US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has announced new sanctions against Russia's two biggest oil companies and blasted Moscow's refusal to end its "senseless war" as US-led efforts to end the war floundered and the Ukrainian president sought more foreign military help.

The sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil, as well as dozens of subsidiaries, followed months of bipartisan pressure on President Donald Trump to hit Russia with harder sanctions on its oil industry.

"Now is the time to stop the killing and for an immediate ceasefire," Bessent said in a statement. Given Russian President Vladimir Putin's "refusal to end this senseless war, Treasury is sanctioning Russia's two largest oil companies that fund the Kremlin's war machine."

READ MORE: Pedestrian fighting for life after being hit by suspected e-bike

Bessent said the Treasury Department was prepared to take further action if necessary to support Trump's effort to end the war.

"We encourage our allies to join us in and adhere to these sanctions," he said.

Bessent made his comments as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was in Washington for talks, and was preparing to meet President Donald Trump at the White House.

Wave of attacks on Ukraine

Russian drones and missiles blasted sites across Ukraine overnight, killing at least six people, including a woman and her two young daughters.

The attack came in waves throughout the night and targeted at least eight Ukrainian cities, as well as a village in the region of the capital, Kyiv, where a strike set fire to a house in which the mother and her six-month and 12-year-old daughters were staying, regional head Mykola Kalashnyk said.

At least 29 people, including five children, were wounded in Kyiv, which appeared to be the main target, authorities said.

READ MORE: Louvre boss admits failure after jewel heist, says she offered to resign

Russian drones also hit a kindergarten in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, later Wednesday when children were in the building, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

One person was killed and six were hurt, but no children were physically harmed, he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said many of the children were in shock.

He said the attack targeted 10 separate regions: Kyiv, Odesa, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, Cherkasy and Sumy.

Russia fired 405 strike and decoy drones and 28 missiles, mainly targeting Kyiv, Ukraine's air force said.

Peace efforts stall

US President Donald Trump's efforts to end the war that started with Russia's all-out invasion of its neighbour more than three years ago have failed to gain traction.

Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin's refusal to budge from his conditions for a settlement after Ukraine offered a ceasefire and direct peace talks.

Trump said Tuesday that his plan for a swift meeting with Putin was on hold because he didn't want it to be a "waste of time".

European leaders accused Putin of stalling.

Zelenskyy said Wednesday that Trump's proposal to freeze the conflict where it stands on the front line "was a good compromise" – a step that could pave the way for negotiations.

READ MORE: UK PM backs inquiry into Andrew's rent-free Royal Lodge lease

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the planned summit requires careful preparation, suggesting that laying the groundwork could be protracted.

"No one wants to waste time: neither President Trump nor President Putin," he said.

In what appeared to be a public reminder of Russian atomic arsenals, Putin on Wednesday directed drills of the country's strategic nuclear forces.

Zelenskyy urged the European Union, the US and the Group of Seven industrialised nations to force Russia to the negotiating table.

Pressure can be applied on Moscow "only through sanctions, long-range (missile) capabilities and coordinated diplomacy among all our partners," he said.

READ MORE: Top UN court says Israel must allow UN relief agency to supply Gaza aid

Zelenskyy credited Trump's remarks that he was considering supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for Putin's willingness to meet.

The American president later said he was wary of tapping into the US supply of Tomahawks over concerns about available stocks.

Russia has not made significant progress on the battlefield, where a war of attrition has taken a high toll on Russian infantry and Ukraine is short of manpower, military analysts say. Both sides have invested in long-range strike capabilities to hit rear areas.

Ukraine says it hit key Russian chemical plant

The Ukrainian army's general staff said its forces struck a chemical plant Tuesday night in Russia's Bryansk region using British-made air-launched Storm Shadow missiles.

The plant is an important part of the Russian military and industrial complex, producing gunpowder, explosives, missile fuel and ammunition, it said.

Russian officials in the region confirmed an attack but did not mention the plant.

Ukraine also claimed overnight strikes on the Saransk mechanical plant in Mordovia, Russia, which produces components for ammunition and mines, and the Makhachkala oil refinery in the Dagestan republic of Russia.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its air defences downed 33 Ukrainian drones over several regions overnight, including the area around St Petersburg.

Eight airports temporarily suspended flights because of the attacks.

