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There has long been a worry that Russian escalation or miscalculation might see the Ukraine war widen into a broader European one. But what if it’s Kyiv, not Moscow, that starts this process? The flashpoint is Belarus. Minsk’s dictatorial leader, Alexander Lukashenko, is beholden to Vladimir Putin, but not a helpless vassal. On the one hand, he has refused to join Putin’s war directly, saying that he won’t allow Belarusians to become ‘mincemeat.’ On the other, he has been willing to let Russian troops use facilities in his country, and fly drones and missiles through his airspace. There is growing...

June 21 (UPI) -- The Russian government on Sunday halted fuel sales to civilians and businesses not considered vital to functioning and security in Crimea. Sergey Aksyonov, the governor of Crimea, announced people would be turned away from gas stations amid a fuel shortage and logistical difficulties related to the war with Ukraine, the BBC reported. "Further decisions regarding the current situation in the republic's fuel market will be announced at a later date," he said in a post on Telegram. The announcement came amid new attacks by Ukraine on energy and transportation infrastructure on the Crimean Peninsula, Politico reported....

Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, advised Donald Trump not to host Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, having called the Ukrainian president a “little f**ker”, a “special-needs child” and “Mr Bean on crack”, according to a new book. The suggestion that a US cabinet official described a world leader in such terms is included in Regime Change, a blockbusting account of the second Trump administration by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, set to be published worldwide on Tuesday. News of Bessent’s alleged remarks may embarrass the Trump administration, although the meeting that did take place...

More than 80 years after Ukraine’s Dormition Cathedral was razed to its foundation during World War II, the reconstructed holy site was again engulfed in flames on Monday. The cathedral, a popular Christian pilgrimage destination, was struck when a wave of Russian attacks across multiple cities killed 11 people and injured dozens more, the Ukrainian government said. Two drones also struck the historic monastic complex in Kyiv that is home to the cathedral, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a post on social media. Videos verified by The New York Times show fire crew members on tall cranes, spraying...

Ukrainian drones on Wednesday attacked St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, on the opening day of an annual economic conference that President Vladimir V. Putin has tried to cultivate into a showcase of a modern and prosperous country. It was the second time in a month that Ukraine had struck a major Russian city before an event important to Mr. Putin, as Kyiv expands a campaign of long-range strikes aimed at inflicting economic damage on Russia and demonstrating its vulnerability to attacks. In early May, Ukrainian forces hit sites in Moscow, including a high-rise apartment building near the city center, days...

The fight against Russia in Ukraine is now firmly Europe’s war. The European Union this week signed off on the equivalent of $105 billion in loans to keep Kyiv afloat through the end of next year—but officials warned that it may not be enough. With Russia determined to continue its four-year invasion until it dominates its neighbor, and President Trump pulling back from Europe and focused on the Middle East, Ukraine finds itself reliant on the traditionally gun-shy EU in its war for survival. The confirmation of the loan ahead of a summit in Cyprus on Thursday, long blocked by...

Since Ukraine’s population has shrunk dramatically, the army’s number one problem is no longer the lack of weapons, such as ballistic missiles and air defense systems, but the lack of soldiers to operate them, writes Világgazdaság. The competent authorities in Kyiv, however, must bring the army size required by Commander-in-Chief Zelensky (800,000 active soldiers), and since the number of men eligible for military service (between the ages of 18 and 60) is slowly running out, the Ukrainian leadership is now trying to fill the gaps by conscripting women. As of early 2024, approximately 5 million men are considered to be...

Four years after the liberation of Bucha, the town remains a central reference point for understanding the nature of the war in Ukraine and the limits of current diplomatic efforts. The events that followed the withdrawal of Russian forces in March 2022, when hundreds of civilians were found dead across the Kyiv suburb and the wider region, continue to shape how Ukraine defines both security and peace. Bucha has become more than a historical episode. It functions as a political and moral benchmark in discussions about any future settlement. Ukrainian authorities report over 400 civilian deaths in the town itself...

I don't think many people saw this one coming, but it makes sense in a perverse way. Events in the Middle East have conspired to create a situation in which Ukraine has become an indispensable ally and munitions supplier to Gulf Arab states. Nobody in the world has as much experience fighting Iranian drones as does Ukraine, and they have become extraordinarily proficient at destroying them before they do any damage, and at a price that cannot be beat. The Gulf states, having blown through an awful lot of their anti-air magazines, are having to quickly learn how to defend...

