LIVE UPDATES: US Confirms No Intention to Send Troops to Ukraine to Fight Russian Soldiers

Ukrainian troops early on Thursday shelled the locality of Donetskiy in the Lugansk People's Republic (LPR), firing five 152-millimeter shells, the LPR representative office in the Joint Center for Control and Coordination of the ceasefire regime (JCCC) said in a statement.

"A shelling attack by Ukraine's armed units was registered... from the direction of the settlement of Gorskoye towards the locality of Donetskiy using a 152mm artillery gun (5 shells)," the office said.

"This bill temporarily waives certain requirements related to the President's authority to lend or lease defense articles if the defense articles are intended for Ukraine's government and necessary to protect civilians in Ukraine from Russian military invasion," the document's summary says.

According to the Senate, the president must establish procedures for ensuring the timely delivery of military support loaned and leased to Ukraine under the bill.

The legislation is yet to be approved by the House of Representatives.

"Dialogue with Russia has no sense ... One has to present very tough conditions to [Russian President] Vladimir Putin. One has to say, 'Unless you meet these conditions, we don't have anything to talk about," Andrzej Duda told the CNN broadcaster on Wednesday.

He pointed out that the EU was going to decisively support Ukraine and boost sanctions against Russia. From Duda's point of view, any dialogue without results wins time for Russia to continue the military operation in Ukraine.

The secretary also called on the G7 partners to close ports for Russian vessels and make Russian gold unavailable for the Russian government.

"Roskomnadzor demanded that the American company Google LLC, the owner of the Internet service YouTube, remove the restrictions imposed by the administration of the video hosting site on the video of the briefing of Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova and explain the reason for their introduction," the agency said in a statement.

Roskomnadzor also noted that by blocking this video the YouTube administration hampers the distribution of information and free access to it. According to the agency, the platform deliberately discriminates against Russian users and restricts their access to the official information provided by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia considers the decision of Slovenia to reduce the number of diplomatic staff in the Russian embassy in Ljubljana as an unfriendly act and reserves the right to reciprocate, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

"We regard these steps as extremely irresponsible and unfriendly… Clearly, these steps are designed to systematically destroy Russian-Slovenian relations, which turn 30 this year," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Russia may introduce reciprocal measures against Slovenian diplomats in the light of this decision.

"We reserve the right to take political and diplomatic measures in response, such as limiting the total number of staff of the Embassy of Slovenia in Moscow, including local staff, among them citizens of Russia and third countries. Such precedents are known to exist," the statement said.

On Tuesday, the Slovenian Foreign Ministry informed Russian Ambassador Timur Eyvazov about its decision to reduce the number of the Russian embassy employees. Slovenia will expel 35 Russian diplomats, AFP reported, citing sources close to the country's foreign ministry.