KHARKIV, Ukraine -- When Russia’s full-scale invasion began nearly four years ago, a 26-year-old soldier known as Monka didn’t see a combat role she could do. But that changed as technology reshaped the battlefield and opened new paths.

Exclusive drone footage obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday shows a devastated Ukrainian town nearly encircled by Russian forces near the city that Moscow this week claimed to now control. Barely a street appears to be untouched in Myrnohrad in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region,

The officials in a joint statement said they made progress on creating a security framework for postwar Ukraine and are urging Russia to commit to peace.

Dressed head to toe in army fatigues, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday received the news he had been awaiting for more than a year: Russia had taken over the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk.

According to reporting by the Kyiv Independent, Kateryna Rashevska of Ukraine’s Regional Center for Human Rights told a congressional subcommittee that at least two abducted Ukrainian children were moved to the Songdowon camp in North Korea.

Ukrainian member of parliament Lisa Yasko told CBS News the Russian president is using the discussions with the U.S. to push his vision of the new world order.

A Ukrainian operator who survived the attack told Business Insider that he credits the vehicle driver with saving the crew's lives.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed without evidence that Russian forces have taken control of Ukrainian cities Pokrovsk and Vovchansk.

"Nobody will make concessions on the territories, because it’s our land and we stand here," one soldier told NBC News about the proposal's call for Ukraine to cede land to Russia.

In a disused warehouse at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, a military drone instructor who goes by the call sign "DC" showed CBS News a makeshift practice course that students must learn to fly the increasingly indispensable devices through before they join the country's defense against Russia.