Russia-Ukraine updates: Putin suspends key US-Russia nuclear treaty in speech denouncing West

A little over a week since he was freed in the prisoner swap for Brittney Griner, the Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout has visited the city of Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, one of the regional capitals of the Donbas that is occupied by Russia.

Bout took part in a ceremony opening the local branch of the far right pro-Kremlin Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), of which he has become a member since his release.

Video of the event showed Bout with a senior MP from the party at the ceremony in a hall. Bout compared Lugansk’s annexation and return to Russia with his own return.

"I closely followed what was happening in Donbas all these 8 years," Bout said. "And you know, your example for me did a lot for me, it helped me, because you are all heroes … And so big thanks to all of you. And you were also for me an inspiration which allowed me to also return to the motherland, like all of Donbas, to return to Russia. Thank you."

Bout has expressed his "full" support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and in his first interview after his release said he would have gone to fight if he could.

Lugansk has been under Russian control since 2014, when Moscow used proxy fighters to help set up two breakaway statelets in Donbas. The Lugansk region was one of the four Ukrainian regions Putin annexed in September.

-ABC News’ Patrick Reevell

Ukraine's Air Force said it shot down 30 of the 35 Russian drones fired at Ukrainian targets overnight.

Ukrainian authorities said Russia's earlier drone attack on Kyiv damaged critical infrastructure and injured two people.

At least two explosions were heard Monday morning in the capital.

-ABC News' Guy Davies

A pre-recorded address from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was set to be played at the World Cup final Sunday was purportedly cut by the soccer tournament's governing body, FIFA, according to Ukrainian officials.

The office of the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States told ABC News on Sunday that Zelenskyy's speech did not air to the audience at the championship match between Argentina and France because "at the very last moment it was banned by FIFA."

FIFA has not confirmed whether it forbid the airing of Zelenskyy's speech at the match in Qatar that was won by Argentina.

In the one-minute and 43-second speech sent to ABC News by the ambassador's office, Zelenskyy praised the World Cup tournament as a "common victory, the celebration of the human spirit."

"The World Cup proved time and again that different countries and nationalities can decide who is the strongest in fairplay...," Zelensky said.

He added, "This is the dream of so many people when players compete, making everybody enjoy peace," he said. "Every father would like to take his son to the football match all over the world. Every mother would like her son to be back from the war."

Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine has proposed a "peace formula" for ending the war with Russia that he said is "absolutely fair."

"We offered it because there are no champions in war, there can be no draw," he said.

He ended the speech by inviting all countries to participate in a global peace summit that he has proposed for this winter.

In a new threat to Ukraine and its Western allies, the Russian military has readied for "combat duty" a second hypersonic missile system that President Vladimir Putin boasts can travel 27 times faster than the speed of sound, according to a report.

The Avangard strategic hypersonic system has been placed in a missile silo and switched to combat duty at the Yasnensky missile formation in the Orenburg region of Russia, near the Kazakhstan border, the Russian news agency Interfax reported, citing Russian Defense Ministry reports. It's the second hypersonic missile system Russia has placed in Orenburg

In a statement, the defense ministry said the missile system will increase the combat capabilities of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces.

In March, President Joe Biden confirmed Russia had used an the hypersonic missile system in Ukraine, saying "it's almost impossible to stop."

Russia's announcement comes just days after U.S. officials confirmed a plan is in the works to send Patriot air defense missile systems to Ukraine.

The Avangard strategic missile system has a hypersonic gliding winged warhead. In a 2018 speech, Putin called the weapon "invincible," claiming it could reach any target in the world within 30 minutes.

The U.S. is behind Russia and China in the development of a hypersonic missile system, ABC News reported. The U.S. Air Force this month successfully tested a hypersonic AGM-183A missile from a B-52H bomber off the coast of southern California -- striking a target after reaching more than five times the speed of sound.

It was the first test of a missile prototype that the Air Force hopes will become its first hypersonic missile.

While conceding Russia's hypersonic missile system is hard to defend against, a Moscow-based military analyst told ABC News Sunday that the Kremlin’s decision to put a second regiment in Orenburg is "stupid propaganda," saying Russia has plenty of other intercontinental missiles which could strike the U.S. and describing the Avangard system as "expensive" and "unnecessary."