Sweden mulls sending fighter jets to Ukraine

Zelenskyy arrived on Wednesday in Oslo, Norway, and after that flew to Stockholm, where he and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson signed an agreement exploring the possibility of Ukraine buying up to 150 Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets over the next decade or more. Ukraine has already received American-made F-16s and French Mirages.

Also today, Trump is expected to hold talks at the White House with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

The military alliance has been coordinating deliveries of weapons to Ukraine, many of them purchased from the US by Canada and European countries.

More international economic sanctions on Russia are likely to be discussed Thursday at an EU summit in Brussels.

On Friday, a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing – a group of 35 countries that support Ukraine – is to take place in London.

Russia's long barrage

Moscow's overnight attack also targeted energy infrastructure and caused rolling blackouts, officials said.

Russia has been trying to cripple the country's power grid before winter sets in.

"We heard a loud explosion and then the glass started to shatter, and then everything was caught up in a burst of fire. The embers were everywhere," Olena Biriukova, who lives in a Kyiv apartment building, told The Associated Press.

"It was very scary for kids."

Two people were found dead in the Dnipro district of the Ukrainian capital, where emergency services rescued 10 people after a fire caused by drone debris hit the sixth floor of a 16-story residential building, local authorities said.

And in Kyiv's Darnytskyi district, emergency services responded after drone debris hit a 17-story apartment block, causing a fire on five floors. Fifteen people were rescued, including two children.

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Woody the robot has been unveiled at Silverdale Shopping Centre in Sydney's west, where it's intended to help making shopping easier for customers.

"You might need an extra hand to hold a bag, to guide you to a store, it can speak multiple different languages," BellBots creator Andrew Bell said.

Standing at one-and-a-half metres tall, the shell of the robot is made by the Chinese company Unitree, with Woody's AI software created by Bell.

READ MORE: City braced for its hottest October day on record

"We could have up to 20 robots in one shopping complex, and if it's not being booked, it's roaming."

Bell aims to launch the bots in shopping centres next year, and businesses are excited by the prospect.

"I was wondering as well if they can answer questions, like if they need help with pain killers, it can give them advice," pharmacy worker Mariam Alhayaley said.

"It doesn't go on holidays," shopping centre owner Bruno Lopreiato said.

READ MORE: New accusations come to light as Virginia Giuffre's memoir is released

"I'd love to have him so he can take the coffees out and speak to the customers and greet them," cafe owner Heena Nanda said.

Experts have warned that customer privacy is a potential downside to AI software.

"They hear you, they see you, they process your information," Professor Sanjit Roy, from Edith Cowan University, said.

"I would be concerned what information this robot is collecting during the interactions."

Bell says the public has nothing to fear as he turns his focus towards his next project, a robot dog to assist firefighters. 

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

The director of the Louvre Museum has acknowledged a "terrible failure" at the Paris monument after a stunning daylight crown jewel heist at the world's most-visited museum, and said she offered to resign but it was refused.

The Louvre reopened earlier on Wednesday (Wednesday evening AEDT) to long lines beneath its landmark Paris glass pyramid for the first time since one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.

In testimony to the French Senate, Louvre director Laurence des Cars said the museum had a damaging shortage of security cameras outside the monument and other "weaknesses" exposed by Sunday's theft.

READ MORE: UK PM backs inquiry into Prince Andrew's rent-free 'peppercorn' lease

Under heavy pressure over a theft that stained France's global image, she testified to a Senate committee that she submitted her resignation but that the culture minister refused to accept it.

"Today we are experiencing a terrible failure at the Louvre, which I take my share of responsibility in," she said.

The thieves slipped in and out, making off with eight pieces from France's Crown Jewels at the world's most-visited museum — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre-Dame cathedral in 2019.

The Sunday raid — steps from the Mona Lisa and valued at €88 million ($157.5 million) — has put embattled President Emmanuel Macron, Des Cars and others under fresh scrutiny.

It comes just months after employees went on strike, warning of chronic understaffing and under-resourced protections, with too few eyes on too many rooms.

Crowds bunched at the barriers as they were being removed on Wednesday, a coda to frantic forensic work and staff briefings that had taken place. Inside, the scene of the crime — the Apollo Gallery housing the Crown Diamonds — stayed sealed, a folding screen obscuring the doorway at the gallery's rotunda entrance.

READ MORE: William Tyrrell detective gives take on search for Gus 

Disbelief among visitors

Three days on, the jewels remain missing and the thieves are still at large — and reactions are divided.

