The director of the CIA flew to Moscow to warn Russia it needed to cut a deal with Ukraine before its military and economic situation worsens. 

On Tuesday it was reported that John Ratcliffe had made a secret flight as speculation grew about why a US military plane had landed in Russia. 

Current and former officials have revealed that Mr Ratcliffe delivered the warning to Aleksandr Bortnikov, head of Russia's FSB intelligence service, but made no threats about any potential consequences should Russian president Vladimir Putin ignore the CIA's assessment.

The CIA has long questioned whether Putin's advisers give him the whole truth about the invasion's trajectory and toll on the country. 

Separately, Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the US President's son-in-law, have established communication channels with some of Putin's senior advisers.

Officials told the New York Times that Putin, himself a former intelligence official, would take the warning seriously if it came from the CIA director. 

Mr Ratcliffe spoke to his Ukrainian counterparts before he met Bortnikov in Moscow, assuring them he would not be making concessions on behalf of the Ukrainians. 

The past year has seen Russia's advance on Ukrainian territory practically grind to a halt. Initially, many people believed a Russian victory was inevitable. 

But Kremlin forces have suffered huge losses with little to show for it. 

Last month, Mr Ratcliffe warned that the average life expectancy of a Russian soldier was as little as 20 minutes.  

Speaking at the Defence and Innovation Summit in Pennsylvania, the CIA director said: 'That's because AI-powered drones have gotten to be such specialised, low-cost killing machines.'

Ukraine's AI drones account for more than 80 per cent of destroyed enemy targets, according to the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

About two million soldiers have been killed, wounded or have gone missing since Ukraine was invaded in early 2022, 1.4million of them Russian, according to a recent estimate by the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a US think-tank.

Neither side releases military casualty data.

Russia's troops have struggled to advance this year along the 745-mile front line as Ukraine's drones counter Russia's numerical advantage in troops. 

A drone attack early on Friday killed one man in Kherson, hours after authorities urged residents to leave as intensifying Russian attacks on the southern Ukrainian city risked cutting power supplies ahead of the long winter.

Russian forces are positioned on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River, which borders the city briefly occupied by Moscow in 2022, making it particularly vulnerable to shelling.

The drone attack early on Friday in Kherson's Korabelnyi district killed a 61-year-old man who was taken to hospital with a 'penetrating chest wound', Yaroslav Shanko, the head of the Kherson city administration, said.

Three others were wounded and taken to hospital in the Dniprovsky district.

The attack came after regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin urged residents of Kherson, 'especially families with children and elderly people,' to 'please leave' on Thursday.

Mr Prokudin said there was an 'extremely difficult security situation' in the city, which had about 280,000 inhabitants before the start of Russia's invasion. It was occupied by Russian forces from March to November of 2022.

'The enemy is intensifying its attacks every day on the region's critical infrastructure,' he said, adding that on Wednesday 'Russian forces again attacked Kherson's district heating plant with glide bombs'.

The facility 'sustained very serious damage,' he said, adding that Kherson may find itself 'without electricity or heating not for hours or days but for a long period'.

Ukrainian stocks of interceptor missiles have also started to dwindle.

'There is no way to destroy these types of drones or aerial bombs in any region of our country,' he said.

Last winter, Russia repeatedly targeted Ukrainian power plants, plunging millions of people into cold and darkness.

Mr Zelensky warned earlier this month that Ukraine had 'virtually no intact thermal power plants'.

Russia and Ukraine have for several months been ramping up their long-range strikes, increasingly targeting civilian infrastructure such as logistics warehouses and oil and port facilities.

These attacks are causing a rising number of civilian casualties.

Further from the front line, Ukraine's capital Kyiv has been particularly targeted this summer.

On Thursday, the capital spent nearly 15 hours under air raid alert due to repeated drone attacks, according to local authorities.

This 'shows another way Russia is using its weapons to disrupt civilian life', the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in response, warning that Moscow 'continues to choose terror and war'.

In the face of Russian bombardments, Mr Zelensky has consistently appealed to allies for new air defence systems.

While Ukraine has in recent days received fresh promises of military aid from European countries, including France, it primarily relies on advanced US Patriot systems to protect its airspace.

Deliveries of these missiles have sharply decreased, however, as US stockpiles depleted because of the Middle East war.

Four and a half years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, negotiations undertaken with US mediation to end the conflict are at a standstill.

Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia's general staff has nonetheless visited troops fighting on the Ukrainian front to congratulate them on their 'successes' in the eastern Donetsk region.

During the visit he said the Russian army was now only a few kilometres from Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, cities whose capture is a key objective for the Kremlin.