Ukraine wants only "real" negotiations with Russia over its military offensive, without ultimatums.
That's according to an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who spoke to Reuters on Sunday, calling Moscow's decision to send a delegation to Belarus for talks, "propaganda".
Earlier the Kremlin said a Russian delegation had arrived in Gomel in neighbouring Belarus and was waiting for the Ukrainians.
Zelenskiy rejected talks in Belarus, accusing it of allowing Russian troops through its territory to invade.
However, he left the door open for negotiations elsewhere.
"They arrived in Gomel knowing that it was pointless. And now they say - 'we are waiting," adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters.
"Zelenskiy's position remains unchanged: only real negotiations, no ultimatums."
Hundreds of thousands of people in Australia's Queensland state were without power on Sunday after Alfred, a downgraded tropical cyclone, brought damaging winds and heavy rains, sparking flood warnings.
An Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, medical sources said, as mediators pushed ahead with talks to extend a shaky 42-day ceasefire agreed in January between Israel and Hamas.
Toronto Police said early on Saturday they were searching for three male suspects in a shooting that injured at least 12 people at a pub in the Canadian city.
Ex-tropical cyclone Alfred lingered off the south-east Australian coast on Saturday and forecasters said Brisbane is likely to miss the worst of the storm, a relief for millions of residents in the region who have been staying indoors.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol walked out of a detention centre in Seoul on Saturday after prosecutors decided not to appeal a court decision to cancel the impeached leader's arrest warrant on insurrection charges.