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LONDON -- No compromise has been reached on the question of territorial control to reach a peace settlement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said following his meeting with European leaders on Monday. "The Americans think we must look for compromises. There are difficult questions about territories. In this regard, there is no compromise for now," Zelenskyy told reporters on a plane after the meeting in London

The UN General Assembly on Wednesday demanded by a wide margin that Russia immediately and unconditionally return all Ukrainian children who have been forcibly transferred or deported since the start of the war.The draft resolution during the emergency special session was approved by 91 votes in favour, 12 against and 57 abstentions, surpassing the required two-thirds majority of members present and voting. The resolution expresses deep concern about the fate of Ukrainian children separated from their families since 2014 – when Moscow annexed Crimea – including those transferred within occupied Ukrainian territory and those deported to Russia. It describes these...

Ukraine will not surrender territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared Monday, rejecting a central Russian demand that President Donald Trump had incorporated into his latest proposal to end the Kremlin’s war. “Under our laws, under international law — and under moral law — we have no right to give anything away,” Zelensky said, after meeting with top European leaders to discuss Trump’s plan Monday. “That is what we are fighting for.” The unequivocal declaration that Ukraine will not surrender land could mark the collapse of Trump’s plan, which critics condemned as fulfilling a wish list of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelensky,...

France has refused to reveal the whereabouts of €18bn in frozen Russian assets in discussions over the European Union’s future funding for Ukraine.The majority of the cash is being held by commercial banks, which Paris has argued should be protected from the €140bn “reparations loan” for Kyiv.Despite publicly backing a scheme which envisages using frozen Russian assets in Europe to guarantee a loan to Kyiv, France has emerged as a potential blocker by refusing to allow private, commercial banks from being plundered to aid Ukraine, according to reporting by The Financial Times.EU member states are caught up in fractious talks...

On Sunday, December 7, US lawmakers unveiled the final text of the defense policy bill, which includes record funding for national security as well as aid for Ukraine, according to Reuters, Fox News, and AOL.Media reports state that the bill allocates $901 billion for military spending for fiscal year 2026-$8 billion more than what President Donald Trump requested in May of this year.The legislation also assists Ukraine.“The legislation reauthorizes the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative at $400 million per year for fiscal years 2026 and 2027,” Fox News reports.Additionally, the US Congress will require more frequent reporting on allied contributions to...

When Ukraine set its sights on NATO and later the European Union, many expected Europe to respond with conviction and purpose. Instead, what emerged was a patchwork of shortterm fixes, hesitant commitments, and political squabbles—a portrait of a continent reacting to history rather than shaping it. Europe entered the conflict improvising, not strategizing. What was framed as solidarity has too often become a cascade of costly, shortsighted decisions that drain wealth, fracture unity, and expose the EU’s lack of direction. Today, the European Union wrestles with economic fatigue and political discord. Member states remain divided over how long support for...

Russia is gaining territory in Ukraine at one of the fastest rates since the war began, new data show, ahead of an emergency Downing Street summit. The Kremlin’s army seized 200 square miles of territory in November, up from 100 square miles the previous month, according to DeepState, a trusted Ukraine-based battlefield map. The speed of advance was approaching the fastest since the initial invasion almost four years ago, the Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, said

Donald Trump Jr. revealed that his father, President Donald Trump, may walk away from Ukraine due to the lack of progress towards a peace deal. Speaking at a forum in Doha on Sunday, Trump Jr. criticized the major corruption in Ukraine, which penetrated the highest levels of government in Kyiv, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s longtime chief of staff Andriy Yermak, who resigned after facing a massive embezzlement probe. Yermak, the former lead negotiator for Ukraine who was widely regarded as the second-most powerful figure in the nation, resigned after anti-corruption investigators raided his home last month in connection with...

President Donald Trump, appearing on the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday night, said he was "a little bit disappointed" in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for not yet reading the text of Washington's latest proposed peace plan for the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump said Zelenskyy's top Ukrainian officials "love it," and "Russia is fine with it," but stressed that Zelenskyy himself had not reviewed the document as of several hours before the event. "We've been speaking to President [Vladimir] Putin, and we've been speaking to Ukrainian leaders, including President Zelenskyy, and I have to say that I'm a...

Donald Trump Jr. made some not so surprising allegations against Ukraine at the Doha Forum in December. Donald Trump, Jr. recently made some noise about the ongoing Ukrainian War with Russia. Earlier this month Don Jr. unloaded on Ukrainian aid, telling fitness trainer and author, Jillian Michaels, that when he went to Monaco with his girlfriend, half of the super cars he saw on the street had Ukrainian plates. Via Chief Nerd. 🚨 Don Jr Goes Off on the Ukraine War“I was actually in Monaco earlier this summer … and every other car there was an Italian supercar, like a...

