Kiev: 'Ukrainian reporter tortured by Russians before dying'. Media: 'Putin insists on control of 4 Ukrainian regions for peace'

Meanwhile, Moscow's drone raids continue. At least one woman was injured in the Desnyanskyi district and several fires are reported in parts of the Ukrainian capital following a Russian drone strike on Kiev tonight, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko quoted by local media.

The attack came after Putin ordered three more days of truce in Ukraine, from 8 to 10 May. Truce that is not enough for Trump: he wants a permanent ceasefire, says the White House. Today UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine. And comes Amnesty international's denunciation: 'The Trump effect is turbocharging the breakdown of respect for human rights by putting billions of people at risk'.

Overall, Russian attacks in the Ukrainian regions resulted in the death of at least eight civilians and the wounding of 24 others, with children among the victims. This was reported by regional authorities, quoted by the Kiev Independent.

A 12-year-old girl was killed in a Russian drone attack in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine, according to a statement on social media by Serhiy Lysak, head of the regional military administration. According to Lysak, the Russian military launched a massive drone attack in the region. Ukrainian defenders intercepted and destroyed seven drones, but the attack cost the life of the little girl in the Hubynykha oblast, Samar district, where another girl, aged 6, and two adults were slightly injured.

The attack also caused extensive material damage, partially destroying a private house and an outbuilding, and damaging another house and a garage. The State Emergency Service of Ukraine reported that a Russian drone hit a residential building in the Samar district, leaving children trapped under the rubble. Locals managed to extract one child, while the other died from injuries sustained during transport to hospital. The parents sustained injuries, but refused hospitalisation. In the community of Sloviansk, in the Synelnykove district, a drone attack caused a fire on a farm. The Russian army also launched a guided aerial bomb at the community of Velykomykhaylivka, also in the Synelnykove district. The extent of the damage is currently being ascertained. In the Nikopol district, artillery shelling and drone attacks targeted Nikopol, the communities of Marhanets and Pokrovsk. A 47-year-old woman was injured in the attack, which also caused damage to infrastructure, including two private homes and a power line.

Russian air defence systems have shot down 91 Ukrainian drones since last night, 40 of them overnight, the Russian Defence Ministry said this morning.

"Last night, the air defence systems destroyed 40 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones: 11 drones over the Ryazan region, eight drones over the Nizhny Novgorod region, seven drones over the Orël region, four drones over the Crimean Republic, four drones over the Black Sea, two drones over the Moscow region, two drones over the Belgorod region, one drone over the Kaluga region and one drone over the Bryansk region," the ministry stated.

The same source added that in total, from 8pm Moscow time on 28 April to 6am today, air defence systems destroyed 91 Ukrainian drones.

On the diplomatic front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky turned down a request from the Brazilian government for a telephone conversation with his counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on the eve of his trip to Moscow, where Lula confirmed that on 9 May he will participate with Russian President Vladimir Putin in celebrations marking the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

"It's a pity that the Lula government chose this strange path, completely ignoring Ukraine, openly despising Zelensky and then, all of a sudden, trying to get an alibi and an excuse from Kiev to go to Moscow to openly support Putin in a terrible military parade, disguising this intention under the pretext of peace mediation," a senior Ukrainian government source told the Cnn Brasil website.

A Brazilian government source said that Zelensky's hostile posture towards Lula should not change the Greenoro position in favour of a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, adding that he is surprised that the Ukrainian government has a more aggressive stance with Brazil than, for example, with the United States, after the recent spat between Zelensky and US President Donald Trump at the White House.

"The citizens of the Union are overwhelmingly in favour" of pushing for a defence of Europe. "But the extreme left and the extreme right have always opposed this idea. And now again, from the fringes, some are trying to boycott this European awakening. They say that Russia is not a threat and that Europe is not the answer. Let me be clear. Only a strong EU can protect peace on our continent. The extreme left and the extreme right are not in favour of peace. They are only in favour of Putin'. So said EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the EPP Congress in Valencia.