companies in the network, RiverMerge Strategies, bills itself on its website as a “professional geopolitical risk consulting company” and posted two since-deleted job listings on its since-removed LinkedIn page in mid-February.

One ad that sought a “Geopolitical Consulting Advisor” with experience with government agencies, international organizations, or multinational corporations, displayed that it had more than 200 applications, according to a screenshot of the LinkedIn post.

The other sought a human resources specialist who could “utilize a deep understanding of the Washington talent pool to identify candidates with policy or consulting experience,” and “leverage connections to local professional networks, think tanks, and academic institutions.”

A Russian missile attack hit a densely-populated district of Ukraine’s northeastern city of Sumy, wounding 88 people, including 17 children, on Monday as ceasefire talks, ploughed on, officials said.

Regional governor Volodymyr Artiukh announced the latest casualty toll on national television. He said many more children had escaped injury as they had been evacuated to air raid shelters, Reuters reported.

“They were in the area in a densely-populated area hit by the enemy strike,” Artiukh told the television.

“Two schools fell within the impact zone. I was present when our rescuers cleared the locations where the children were. They were in protective structures. All the children were rescued and evacuated to a safe place.”

Several high-rise residential blocks in the city centre were also damaged, read the report.

Artiukh had earlier spoken in a video that he said was shot at the scene with heavy black smoke, fires and a car with shattered windows in the background. Smoke also rose from the upper floors of a five-storey residential block nearby.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy deplored the attack in his nightly video address as the latest example of “losses, pain and destruction, something Ukraine never wanted.”

The missile struck the city as Russian and U.S. officials met in Saudi Arabia to discuss a possible ceasefire.

Zelenskiy said Russia was “the only entity prolonging this war and tormenting both our people and the entire world.

“To force Russia into peace, strong measures and decisive actions are needed,” he said. “We are ready to support every strong initiative that makes diplomacy more effective.”

Foreign Minister Adrii Sybiha said Moscow was speaking of peace “while carrying out brutal strikes on densely populated residential areas in major Ukrainian cities.”

“Instead of making hollow statements about peace, Russia must stop bombing our cities and end its war on civilians,” Sybiha said.

Acting Sumy mayor Artem Kobzar said on Telegram an industrial facility was attacked but did not name it.

Sumy, about 30 km (20 miles) from the Russian border, comes under constant drone and missile strikes from Russia.