President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia was winning the war in Ukraine, saying it's not possible to negotiate with Ukrainian leadership.
Putin, in his most detailed comments on the war in weeks, acknowledged on Tuesday that Ukrainian attacks inside Russia had inflicted damage and said that drones posed a particular challenge.
But he said that Russia was advancing on the battlefield and told reporters: "I have no doubt the enemy will crumble."
He declined to say when that would happen.
Rumours that Russia would be forced to order a new military mobilisation were "utter nonsense," he said.
Russian troops had captured 270 square kilometres of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine in August, and a large group of Ukrainian troops were surrounded, Putin said.
Russia continues to advance towards the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, Putin said, adding that Moscow's forces were preparing to launch massive strikes against energy infrastructure in Ukraine.
Ukraine's airspace warning
Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned airlines and passengers that Russian airspace would be "completely unsafe" and filled with Ukrainian drones for the duration of the war.
"Today, we want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer, and everyone who still uses Russia's key airports: Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe," he said in his nightly address.
"Ukraine does not threaten civilian aviation as such — not a single civilian aircraft. There will simply be drones in Russia's skies on a scale that has to be taken into account," he said.
Putin said that Zelenskyy's warning to airlines that Ukrainian drones would effectively shut down Russian airspace sounded like "state terrorism" and that Moscow would find a way to respond if it happened.
Speaking at a news conference after a summit in Kyrgyzstan, Putin said it was not possible to negotiate with "terrorists".
He also said, however, that Moscow was open to "concrete" talks on settling the conflict in Ukraine if new momentum could be injected.
