Russian forces were moving closer to capturing a major town on the eastern front in the war in Ukraine as part of their drive westward to capture all of the Donbas region, according to military bloggers. Bloggers on both sides reported on Friday that Russian forces had entered the village of Sontsivka and were advancing from the north-west on the city of Kurakhove. Ukrainian authorities made no acknowledgment that the village had fallen into Russian hands, while noting that fighting on the eastern front was heaviest around Kurakhove and Pokrovsk, a major logistics centre to the north-west. “The Kurakhove direction and the Pokrovsk direction are the most challenging right now,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address. “The military command and brigade command are working on strengthening positions.” Elon Musk reportedly made a surprise guest appearance on a call between Donald Trump and Zelenskyy, solidifying the Tesla chief executive’s role as the most influential civilian in the US come January. Musk was present with Trump during the call for roughly 25 minutes, according to Axios, which first reported the call. Trump handed Musk the phone and Musk and Zelenskyy spoke briefly. On the call, Zelenskyy thanked Musk for the satellites he had been providing Ukraine through his company, Starlink, according to Agence France-Presse. Musk said he would continue to provide satellite internet connection, the report said. Russian air defences intercepted and destroyed 15 Ukrainian drones over the southern Bryansk region, the regional governor said early on Saturday. Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram that air defence units had downed a total of 15 drones. He said there was no damage or injuries. The US has decided to allow US defence contractors to work in Ukraine to maintain and repair Pentagon-provided weaponry, US officials said, in a Biden administration policy shift that aims to aid Kyiv’s fight against Moscow. A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the contractors would be small in number and located far from the frontlines, and would not be engaged in combat. Previously Kyiv had to move US-provided weaponry out of the country for heavy repair or rely on video-conferencing and other creative solutions to fix those systems inside the country. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has predicted Donald Trump’s new US administration will cease providing support for Ukraine. Orbán made the comments before a summit of European leaders in Budapest where the war against Russia’s invasion will be high on the agenda. The comments of Orbán, who is close to the US president-elect and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, were a sign that Trump’s election could drive a wedge among EU leaders over the war, the Associated Press reported. Nato members said the deployment of North Korean troops was a “dangerous expansion” of the country’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine. The military alliance’s 32 member countries warned in a joint statement on Friday that “the deepening military cooperation” between Russia and North Korea “deeply impacts Euro-Atlantic security, with implications also for the Indo-Pacific”. Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Ukraine also supported the Nato statement. A Russian court sentenced two soldiers to life in prison for the massacre of a family of nine people in their home in occupied Ukraine, state media reported on Friday. Russian prosecutors said that in October 2023, the two Russian soldiers, Anton Sopov and Stanislav Rau, entered the home of the Kapkanets family in the city of Volnovakha and shot all the family members, including two children aged five and nine. The southern district military court in Rostov-on-Don sentenced the two men to life in prison for mass murder “motivated by political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred”, the state-run Tass news agency reported, citing a law enforcement source. Ukraine said it had received the bodies of 563 soldiers from Russian authorities, mainly troops who had died in combat in the eastern Donetsk region. Friday’s announcement represents one of the largest repatriations of dead Ukrainian servicemen since the war began. Ukraine’s relationship with the UK has “got worse” since the Labour government took power in July, officials in Kyiv have told the Guardian, voicing frustration over Britain’s failure to supply additional long-range missiles. The UK prime minister is yet to visit Ukraine four months after taking office and a frustrated Kyiv has said a trip would be worthless unless Keir Starmer committed to replenishing stocks of the sought-after long-range Storm Shadow system, Luke Harding and Dan Sabbagh report. “There’s no point in his coming as a tourist,” a senior figure in Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s administration said. Russia and Ukraine’s most senior rights officials said on Friday they had met in Moscow-allied Belarus, in a rare direct meeting of officials from the warring countries. Russia’s human rights ombudswoman, Tatyana Moskalkova, and Ukraine’s ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said on social media they had discussed prisoners of war and future interactions. Russian prosecutors on Friday demanded a six-year prison sentence for a paediatrician accused of criticising the Ukraine campaign during a private appointment, in a case that has revealed the extent of repression gripping Russia. Nadezhda Buyanova was reported to the police by the ex-wife of a soldier missing after fighting in Ukraine, Anastasia Akinshina, who accused her of calling the man a “legal target of Ukraine”. The 68-year-old was arrested in February and has been in pre-trial detention since April. Ingka Group, which runs most Ikea stores globally, has sold its last asset in Russia, a warehouse near Moscow, it said on Friday, completing its exit from the country. Ingka sold its 14 Mega-branded shopping malls in Russia to Gazprombank Group in September 2023, joining scores of western companies abandoning the Russian market after Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.