UKRAINIAN drones hit the Moscow area yesterday as Russian troops continued to surround the towns of Kurakhove and Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s Donbass.

Moscow’s Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said 32 drones had been shot down over the capital. A woman in her fifties suffered burns from a blaze started by a drone hitting her village south-east of the city, but nobody in Moscow proper was hurt, he said, though footage of suburban homes on fire was relayed by some Russian media.

With Ukraine reporting Kurakhove is now surrounded on three sides and President Volodymyr Zelensky saying the situation is also “most challenging” in the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk, the bloody war shows no sign of stopping, though Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Moscow was open to “ideas on how to move forward on a settlement” from US President-elect Donald Trump.

Mr Trump has previously vowed to end the war “on day one,” while advisers of his have briefed the media that Ukraine will be asked to replace its “victory plan” — which requests Nato membership and more long-range weaponry with permission to use it against targets inside Russia — with a “peace plan” which will involve abandoning commitments to restoring its UN-recognised borders, at least by dropping hopes of reclaiming Crimea.

Russia sentenced two of its soldiers, Anton Sopov and Stanislav Rau, to life imprisonment at the weekend for massacring a Ukrainian family, including children aged five and nine, in their home last year. Russia denies most allegations of war crimes levelled by Ukraine, Western governments and the International Criminal Court.