Ukrainian officials also issued evacuation orders in northern Sumi on Saturday after continued Russian gains led to fears that Moscow might be ready for a new ground attack.

Russia entered Ukrainian territory on Saturday, controlled two villages in Sumy and killed two people with missiles and drone barrage. More than 200 settlements in the area are already under evacuation orders.

The attack is as Ukrainian diplomats continue to discuss a round of peace talks proposed by Moscow in Istanbul next week.

Ukrainian President Vody MR Zelenskyy said about 50,000 Russian troops gathered on the border near the Sumi region, which he said indicates that Moscow is preparing for a newer offensive.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday it had controlled the village of Novapi in the eastern part of Donetsk, and the village of Vodorah in the northern part of Sumi.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Russian troops also launched 109 drones and five missiles in Ukraine, and many of them were intercepted in the early hours of Saturday.

Ivan Fedorov, governor of Ivan Fedorov, said Salvo missile Salvo killed a 9-year-old girl in the Zaporizhia region in eastern Ukraine and injured a 16-year-old governor of Zaporizhzhia. Another man was killed by Russian shelling in the port city of Holson, southern Ukraine. "A house was destroyed. The blast wave of the explosion also damaged several other houses, cars and outbuildings," Fedorov wrote in the telegram.

Ukraine also launched a drone attack in western Russia on Saturday, injured 14 people.

The prospects for continuing peace talks between Russia and Ukraine remain uncertain. Moscow proposed direct peace talks between the two countries of Istanbul on Monday, but Kiev insisted that Russia should first offer a promised ceasefire proposal before agreeing to participate.

Russia has previously said it would share a memorandum that would end the three-year war between the two countries, but has not done so yet. Ukrainian officials said they had made a proposal to Russia, laying out its terms.

Zelenskyy accused Russia of not giving Ukrainians a stance to the paper “undermining diplomacy.”

"For some reason, the Russians covered up the document. It's an absolutely strange position. The format is not clear." Moscow said it will personally provide the terms of peace on Monday.

Both Russia and Ukraine are under increasing international pressure to achieve a ceasefire, especially after U.S. President Donald Trump has made a ceasefire a key foreign policy priority. Trump called for direct dialogue between the two countries, while Türkiye played a mediation role and proposed to hold a summit between them.

The benefits of diplomacy are small, with prisoners between Russia and Ukraine exchanging unprecedented prisoners, who exchanged 1,000 prisoners earlier this month. Prisoner exchanges were originally a confidence-building measure and have not led to a greater breakthrough.

The EU accused Russia of halting ceasefire negotiations while making gains on the battlefield, a statement Moscow rejected. Moscow said Ukraine delayed the ceasefire, although Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to agree to call for a 30-day unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022 and has resulted in thousands of deaths. Russia now controls one-fifth of the Ukrainian region.