Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up tensions with Europe, warning that if the bloc starts a war with Russia, Moscow is ready.

Several top Ukrainian officials were expected to be in Brussels on Wednesday for meetings with European national security advisers, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

The foreign minister says the EU is downplaying its concerns and over the plan which Belgium sees as "fundamentally wrong".

Economic and military pressures could force Russia’s hand. But its economy, though strained, is not strained enough to do that, analysts say. And President Vladimir V. Putin says Russia is winning the war.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a peace plan that Washington hopes can end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine.

European Union lawmakers and member states reached a deal Wednesday to ban all imports of Russian gas by autumn 2027, as the bloc seeks to choke off key funds feeding Moscow's war chest."This is the dawn of a new era,

The European Union agreed Wednesday to phase out Russian natural gas imports by late 2027 as part of an effort to end the bloc’s decade-long dependency on Russian energy.

By Ben Aris in Berlin Trade between Russia and the European Union has plummeted to its lowest level on record, as sanctions, energy decoupling, and sanctions bite, Izvestiya reported on December 2. According to figures released by the Russian Mission to the EU cited by Izvestiya,