Luxury mansions, duffel bags stacked full of cash, and a golden toilet. These are just some of the excesses that members of Volodymyr Zelensky's inner circle enjoyed as Russian missiles rained down on civilians, according to Ukraine's top anticorruption agencies. The scandal had old-school elements: its co-conspirators are accused of employing code names for each other such as 'Professor', 'Sugarman', 'Karlson', and 'Rocket' as they lined their pockets amid Moscow's years-long invasion. The corruption crisis sweeping Zelensky's government could not have occurred at a more pivotal moment in the country's history, as it thrashes out a peace proposal that will...

With the War in Ukraine now approaching its fifth year and possibly reaching a climatic stage, it’s timely to offer an overview of the situation. This overview has three vectors – the situation on the battlefield, the corruption scandal rocking Kyiv, and the prospects for the success of the Trump peace plan. The thread that connects these three vectors is the role of the Russian Federation and specter of Vladimir Putin. Let’s look at these vectors separately and then unify them in the end. On The Ground The situation on the battlefield is straightforward. Russia is winning the war decisively...

Donald Trump may walk away from the Ukrainian war, the US president’s oldest son has said in comments to a Middle East conference. In a lengthy tirade against the purpose of continued fighting in Ukraine, Donald Trump Jr also said Ukraine’s “corrupt” rich had fled their country leaving “what they believed to be the peasant class” to fight the war. Trump Jr has no formal role inside his father’s administration, but is a key figure in the Maga movement. His intervention reflects the antipathy among some inside the Trump team towards the Ukrainian government, and comes as Trump’s negotiating team...

Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, will meet the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, and Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, for emergency talks on Friday as the EU races to save its sorely needed financing plan for Ukraine. The three leaders will dine in private in Brussels, a German government spokesperson said on Thursday, as Belgian officials continued to express strong opposition to the scheme, which involves the unprecedented use of frozen Russian assets. With Russia’s attacks intensifying, Washington pushing for a peace deal that favours Moscow and Kyiv fast running out of money and Europe struggling for influence...

Coming in the other direction, the soldiers looked exactly like the Ukrainian unit walking out of Pokrovsk after a 15-day deployment.They wore the same blue armbands and carried the same equipment. One of the four men said “hello”.But minutes later, a warning came over the radio: “Be careful, there is a group of Russian infiltrators in your area.”“We passed right by them,” says Ivan, a 21-year-old machine gunner in an unmanned systems unit from the Da Vinci Wolves. “The men I saw matched the description exactly.”Inside Pokrovsk, the dividing lines of urban warfare have faded. In their place is a...

It was a clear attempt to project Russian power. Hours before meeting U.S. officials in Moscow this past week about their plan to end the war, President Vladimir V. Putin claimed that Russia’s forces had seized the strategic Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk after a monthslong fight. The reality was murkier. Slivers of the city were still contested, according to battlefield maps and the Ukrainian military. But Mr. Putin’s claim, even if premature, reflected a trend shaping his unbending approach to negotiations: Russian forces are on the march. “The Russians do have the upper hand,” said Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst...

EU leaders warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a closed-door call that the United States might betray both Ukraine and Europe by conceding territory without firm security guarantees, Spiegel reported on Dec. 4. According to the outlet, European heads of state and government expressed deep mistrust toward Washington’s role in peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. Spiegel published what it claims is a transcript of the call — involving German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, several other European leaders, and Zelenskyy — in which the Americans were portrayed as unreliable. “There is a possibility that the United States...

Norway will allocate $7 billion dollars to Ukraine for defense needs next year. Additionally, Ukraine and Norway will launch joint defense production on Ukrainian territory, according to a post by Ukraine’s Minister of Defense, Denys Shmyhal. Shmyhal reported that during his working visit to Norway, he met with his counterpart, Tore Sandvik, and received an invitation to a meeting of the defense ministers of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). Ukraine will participate in this format for the first time.

Emmanuel Macron has reportedly warned Volodymyr Zelenskyy that “there is a chance that the US will betray Ukraine on territory, without clarity on security guarantees”, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported, quoting a leaked note from a recent call with several European leaders. Der Spiegel said it had obtained an English summary of Monday’s call, featuring what it said were direct quotations from European heads of government in which they expressed fundamental doubts about Washington’s approach to the talks. The French president described the current tense phase of the negotiations as harbouring “a big danger” for Ukraine’s embattled president, according...

hen Vladimir Putin declared this week that Russia was ‘ready’ to fight a war in Europe, the remark barely seems to have rippled the surface of Britain’s political consciousness. It should have sent a shockwave...Yet Britain continues to behave as though danger is tidily scheduled for years in the future, safely beyond the horizon of any present responsibility. It is a comforting delusion, but a very dangerous one. Britain cannot lead Europe if it cannot defend itselfWhat Putin understands – and what Britain refuses to face – is that Europe is vulnerable in ways that matter more than tanks or...