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VILNIUS, Sept 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Defense informed European countries last week that military support under a program known as Section 333 will be cut to zero from the next fiscal year, a Lithuanian defence ministry official said on Friday. Two sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday the United States will phase out some security assistance for European countries near the border with Russia, raising concerns among key recipients such as Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia - former Soviet republics now in NATO and the European Union. Lithuania's Defence Ministry Policy Director Vaidotas Urbelis told reporters...

The decision, affecting hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid, has alarmed NATO allies and upset U.S. lawmakers who strongly back the alliance.The Trump administration intends to halt longtime security assistance programs for Europe, including an initiative to fortify the continent’s eastern flank against a potential attack by Russia, as it endeavors to recast Washington’s role within NATO, according to six people familiar with the matter.The decision would impact hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military aid relied upon by some of the alliance’s most vulnerable members. It has alarmed U.S. allies struggling to comprehend the administration’s...

Poland’s president has vetoed a bill that would extend aid to Ukrainian refugees. Karol Nawrocki, a nationalist conservative, commented that Ukrainians “make the effort to work in Poland” and pay taxes in the country in order to be eligible for support. Nawrocki, whose own party approved of the initial aid to Ukrainians, stated that the current financial package “places us in a situation where citizens of Poland are treated worse in their own country than our guests.” Over 1.5 million Ukrainians have fled to Poland since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war. Poland has offered every single refugee a taxpayer-subsidized...

A very interesting response from President Trump against the U.S. President stepping back and awaiting Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to organize their teams and schedule a bilateral discussion. President Trump has said he expects the diplomatic teams of Zelenskyy and Putin to coordinate a face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy in the next two weeks. As noted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, sometimes it just takes putting the principals into the same room to break the logjam. However, both regimes have entrenched ideologues who are positioning for maximum leverage. President Trump is asked what...

WASHINGTON, Aug 23 (Reuters) - The Pentagon has been quietly blocking Ukraine from using U.S.-made long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to strike targets inside Russia, limiting Kyiv's ability to employ these weapons in its defense against Moscow's invasion, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing U.S. officials.Reuters could not immediately verify the report.The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.The news came as U.S. President Donald Trump has grown more frustrated publicly over the three-year-old war and his inability to secure a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.After...

Under the proposal, Russia is insisting on full control of the Donbas region, which includes the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. Moscow is demanding that Ukrainian forces withdraw entirely from the area. In return, Russia has indicated that it would pull back its troops from certain occupied zones in the northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions and agree to “freeze” the frontlines in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is scheduled to travel to Washington on Monday, where he will meet with Trump to discuss the emerging framework and its implications for the...

In one of the largest overnight strikes since the war began, Russia unleashed some 614 drones, ballistic and cruise missiles across Ukraine, killing one, injuring dozens and destroying an American-owned electronics company less than an hour from two NATO borders, officials confirmed Thursday morning. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy said the strike on the private U.S. company, which involved "several" cruise missiles, was "very telling" following President Donald Trump’s attempts to force Moscow to end its invasion.

A massive Russian airstrike hit a US-owned electronics factory in Ukraine early Thursday while some 800 civilians were working there. The Flex Ltd. plant in Mukachevo, a city hundreds of miles from the front line, was engulfed in flames after being hit by two Russian Kalibr cruise missiles around 4:30 a.m., according to Ukrainian officials. The factory was not involved in the war and was just one casualty as “hundreds of drones, as well as hypersonic, ballistic, and cruise missiles, targeted civilian and energy infrastructure” in the latest Russian bombardment, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiha, wrote on X. “One of...

Through an extended weekend full of summitry, President Donald Trump revived the role of diplomacy in addressing the European conflict, making the first allied contact with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin since early in the Ukraine war. Trump rejected efforts by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and seven European leaders to escalate the endless proxy war against Russia. Despite his narcissistic peculiarities, the president made more progress toward peace in four days than President Joe Biden did in three years, though there is still great skepticism that the war will soon end.

Ukraine’s most heavily fortified region has become the center-point for peace talks to end the war with Russian leader Vladimir Putin reportedly demanding that Kyiv cede the entire territory to Moscow. But the Donestk oblast — which is smaller than Massachusetts and home to about 4 million people — has been at the center of some of the most brutal fighting of the war, and the Kremlin has not been able to take the entire region after more than three and a half years. A source familiar with Friday’s meeting between Putin and President Trump described negotiations over the fate...

