Putin claims no turning point reached in Russia-Ukraine conflict

Russian President Vladimir Putin claims Ukraine's retaliatory strikes on the Russian territory have "opened a Pandora's box" and caused economic damages but "no turning point" has been reached in fighting on the battlefield.

This as France agrees to expedite the delivery of air defense missiles to Ukraine in the wake of a series of lethal Russian attacks on civilians targets in Kryvyi Rih and Kyiv.

In the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, also hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, rescuers are still digging through the debris of a shopping centre after the complex was struck by a double-tap Russian drone strike on Friday that claimed 16 lives and wounded some 130.

The head of Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration calls it a "terrorist attack" because there's no military or logistics facilities anywhere near the mall.

It came just 24 hours after missiles and drones rained down in a nighttime assault on capital Kyiv that killed 16 people, as Russians continue to exploit Ukraine's shortage of US-made Patriot air defense interceptors, the only weapons capable of downing Russia's hypersonic ballistic missiles.

The United Nations has said Kyiv was one of the hardest-hit cities in July, with the Kremlin systematically targeting its energy infrastructure ahead of the bitter winter season.

On Saturday, Zelenskyy indicated he had briefed French President Emmanuel Macron on the latest strikes in a phone call and that France agreed to fast-track the delivery of its advanced military equipment to Ukraine.

Macron has also expressed readiness to help facilitate communication between Ukraine and other partners that have the necessary missiles for the Patriot air defense system, according to Zelenskyy.

At the same time, Kyiv is shifting the war onto Russian oil via long-range drone strikes, killing at least 10 people across Russia and Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, including in Krasnodar region where three people lost their lives.

During an interview on state TV, despite acknowledging Kyiv's intensified bombardments are causing real damage to the Russian economy, Putin dismissed the idea that a turning point has been reached in the conflict and contended that Moscow has stepped up its own retaliatory attacks on the enterprises of the defense industrial complex of Ukraine.

The Russian president went on to say the Kyiv regime was trying to prevent the situation from "developing catastrophically" but some proposals conveyed to Moscow were "unacceptable."

Putin claimed they remain open to peace talks on the basis of the "realities on the ground."