Russia is preparing to escalate attacks on Ukraine after concluding that negotiations for a peace deal have reached a dead end, according to three people close to the Kremlin, reports Bloomberg.

For now, Russia is weighing an intensification of powerful conventional ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, including the center of the capital, and infrastructure targets in other Ukrainian cities, the people said.

They added that Russian President Vladimir Putin will not stop the war despite economic pressure from sanctions and Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries and logistics networks, the BBC reports.

Moscow is increasingly viewing the Ukrainian strikes as attacks by NATO countries, as members of this alliance supply Kyiv with weapons and intelligence. The current phase of military escalation is not the peak of military escalation, Bloomberg writes.

Attempts at peace negotiations with the participation of the US have been frozen since late February, when the US and Israel began a war against Iran.