Ukraine round-up: Putin's trip and Ukraine purge

Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine has left him diplomatically isolated. But on Tuesday, he was welcomed in the Iranian capital, Tehran, where he held talks with the country's leaders.

Closer economic and defence ties are already evident between the two nations.

Last week, US officials alleged that Tehran was planning to supply Russia with hundreds of drones for its war in Ukraine. Russian energy giant Gazprom has also signed a multi-million dollar deal with Iran's state oil company.

President Putin also met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan while in Iran. Turkey is a Nato member but has maintained ties with Russia.

There was little in the way of a concrete announcement, but it was a chance for the Russian president to show his country is not a pariah everywhere.

A purge of Ukraine's security services has widened.

Following their suspension on Monday, the head of Ukraine's spy agency (SBU) and the prosecutor general, have now been dismissed.

And President Volodymyr Zelensky didn't stop there, moving to fire the SBU's deputy director as well, in addition to several regional security heads.

Heads began to roll after it emerged there were more than 650 cases of alleged collusion or treason amongst government officials.

With a growing number of officials now working against Ukraine in Russian-occupied areas, the purge is an attempt to get a grip on the security services, at a time when their importance to Ukraine has never been higher.

While President Zelensky was trying to get Ukraine's security apparatus under control, the first lady, Olena Zelenska, was maintaining the country's presence on the global stage.

During a visit to Washington, she had high-level talks with a number of senior figures, including her counterpart Jill Biden.

She is due to address lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, four months after her husband gave a virtual speech to Congress.

Ms Zelenska has no official portfolio in the Ukrainian government. But after nearly five months of Russia's war in Ukraine, Kyiv wants more military aid from the US.

Moscow has been making every effort to control the information reaching its citizens about Russia's war in Ukraine.

The country's last independent television channel, TV Rain, was blocked by Russian authorities in early March, just days after the invasion.

The channel insisted on using the word "war", despite the Kremlin insisting on the term "special military operation" to describe its operation in Ukraine.

But now the channel - known in Russian as Dozhd - has resumed broadcasting from Latvia, streaming a news programme on its YouTube channel.

New laws have forced all Russia's major independent or liberal-leaning media outlets - including Ekho Moskvy and Novaya Gazeta - to either close down or relocate abroad.

The re-emergence of TV Rain is not the only sign of dissent from the Russian diaspora.

Russia's number-one tennis player, Daria Kasatkina, who lives in Dubai, has criticised her country's attitude to homosexuality after coming out as gay, while also calling for an end to the war in Ukraine.

"So many subjects are taboo in Russia," she said.

Homosexuality is not illegal there, but the spreading of "gay propaganda" among minors is prohibited and homophobia is widespread.

When asked what she wanted most in life, she replied: "For the war to end", adding that it was a "full-blown nightmare".