General or partial assessments of the number of victims in the war in Ukraine reveal the high human cost of an armed conflict unprecedented in Europe in the last eight decades. With estimates of nearly two million military casualties, it is reminiscent of the worst conflicts experienced in the 20th century on the Old Continent. The most conservative figures — around half a million deaths on the Ukrainian side — are five times higher than those of the Balkan War (1992-1995), which totaled 100,000, of whom 13,500 were civilians. The Ukrainian Commissioner for Missing Persons in Special Circumstances has just...

Moscow proposed a quid pro quo to the U.S. under which the Kremlin would stop sharing intelligence information with Iran, such as the precise coordinates of U.S. military assets in the Middle East, if Washington ceased supplying Ukraine with intel about Russia.Two people familiar with the U.S.-Russia negotiations said that such a proposal was made by Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev to Trump administration envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during their meeting last week in Miami.The U.S. rejected the proposal, the people added. They, like all other officials cited in this article, were granted anonymity due to the sensitivity of...

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday told reporters he had a "very good call" with ​Russian President Vladimir Putin about Ukraine ​and the conflict in the Middle East. "There's ⁠tremendous hatred between President Putin and (Ukraine's) ​President Zelenskiy. They can't seem to ​get it together, but I think it was a positive call on that subject," Trump said. Trump ​added that Putin "wants to be helpful" ​with the Iran conflict. "I said, 'You could be more helpful ‌by ⁠getting the Ukraine-Russia war over with. That will be more helpful,'" Trump told reporters in a press conference at ​his Florida ​golf...

Ukraine has received only about 600 advanced interceptor missiles for the MIM-104 Patriot air defense system during the entire course of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian officials told The New York Times. Dmytro Lytvyn, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Kyiv had received roughly that number of interceptor missiles over four years of war. Ukraine has repeatedly urged Western partners to provide additional Patriot systems and interceptor missiles as Russia continues to launch large-scale missile strikes targeting cities and critical infrastructure. The Patriot system remains among the few air defense platforms capable of reliably intercepting advanced ballistic missiles, including...

Russia has a question for the European countries that have shunned its energy exports: Do you miss us now? The Kremlin is enjoying a sudden resurgence of its importance as a global supplier of oil and gas, as the conflict in Iran disrupts energy production and shipment across the Middle East and sends global energy prices soaring. “Now other markets are opening up, and perhaps it’s more advantageous for us to stop supplying the European market right now,” Mr. Putin said on Wednesday to a state television reporter, Pavel Zarubin, who chronicles the Russian leader. “We are seeing an increase...

Russia is one of the biggest winners in the early days of the largest U.S. military confrontation in decades, as Iranian missiles deplete stocks of Patriot interceptors that Ukraine needs for its defense. Even before the Iran campaign, production bottlenecks in the U.S.-made Patriot system had drained Ukraine’s reserves and left European allies on yearslong waiting lists. Those shortfalls have allowed Russia to punch through gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses, devastating its power infrastructure and casting Ukrainian cities into blackouts.

CAIRO (AP) — A Russian-flagged tanker carrying liquefied natural gas exploded and erupted in flames before sinking in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya, authorities in the North African country said Wednesday. No casualties were reported.The tanker was under Western sanctions, suspected to be part of Russia’s shadow fleet of energy tankers trying to bypass sanctions imposed on Moscow over its war in Ukraine. The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. According to the Libyan Maritime Authority, there was a “sudden explosions, followed by a massive fire” on the Arctic Metagaz on Tuesday while the LNG...

Today, the most important developments come from the Huliaipole direction. Here, north of the main stronghold, Ukrainian forces have broken through Russian positions and are expanding their advance. Russian defenses began to fall apart more quickly than anticipated, allowing even deeper penetration by Ukrainian forces. Recently, the Ukrainian command reported restoring control over more than 400 square kilometers through counterattacks, while daily combat intensity in the direction has reached roughly fifty engagements per day. As Ukrainian forces regain control over key terrain, they improve their ability to observe Russian movement, making it harder for Russian forces to reposition without being...

As events in the Middle East and the Gulf region unfold “extremely rapidly,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine knows “all too well” what such escalation means, pointing to Iran’s role in supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine. “Although Ukrainians never threatened Iran, the Iranian regime chose to become Putin’s accomplice,” Zelensky said in a statement on Saturday. He said Iran supplied Russia not only with Shahed drones but also with technologies to produce them, as well as other weapons. According to Zelensky, Russia has used more than 57,000 Shahed-type attack drones during the full-scale war, targeting Ukrainian civilians, cities and...

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....