Reuters has reported that the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday said ''the situation in the south and the Donbas region remained extremely difficult and reiterated that Russia was building up forces near the besieged city of Mariupol.''

"There will be battles ahead. We still need to go down a very difficult path to get everything we want," he said in a late night video address.

In markets, US stocks suffered steep declines into month-end as a key US inflation gauge shot higher while the Ukraine conflict continued. President Joe Biden also reportedly said there is "no clear evidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin is pulling his forces out of Kyiv.