Zelenskiy said Putin lives in another reality and may tell the US he needs another month or two to fully occupy eastern Ukraine. Zelenskiy added he could claim to have fully occupied Russia but that would be false, and that the US has confirmed Ukraine's assessment of the battlefield situation.

Stagnant consumer and business confidence, and falling global oil prices, could see Australian inflation cool faster than expected, data that may be welcomed by the RBA. Wage growth slowed to 3.1% in October from 3.5% in August, the slowest since December, Commonwealth Bank said. Economist Harry Ottley said the monthly slowdown in wages shows no sign that elevated inflation expectations have become embedded in pay.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved ten firms to pilot number-protection services and allocated 700-prefix dedicated numbering resources. The service, commissioned by platforms such as food-delivery and ride-hailing apps, assigns temporary 15-digit numbers beginning with 700 to users in place of their real mobile numbers to reduce number-leakage risk. When users opt in at order placement, contact between users and delivery riders or ride-hailing drivers is routed via the 15-digit 700 numbers; neither party’s real mobile number is displayed.