Russian drone strikes kill two in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin at a plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. [Olga Maltseva, AFP]

Russian drone strikes killed two people in Ukraine, officials said Sunday, as world leaders gathered in London to discuss piling pressure on Moscow over its four-year war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet the leaders of France, Germany and Britain on Sunday for talks on the way forward as Russia suffers military setbacks in the invasion of its neighbour.

A Russian drone strike killed a 56-year-old man working as a minibus driver in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine wrote on Telegram on Sunday.

A 59-year-old man was killed in a separate attack in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, when Russian drones and aerial bombs rained down over two districts, regional military chief Oleksandr Ganzha posted on Telegram on Sunday.

The attacks wounded a 35-year-old man and damaged infrastructure, Ganzha said.

Ukraine recaptured more territory than it lost to Russian forces in May for the second straight month, AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed earlier this month.

Russia's offensive has meanwhile led to rising prices, tax hikes, two-decade-high borrowing costs, business shutdowns and labour shortages, putting the economy in its trickiest spot since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Zelensky proposed a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin in an open letter to the Russian leader on Thursday, saying he was also ready for a "full ceasefire".

Putin, speaking at Russia's flagship economic forum on Friday, rejected suggestions the Russian economy had collapsed, saying "we have descended to the same level at which Eurozone countries have been experiencing growth for the past few years."