"I'm just trying to stop people from being killed."President Donald Trump said Tuesday that there would be no American troops on the ground in Ukraine under his watch. Trump made the comments in an interview on “Fox and Friends” as he recapped his Monday meeting at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, European leaders, and a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump added that European nations like France, Germany, and the U.K. might have boots on the ground in Ukraine at some point. “You have my assurance — and I’m president. I’m just trying to stop...

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has come under fire for stating that it would be unwise to send troops into Ukraine. “We are the only European troop contributor to station a combat-ready brigade in Lithuania. Doing that and also stationing troops in Ukraine would probably be too much for us,” Wadephul told the Table Today Podcast. Sending troops to Ukraine is highly unpopular in Germany among the citizens, despite the government’s eagerness to support Ukraine with manpower. The foreign minister suggested that Germany could provide military and technical support without entering Ukraine. Critics claim he is simply attempting to appease...

Here, the Taiwan Relations Act provides a possible model. It allows the United States to provide continued military assistance and equipment to a government it does not technically recognize as a separate state, but with the goal of preventing Beijing from using force to resolve the political disputes stemming from the Chinese civil war.

President Trump ruled out sending US military forces to Ukraine as part of any US security guarantees to the war-torn nation, but suggested he would provide some form of air protection. Trump insisted that the American public has “my assurance” when pressed in an interview on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday morning that there “won’t be American boots on the ground defending that border” in Ukraine. “Well, you have my assurance,” the president replied. “I’m president and I’m just trying to stop people from being killed.” Trump asserted that the US would support the Europeans in providing Ukraine with security, hinting...

As President Trump seeks to gauge Putin's intentions, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy remains excluded from critical discussions about the war in Ukraine.U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday for a high-stakes discussion over the future of the war in Ukraine. Notably, the conversation will not include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has insisted that Ukraine must be involved in any ceasefire agreements. President Trump stated that his ultimate goal is to end the fighting between Ukraine and Russia. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, 3.7 million people in Ukraine have been...

Countless men and women are dead. Cities have been destroyed. Other nations want to “help” by sending weapons, but Ukrainians are eager to end the war. A Gallup poll from July 1-14 found that only 24% of Ukrainians would fight until victory. Back in 2022, 73% of people favored fighting until victory, but now the true cost has been revealed, and there is no victory in war. As of July 2025, 69% of Ukrainians support ending the war immediately through negotiations with Russia. In contrast, only 22% of the nation felt that peace talks were warranted in 2022. Ukrainians notably...

Russian forces made a sudden thrust in eastern Ukraine in recent days, as Russian leader Vladimir Putin seeks a battlefield advantage ahead of talks with President Trump on Friday. The infantry penetration, which officials and soldiers said stretched several miles deep near the Ukrainian city of Dobropillya, is a rare move in a war where defenses have gained the upper hand and Russia has struggled to add to the around 20% of Ukraine that it has occupied for much of its 3½-year invasion. Ukraine’s military said it was counterattacking in the area against what it said were small groups of...

Ukrainian defenses are buckling under the relentless Russian pressure. This happened in the area near Pokrovsk: instead of banging their heads against a heavily fortified city, Russian forces, as they do, circumvent it, seeking to cut all supply lines and encircle the defenders, at which point the garrison has to either surrender or be destroyed by attacks from all sides.This playbook was implemented in Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Kurakhovo, Ugledar and so many other places.What is striking now is that the northern prong, expected to turn west to encircle Pokrovsk, found weaknesses on the depleted defenses, and dashed north by 9 miles.Post...

breakthrough in eastern Ukraine, advancing past Ukrainian defensive lines near the frontline city of Pokrovsk.👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Russian forces, Ukrainian forces, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald J. Trump are set to meet in Alaska soon.📍WHEN & WHERE: The breakthrough occurred north of Pokrovsk, near Dobropillia, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.🎯IMPACT: The advance risks isolating Ukrainian forces and could have significant implications for the ongoing conflict and the upcoming Alaska summit. Fact is Vlad is breaking throughout the entire line of contact. Ukraine in Shock😲Russian Forces Have Fully Breached the Defenses!⚡️🔥 Military...

Slowly but surely, Kiev seems to be adjusting its territorial demands to reality.In the runup to the Donald J. Trump-Vladimir Putin peace talks in Alaska on Friday 15, Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky was featured in dozens of news outlets repeating the same line, as we reported yesterday:The Washington Post: “Ukraine will reject any proposal that involves ceding territory to Russia, Zelensky says”; BBC News: “Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine will not give up land as Donald Trump suggests idea ahead of meeting Vladimir Putin in Alaska”; Reuters: “‘Ukrainians will not give their land to occupiers,’ President Zelenskiy said”; The Straits...