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MOSCOW, March 6 (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday it would respond if Finland ​placed nuclear weapons on its territory, saying such a move would make the Nordic country more vulnerable. ‌The Kremlin reacted sharply after NATO member Finland said on Thursday it was planning to lift a longstanding ban on hosting such weapons, in a move that could open the door to placing them there during times of war. "This is a statement that leads to an escalation ​of tensions on the European continent," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "This statement adds to Finland's vulnerability, a ​vulnerability provoked...

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".

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...

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...

Russia has used a record number of ballistic missiles to target Ukraine's energy sector, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said. The combined missile and drone strikes hit power plants and infrastructure in Kyiv and multiple locations causing "the most powerful blow" so far this year, according to private energy company DTEK. The strikes were launched as temperatures dropped to -20C (-4F) and left more than 1,000 tower blocks in the capital without heating once again and damaged a power plant in the eastern city of Kharkiv beyond repair. Zelensky said Russia was "choosing terror and escalation" rather than diplomacy to end...

Ukraine is racing to reinforce its air defenses as a brief pause in Russian strikes on Kyiv and other cities approaches its expiration, and military and diplomatic experts warn the move may do little to change conditions on the battlefield and could strengthen Moscow’s negotiating position. Earlier Friday, President Donald Trump said at the White House, "I think we’re getting very close to getting a settlement," expressing optimism about the upcoming Russia-Ukraine talks. "Zelenskyy and Putin hate each other, and it makes it very difficult, but I think we have a good chance of getting it settled." The Kremlin said...

"Ukraine saw a rare overnight lull in attacks on energy infrastructure after President Trump personally urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to pause strikes — but the Kremlin said Friday the brief reprieve will last only through Sunday. There were no overnight strikes on energy facilities in Ukraine after Trump called on Putin to spare them as frigid temperatures leave civilians in danger of freezing to death, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post to X. “Over the past night, there were no strikes on energy facilities,” Zelensky wrote. But that didn’t stop Moscow from continuing to hit other civilian...

After nearly a year of chaotic, stop-and-start efforts to broker a cease-fire in Ukraine, the Trump administration remains deeply involved in talks to stop the war. Unsurprisingly, the most vexing topic remains territorial concessions—in Trump-speak, “land swaps.” And until now, diplomats have not come up with anything likely to solve it. The discrepancy between the original pro-Russian 28-point plan that surfaced in November 2025 and the reworked Ukrainian-U.S.-European version speaks volumes about how far Ukraine and Russia remain from each another. The 28-point plan calls for international recognition of all currently Russian-held territory as well as marking the entirety of...

Russia launched a mass aerial attack on Ukraine overnight Jan. 24, killing at least one person and injuring others, while causing widespread damage to energy infrastructure. In Kyiv, one person was killed and four others injured during the attack. Explosions were first heard at 1:20 a.m. local time, according to Kyiv Independent journalists on the ground, who reported blasts throughout the night, including the interception of a ballistic missile. The Ukrainian Air Force tallied 396 aerial weapons, including 21 missiles and 375 drones. Hypersonic "Tsirkon" missiles, ballistic Iskander missiles, and Kh-22/Kh-32 cruise missiles were used. The attacks continued Russia’s targeting...

Ukraine is on the brink of "a humanitarian catastrophe" after months of Russian airstrikes on the energy system, and any future peace agreement must include a halt to attacks on energy infrastructure, Maksym Tymchenko, CEO of DTEK, the largest private energy company in Ukraine, has said. Tymchenko said Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion nearly four years ago, has conducted a campaign of "energy terror" since October 2025, striking power plants and overloading air defence systems. The authorities report that Kyiv and the surrounding regions have been hardest hit, and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has urged residents to temporarily leave...

Volodymyr Zelenskyy dropped a barrage of truth bombs on his European allies about their collective failure to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and be respected by his US counterpart, Donald Trump. Invoking the spectacle of Bill Murray's classic comedy, Groundhog Day, at a speech in Davos, the Ukrainian president said the UK and Europe are stuck in a doom loop, repeating rhetoric about what needs to be done - without taking the action required to make things change. This, he said, meant they were left scrambling to respond to world events instead of standing united as a great...

Collecting snow for water at home; sleeping in gloves, coats and hats; heating bricks on gas stoves for warmth; erecting tents indoors - Kyiv residents are doing everything they can to survive the coldest, darkest winter of the war. "When there is no electricity, there is no heating: it means the apartment freezes," said ​Anton Rybikov, father of three-year-old David and two-year-old Matvii, speaking to Reuters in their home, where he and his wife Marina have stocked up on backup batteries and sleeping bags. The 39-year-old military ‌chaplain said one of his sons recently contracted pneumonia after temperatures in the...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to meet President Donald Trump in Davos as U.S. envoys prepare for talks in Moscow aimed at ending Russia's war with Ukraine. Zelenskyy plans to travel to Switzerland on Thursday to meet Trump on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum while White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner head to Moscow for discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as reported by Axios. Trump confirmed the meeting with Zelenskyy after delivering remarks Wednesday in Davos, saying negotiations are nearing a critical point. "I think Russia wants to make a deal, I think Ukraine...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s latest drone and missile attacks had left more than one million consumers without electricity in Kyiv, with thousands of apartment blocks also losing heating during freezing winter temperatures. In a rare wartime admission, Zelenskyy criticised the performance of Ukraine’s air force against Russian Shahed drones, despite the availability of Western-supplied interceptors and F-16 fighter jets. Moscow has escalated strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, while Kyiv has urged Western allies to urgently deliver air defense missiles and military support.

<p>French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that his country has now overtaken the US as the main provider of intelligence to Ukraine.</p><p>"Where Ukraine was overwhelmingly dependent on American intelligence capacity, a year ago, two-thirds is today provided by France. Two-thirds," Macron said in a New Year's speech to the French military.</p>

Two people were ⁠killed and dozens more wounded in a mass Russian drone attack across Ukraine overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday, as U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators hashed out a post-war plan in the latest round of ‍peace talks. Moscow has stepped up a winter campaign ‍of strikes on the Ukrainian energy system while also waging a battlefield offensive as Kyiv faces U.S. ⁠pressure to secure peace in the nearly four-year-old war. Zelenskyy said the Sumy, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi and Odesa regions were ​targeted in an attack that included more than 200 drones. The military said 30 strikes...

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...

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has called on residents to temporarily leave the Ukrainian capital for places with alternative sources of electricity and heat. That came following a major Russian missile and drone attack overnight into this morning that severely damaged critical energy infrastructure. The strikes, described by officials as one of the most damaging on Kyiv’s power grid this winter, left approximately half of the city’s apartment buildings, around 6,000, without heating as temperatures plummeted to minus 8°C and forecasters predicted further falls.

KYIV—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would be willing to pull troops out of the eastern region of Donetsk and create a demilitarized free economic zone as part of a potential peace deal, provided Russia took similar steps to withdraw from areas it controls. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Zelensky said the proposal and other aspects of a 20-point plan would be put to a referendum. The territorial dispute across the Donbas, the eastern flank of Ukraine where some of the heaviest fighting is raging, is one of the chief sticking points in the latest version of a plan to...