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Volodymyr Zelensky today appeared to tacitly attack Donald Trump for easing sanctions on Russian oil to cut prices hammered by his attack on Iran. The Ukrainian president used a speech in Parliament to thank the UK for keeping up pressure on 'wealthy madman' Vladimir Putin despite fresh fighting in the Middle East. Last week Trump signed a one-month sanction waiver allowing countries to buy Russian oil currently floating around in tankers unable to dock anywhere. It was designed to ease prices that spiked when Iran put a block on shipping transiting the Straits of Hormuz off its south coast. In...

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...

Robert Fico 🇸🇰@RobertFicoSVKREACTION OF THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC, ROBERT FICO, TO THE BLACKMAILING BEHAVIOR OF UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT ZELENSKYYI express full solidarity with the Prime Minister of Hungary, @PM_ViktorOrban. If the Ukrainian president continues like this, it may happen that other EU member states will also block the 90-billion loan for Ukraine.And I officially ask all the highest representatives of the European Union and I will be very specific: 👉🏻 the President of the European Commission, @vonderleyen👉🏻 the President of the European Council, @eucopresident👉🏻 and also the so-called EU foreign affairs chief, @kajakallas☝🏻 to distance themselves from these...

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.

Ukraine is offering to share its hard-won battlefield lessons on Iranian drones with allies now confronting the same threat it has for years, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warning that no country can assume it’s fully protected from the kind of drone barrages Russia unleashes nightly. “Everyone can now see that Ukraine’s experience in defense is, in many respects, irreplaceable,” Zelensky said in a post to X Monday urging deeper cooperation with partners. “We are ready to share this experience and help those nations that helped Ukraine this winter and throughout this war. We are ready to work on developing...

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...

Ukraine's government says Russia indicated during recent talks in Geneva that it could accept U.S.-backed security guarantees as part of a potential post-war settlement, though major differences remain unresolved. On Saturday, Kyrylo Budanov, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a televised interview that Russian representatives signaled openness to security guarantees proposed by the United States, reported Reuters. "At the last talks, the Russian side said for example that they would accept the security guarantees offered to Ukraine by the United States," Budanov said.

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 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...

"This is the proportional response that Russia has the right to," the Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman stressedMOSCOW, February 24. /TASS/. A nuclear strike on targets in Ukraine, as well as in France and the United Kingdom, would be considered lawful and justified in the event that London and Paris provide Kiev with nuclear capabilities, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said on Max, commenting on Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service’s (SVR) reports about such plans by the two European countries. According to Medvedev, this information "radically changes the situation." "This is a direct transfer of nuclear weapons to a...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a plea to Donald Trump on Monday, telling CNN he wants the US president “to stay on our side.” Speaking at the Presidential Palace in Kyiv on the eve of the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Zelensky said the United States is far too big and too important to walk away from the conflict. And he hopes that Trump, during his State of the Union address Tuesday, will back Ukraine as it fights back against the Russia of President Vladimir Putin. “They have to stay with … a democratic country which is...

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...

At first glance, Yelets in winter looks like something from a Russian fairy tale. From the embankment I spy the golden domes of Orthodox churches and, down below, ice fishermen dotted along the frozen river. But in this town, 350km (217 miles) south of Moscow, the fairy tale feeling is transient. On the riverbank I spot an army recruitment billboard. It promises a one-off sum equivalent to £15,000 ($20k) to anyone who'll sign up to fight in Ukraine. Close by there's a poster of a Russian soldier taking aim with a Kalashnikov. "We're there where we need to be," the...

The UK’s defence secretary, John Healey, has written in the Sunday Telegraph saying he wants to deploy British troops to Ukraine as it would signal an end to Russia’s war, days before the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion. Here is an extract from what he wrote There is no heavier burden on any defence secretary or any government than committing our armed forces on operations. I want to be the defence secretary who deploys British troops to Ukraine – because this will mean that this war is finally over. It will mean we have negotiated peace in Ukraine. And...

When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine surpassed 1,418 days last month, it officially exceeded a historic milestone — the same span of time it took Moscow to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II. And unlike the Red Army that pushed all the way to Berlin eight decades ago in what it called the Great Patriotic War, Russia’s 4-year-old, all-out invasion of its neighbor is still struggling to fully capture Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland. After Moscow failed to seize the capital of Kyiv and install a puppet government in February 2022, the conflict turned into trench warfare with tremendous cost....

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...

Poland's withdrawal from landmine ban convention threatens escalation — Russian MFA "Beyond weakening the Convention itself, these steps could set off a domino effect, with other countries following suit," Maria Zakharova said MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/. Warsaw's withdrawal from the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention could trigger a "domino effect" and escalate tensions in Europe, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a comment. "The consequences of such actions will soon become apparent. Beyond weakening the Convention itself, these steps could set off a domino effect, with other countries following suit," the diplomat said. "At the same time, some EU...

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...