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Russian forces unleashed a devastating overnight assault on Ukraine, hitting military-industrial sites, energy infrastructure, and UAV launch areas with precision strikes. Over 1,100 Ukrainian troops were killed in just 24 hours, alongside dozens of armoured vehicles, artillery pieces, and electronic warfare systems. From Sumy to Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia, Russian battlegroups advanced relentlessly, crumbling defensive lines and crippling logistics. Air defences were overwhelmed, morale is under siege, and Kyiv’s ability to resist is being systematically dismantled as Russia claims victory after victory.

Four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Trump administration is pressing Kyiv to agree to painful territorial concessions as the price for peace. In a draft peace agreement first reported by Axios in November, the administration proposed that the entire regions of Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk be recognized as de facto Russian territory and that Russia retain control of the parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia its forces now occupy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is pushing back, refusing to do anything that would violate his country’s territorial integrity. Yet the realities of the battlefield are not on his side....

Russia says it has handed over the remains of 1,000 soldiers to Ukraine and has received the bodies of 35 Russian soldiers in return. Vladimir Medinsky, a top aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin, announced the exchange of bodies in a short announcement on Telegram. He gave no details, but included an image showing bodies being unloaded from a truck. Hours later, Ukraine said it had received 1,000 bodies which, "according to prior information from the Russian side, may belong to Ukrainian defenders".

Russia accused Ukraine on Tuesday of trying to obtain a nuclear weapon with help from Britain and France, an allegation Kyiv called an absurd lie. A French foreign ministry spokesperson said the allegation was "blatant disinformation". A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: "There's no truth to this." Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has previously criticised Kyiv's decision to give up its former Soviet nuclear arsenal in the 1990s without obtaining proper, binding security guarantees. But Kyiv has said it does not seek to re-acquire nuclear weapons, and respects all international treaties. NUCLEAR THREATSIn a statement published on the...

KYIV, Ukraine, and MOSCOW — When the Kremlin launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the assumption in Moscow, and much of the West, was that Russian forces would take the country in a matter of days. Instead, what the Kremlin calls a "special military operation" has become the biggest land war in Europe since World War II and has lasted longer than the Soviet army's fight against Nazi Germany. Russia's war on Ukraine is a grinding war of attrition. Ukraine has managed to hold a much larger army to minimal gains while adjusting to a life under constant...

Ukraine has regained control of 400 square kilometres of territory, including eight settlements, along a section of the southern frontline since the end of January, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi has said. Syrskyi's statement on Monday did not make clear how much of the newly secured territory had previously been under Russian control and how much lay in "grey zone" areas not firmly held by either side. The rare battlefield gains in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region stand in contrast to the broader trend of slow and costly Russian advances across the frontlines over the past two and a half years, as the...

Ukraine is outmatched by Russian forces and requires significantly more infantry and weapons if it hopes to win the war, according to military intelligence and independent battlefield monitors. Although Moscow is paying an extraordinary price for comparatively minimal gains, western officials believe the country can sustain at least another year of war at the current rate of attrition. On Tuesday it will be four years since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. After months of incremental advances, it appears to be on the verge of capturing a series of strategic locations in Ukraine’s so-called “fortress belt” and is expanding...

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson says that the UK and its allies should deploy non-combat troops to Ukraine right now, to "flip a switch" in Russian President Vladimir Putin's head. Speaking exclusively to Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg alongside the former head of the military, Adm Sir Tony Radakin, Johnson said troops should be sent to peaceful regions in non-fighting roles. He said: "If we can have a plan for boots on the ground after the war, after Putin has condescended to have a ceasefire, then why not do it now?" The UK government is currently working with its allies to...

Drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials and other insiders in multiple countries, this exclusive account details how the US and Britain uncovered Vladimir Putin’s plans to invade, and why most of Europe – including the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy – dismissed them. As the fourth anniversary of the invasion approaches and the world enters a new period of geopolitical uncertainty, Europe’s politicians and spy services continue to draw lessons from the failures of 2022. The phone call William Burns had travelled halfway around the world to speak with Vladimir Putin, but in the end he had...

US-mediated peace talks on Ukraine collapsed in less than two hours after Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky claimed it was unfair that Donald Trump was placing more pressure on his country than on Russia.The second day of talks concluded on Wednesday, though neither side signalled they were any closer to ending Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II.The talks wrapped up after just two hours, much shorter than the six hours of meetings on Tuesday, according to the head of Russia's delegation.

The Ukrainian public would not accept Kyiv simply handing over the country’s Donbas region to Russia in a peace deal, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday — advising US envoys against continually pushing a version of peace the war’s victims would see as an “unsuccessful story.” “Emotionally, people will never forgive this. Never. They will not forgive … me, they will not forgive [the US],” Zelensky told Axios, speaking as US, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Geneva. “This is part of our country, all these citizens, the flag, the land.” The president said it was “not fair” that President Trump...

Ukrainian forces managed to liberate over 200 square kilometers of territory from the Russian troops last week, marking their most successful breakthrough in 2.5 years, AFP reports. According to the outlet, these gains are confirmed by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Between February 11 and 15, Ukrainian troops recaptured 201 square kilometers from Russian forces. AFP reports that Ukrainian soldiers took advantage of disruptions in Russian access to Starlink terminals.

An elite British Army battalion is going all in on drones after working closely with Ukrainian soldiers and seeing how central these systems have become in modern warfare. The 1st Battalion of the Irish Guards now has 78 of its 300 members qualified as drone operators, its commanding officer, Lt. Col. Ben Irwin-Clark, told Business Insider. The unit has big plans to increase its training and work with drones further."That just gives you an idea of how important this is," he said.The battalion has built a training facility with drone warfare in mind, and its soldiers are heavily invested, he...

Today, I'm going to have a special episode. What this episode is going to be is an extension on the episode we had 4 days ago regarding this offer from Russia to America regarding a massive amount of resources. Of course, resources carry with it a massive amount of money. Today we have a little bit more information on this that may make it unbelievably attractive, almost too good to turn away potentially for Trump that this would be in US dollars as of course what we have seen over the past years is many nations Russia at the helm...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the US wants the war with Russia to end by June, adding that both sides had been invited to the US for talks next week. "America proposed for the first time that the two negotiating teams – Ukraine and Russia – meet in the United States of America, probably in Miami, in a week. We confirmed our participation," he said. There was no immediate comment from Washington or Moscow, but US President Donald Trump has been pushing for an end for the conflict since he took office again more than a year ago. Meanwhile, Russia...

KYIV, Jan 16 (Reuters) - A majority of Ukrainians would strongly oppose withdrawing troops from the part of the eastern Donetsk region still controlled by Kyiv in exchange for European and U.S. security guarantees, a poll released on Friday indicated. Ukraine, wary of unmet commitments in the past, is pushing for legally binding security guarantees to prevent any future Russian aggression.

As allies met in Paris to firm up security guarantees for Ukraine, the presence of peace envoys sent by Donald Trump offered hope that the US was still listening to the EU despite the president's threats to annex Greenland. "We have largely finished the security protocols," said Steve Witkoff, one of the two emissaries, as he stood alongside the leaders of France, Germany, the UK and Ukraine at the presidential palace in Paris. "This is important so that when this war ends, it ends forever," he said. Even as France and the UK inked their resolve to deploy troops to...