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After weeks of peace talks and high-level meetings, Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on an issue central to bringing the war to an end: Territory. The Kremlin has made clear that it wants to absorb all of an eastern area of Ukraine known as the Donbas. That includes a 2,500-square-mile area of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions that Russia has not been able to capture after nearly four years of fighting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated on Monday his longstanding opposition to ceding territory to Russia. More than 200,000 Ukrainians live in the area of Donetsk that Ukraine still...

President Donald Trump denounced Europe as a “decaying” group of nations led by “weak” people in an interview with POLITICO, belittling the traditional U.S. allies for failing to control migration and end the Russia-Ukraine war, and signaling that he would endorse European political candidates aligned with his own vision for the continent. The broadside attack against European political leadership represents the president’s most virulent denunciation to date of these Western democracies, threatening a decisive rupture with countries like France and Germany that already have deeply strained relations with the Trump administration. “I think they’re weak,” Trump said of Europe’s political...

A deal to release up to £100 billion of frozen Russian assets in Europe to aid Ukraine is just days away, Sir Keir Starmer believes, as he said negotiations to end the war had reached a “critical stage”. The prime minister held talks with President Zelensky on Monday, along with his French and German counterparts, to discuss the latest US peace proposals. The four men also discussed European efforts to free up the funds, which are frozen in European bank accounts — either to fund Ukraine’s continuing war effort or to pay for the reconstruction of the country in the...

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

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,...

Sir Keir Starmer will host Volodymyr Zelensky at Downing Street on Monday in a hastily arranged summit on the progress of peace talks. The Prime Minister will be joined in London by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Friedrich Merz, the German Chancellor. The trio of European leaders are attempting to ensure Ukraine is not “betrayed” during the US-led peace process with Russia, a possibility Mr Macron alluded to in a leaked phone call earlier this week. The meeting comes as top Ukrainian officials have been holding talks in Miami with Mr Trump’s chief envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner....

Fighting in Russia's Belgorod region entered a second day on Tuesday, and its governor told residents who fled after a cross-border incursion of armed fighters from Ukraine that it was still not safe to return to their homes. Monday's incursion, apparently involving armoured vehicles, was the biggest raid into Russia since the war began 15 months ago, though details including the number of fighters involved, their affiliation and the extent of any clashes, could not be independently confirmed. Russian authorities evacuated residents from the region's Graivoron district after the raiding forces claimed to have captured the border town of Kozinka...

After the defeat in Artemovsk (Bakhmut), where they are believed to have lost between 30k-60k troops, the Ukrainians staged this Sunday (May 22) an incursion into the Belgorod Oblast, pre-war Russian territory, in what can best be described as a publicity stunt or a ‘psy-op’.While the Discord Leaks have revealed that Zelensky has plans to take and hold Russian border towns to gain some leverage in future peace talks, that was not it.The incursion consisted of a DRG (Diversion and Reconnaissance Group) with 2 tanks, an infantry support vehicle and about 9 troop-carrying cars, with a number of troops that...

ROME—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Pope Francis to support Kyiv’s formula for peace—based on returning Ukraine’s territory—in a pointed message to the pontiff, who has refused to explicitly condemn Russia’s invasion. The pope, who met with Mr. Zelensky at the Vatican on Saturday, has offered to serve as an intermediary in negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow but his neutral stance, and his suggestions that the West provoked the war, have raised skepticism in Ukraine. ...