"For a place like the Louvre, it's unfathomable," said Amanda Lee, 36, an art teacher from Chicago.

"I heard it took under four minutes. How is that possible here, with no police in sight?"

Others were unperturbed.

"We told the kids it's a history lesson. The Apollo Room is shut, but we saw the masterpieces," said Claire Martin, 41, a French lawyer from Versailles visiting with her two children during a school holiday.

"We came for the art," she said. "The police can deal with the thieves."

READ MORE: Two men drown at Melbourne beach

France acknowledges failings

Authorities say the thieves spent less than four minutes inside the Louvre on Sunday morning (evening AEDT): a freight lift was wheeled to the Seine-facing façade, a window was forced open and two vitrines were smashed.

Then came the getaway on motorbikes through central Paris. Alarms had gone off, drawing agents to the gallery and forcing the intruders to bolt.

As it reopened, the Louvre declined questions from The Associated Press to detail any reinforced protocols. It said no uniformed police were posted in the corridors. With school holidays swelling demand, the day was fully booked and access limited.

"I didn't notice extra security — guards as always, and no police inside. It felt like a normal day," said Tomás Álvarez, 29, a software engineer from Madrid.

The loot

The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.

They also made off with an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte's second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie's diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.

One piece — Eugénie's emerald-set imperial crown, with more than 1300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.

Fears the jewels will be destroyed

Prosecutor Laure Beccuau valued the haul at about €88 million, a "spectacular" figure that still fails to capture the works' historical weight.

She warned the thieves would be unlikely to realise anything close to that sum if they pry out stones or melt the metals — a fate curators fear would pulverise centuries of meaning into anonymous gems for the black market.

Beccuau said expert analyses are under way; four people have been identified as present at the scene, and roughly 100 investigators are mapping the crew and any accomplices.

The heist has intensified scrutiny of the Louvre's security.

Culture Minister Rachida Dati drew fire on Tuesday after telling lawmakers there had been no security failings.

Questions about Louvre's security overhaul

All this comes after Macron announced new measures in January for the Louvre — complete with a new command post and expanded camera grid that the culture ministry says is being rolled out.

It also raises hard questions, including whether Sunday's breach is tied to staffing levels, and how uniformly the upgrades in the overhaul are being applied.

"It's a scandal of planning," said Luca Romano, 52, a civil engineer from Milan visiting Paris with his wife.

"If you can plant a freight lift at a palace and no one stops you, that's a system failure."

Protection for headline works is airtight — the Mona Lisa is behind bulletproof glass in a climate-controlled case — yet the break-in exposed seams elsewhere in a 33,000-object labyrinth. For many French, the contrast is a public embarrassment at the landmark.

It touches a raw nerve: the issue of swelling crowds and overstretched staff.

In June, a staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing delayed opening. Unions argue that mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates pressure points where construction zones, freight access and visitor flows intersect.

On Wednesday, the Louvre's other star attractions — from the Venus de Milo to the Winged Victory of Samothrace — were open again. But the cordoned-off vitrines in the Apollo Room, guarded and empty, told a different story: one of a breach measured not just in minutes and euros, but in the fragility of a nation's patrimony.

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

A police officer facing court over the alleged assault of former Greens candidate Hannah Thomas has been hit with a fresh charge.

Thomas was facing partial vision loss and underwent several surgeries after suffering facial injuries during an arrest at a demonstration outside SEC Plating in Belmore in Sydney's south-west in June.

A 33-year-old senior constable attached to a specialist command in the South West Metropolitan Region was charged with assault causing bodily harm about a month ago.

READ MORE: Shane uses a wheelchair. He ran into a glaring problem at the disability minister's office

He was today additionally charged with recklessly causing grievous bodily harm and issued a notice to appear at Bankstown Local Court on November 18. 

The senior constable is being managed in the workplace, and his employment status is under review.

The NSW Police Professional Standards Command is investigating the incident.

A critical incident investigation, with oversight by the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, is also ongoing.

Thomas, who challenged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his seat of Grayndler at the federal election this year, was one of five people arrested and charged after police tried to move on protesters.

Police, however, dropped their charges against her in court last month.

She has launched legal action against NSW Police, alleging assault and battery, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, misfeasance in public office and collateral abuse of process.

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

A woman has been taken to hospital after her car collided with an army truck north-west of Brisbane this afternoon.

