A potential meeting between Chinese and Ukrainian leaders comes to the forefront as Ukraine on Tuesday invited the Chinese foreign minister for bilateral talks.

The invitation comes after Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba went to China last week, the first such visit since Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“We are ready to welcome Minister Wang Yi in Ukraine to see first-hand the consequences of the Russian aggression against our country and hold deeper bilateral talks with him on a number of bilateral, regional and international issues,” Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said at a press briefing in Kyiv Tuesday.

China has expressed interest in visiting, according to Ukraine.

China has presented a neutral stance on the war between Russia and Ukraine, while maintaining ties with Russia and helping the country to keep its economy afloat.

The invitation from Ukraine comes as Russia announced that it captured an additional Ukrainian village on Tuesday. Russia describes the village as “liberated,” being one in a series of villages captured by the country in recent weeks.

The country also began large-scale military drills on Tuesday, with more than 300 combat exercises reported to take place. Some 20,000 military personnel, 300 ships and 50 aircraft are scheduled to participate in the drills.

“The main purposes of the exercises is to test the actions of the navy’s military command at all levels, as well as the readiness of the ships’ crews, naval aviation units and naval coastal troops,” Russia’s Defense Ministry said.

Officials in Russia’s Kursk region said Tuesday that crews extinguished a fire at an oil depot that was hit by a Ukrainian drone attack two days earlier.

Kursk Governor Alexei Smirnov said on Telegram that the attack set several fuel tanks on fire and that nobody was injured.

In fresh attacks Tuesday, Ukrainian aerial drones targeted multiple areas in the Belgorod region of Russia, located along the border with Ukraine.

The drones struck two villages, damaging several homes and an agricultural business, according to a post on Telegram from Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Ukraine’s military said Tuesday its air defenses shot down seven Russian reconnaissance drones during the past day.

In Ukraine’s northeastern region of Kharkiv, Russian shelling injured one person early Tuesday, local officials said.

Russian shelling also injured one person and damaged several houses in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, according to the regional governor.

Some information for this story was provided by Agence France-Presse and Reuters.