US President Donald Trump has been pushing the warring sides to strike a deal to halt the conflict, running shuttle diplomacy between Ukraine`s Volodymyr Zelensky and Russia`s Vladimir Putin to try to get an agreement across the line, writes France24.

"An initial 28-point plan that largely adhered to Moscow`s demands was criticised by Kyiv and Europe. Now Russia has condemned attempts to beef up protections for Ukraine should an elusive deal be reached. Ukraine`s allies said they had agreed key security guarantees for Kyiv at a summit in Paris earlier this week, including a peacekeeping force. But in its first comments since the summit, Moscow said the statements were far from anything the Kremlin could accept to end its assault.

"The new militarist declarations of the so-called Coalition of the Willing and the Kyiv regime together form a genuine "axis of war", Russia`s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement. The plans drafted by Kyiv`s allies were "dangerous" and "destructive", she added.

The remarks came as Russian strikes plunged hundreds of thousands in Ukraine into darkness and killed three in a frontline city - attacks that Zelensky said showed Russia was still set on war. European leaders and US envoys announced earlier this week that post-war guarantees for Ukraine would include a US-led monitoring mechanism and a European multinational force to be deployed once the fighting stops. But Moscow has repeatedly warned that it would not accept any NATO members sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine.

"All such units and facilities will be considered legitimate military targets for the Russian Armed Forces", Zakharova said Thursday, repeating a threat previously uttered by Putin.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said a ceasefire in Ukraine was still "quite far" away given Russia`s position: "The order must be: First a ceasefire, then security guarantees for Ukraine for a long-term agreement with Russia. All of this is impossible without Russia`s consent, which we are probably still quite far from".

Zelensky said that an agreement between Kyiv and Washington for US security guarantees was "essentially ready for finalisation at the highest level with the US President" following talks between envoys in Paris this week. Kyiv says legally binding assurances that its allies would come to its defence are essential to convince Russia not to re-attack if a ceasefire is reached. Specific details - size of the European force, how it would engage, etc., have not been made public".