Emergency services were called to reports that a car had collided with a military vehicle on Samford Road near Baden Lane in Ferny Hills just before 3.30pm.

A woman in her 60s was taken to hospital with minor chest injuries.

READ MORE: Aussies' 'most prized assets' dealt massive $42 billion blow

The force of the smash caused the army truck to roll onto its roof. All defence personnel escaped without physical injury.

The collision closed Samford Road in both directions for multiple hours, causing serious traffic delays for motorists travelling through the major thoroughfare.

Traffic was slowly beginning to trickle through the road as of 6pm (AEST).

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

The woman was found dead at her address in the Manawatū town last week.

Two men have drowned in fierce swell at a Melbourne beach as a severe weather system wreaks havoc across Australia's southern states.

Emergency services were called Frankston Beach this afternoon following reports two men were in trouble in the water.

Police Air Wing conducted a search of the water, where the pair were found unresponsive just after 5pm. 

READ MORE: PM's plane forced into unscheduled stop on way home from US

The men, who are yet to be formally identified, were winched back to shore but could not be revived. 

Police will prepare reports for the coroner.

Wind gusts peaked at 120km/h in parts of Victoria this afternoon as a severe low pressure system brought down trees and cut power to thousands across the state.

The weather system is expected to continue to sweep across Victoria towards NSW overnight, with conditions expected to stabilise tomorrow.

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Dozens of guests and staff were evacuated from the Symonds St building.

Time to check your ticket to see if you are New Zealand’s newest millionaire.

Australians using certain Samsung phones have been told to urgently update or replace their devices because they may not be able to make triple zero calls.

Both Telstra and Optus have issued separate statements this afternoon, warning that dozens of older Samsung models are not properly connecting to the Vodafone network in order to contact emergency services.

A Vodafone spokesperson said its network was not to blame for the issue and instead the fault was due to a "limitation in how certain devices were originally configured to search for emergency connectivity". Samsung said it was working on the issue.

See the full list of devices that need to be replaced in the table below.

READ MORE: Opposition leader backtracks on call to sack Rudd over Trump dressing-down

If a customer is unable to get phone service with their telco, the device is meant to automatically connect to one of the other networks in order to be able to make triple-zero calls.

However, Telstra and Optus both said there is an issue where the impacted devices aren't properly connecting to Vodafone when their networks are unavailable, leaving those customers unable to make an emergency call in those situations.

"We immediately notified Samsung and the other network operators when we discovered the issue," Telstra head of networks and technology Shailin Sehgal said.

"Given the nature of the issue, we're legally obligated to inform customers impacted and block devices from our network that are not fixed.

See the full list of devices that need a software update in the table below.

READ MORE: Higgins abandons appeals over costly defamation loss

"To be clear, this issue does not relate to the Telstra network, and it does not impact your ability to call triple zero when you're using the Telstra network or the Optus network.

"It also does not impact your ability to use voice over Wi-Fi to place a triple-zero call when no other mobile network is available."

Optus also said the issue did not relate to its network.

Telstra said 71 Samsung models, most of them from the popular Galaxy range, are affected by the issue.

While some of the impacted models came out a decade ago, others were released in the 2020s.

READ MORE: Aussies dealt massive $42 billion property market blow

Of the 71 models, 11 need to be replaced, while Telstra said the remaining 60 require an update to fix the issue.

Telstra and Optus are reaching out to impacted customers by email and SMS to let them know what to do.

Due to legal requirements, the impacted devices will be blocked from accessing any local mobile network from 28 days after the notifications are issued.

More information on the issue can be found on both Telstra's and Optus' websites.

In a statement, Samsung said it is working on the issue with the telcos.

"Samsung and its carrier partners are working together to ensure all devices operate reliably in every emergency situation," a spokesperson said.

"If your device is impacted, your carrier will notify you to provide specific instructions. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact your carrier or reach out to Samsung on 1300 362 603."

READ MORE: Big four bank takes knife to savings rates despite no RBA cut in months

Vodafone, meanwhile, said it had also "identified a small number of devices that either need a software update or need to be replaced to ensure emergency call compatibility".

It also said it would block incompatible devices that aren't replaced or updated as needed.

"We understand that some customers may need extra support, and we are committed to helping them through this process, including offering $0 and subsidised handsets where needed," a spokesperson said.

"Our teams are available in-store and via customer care to assist with updates and upgrades."

DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.