[🇺🇦] Monitoring Russian and Ukraine War.

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[🇺🇦] Monitoring Russian and Ukraine War.
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G   Ukraine Defense Forum

Russia fired 42 missiles, 123 drones at Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 01 February, 2025, 22:43

Russia fired 42 missiles and 123 drones including decoys at Ukraine overnight in a barrage that damaged buildings and left several people dead, the Ukrainian air force said on Saturday.

‘On the night of February 1, 2025, the Russian invaders launched a combined attack on Ukraine with missiles of various types,’ the air force said, listing 42 missiles including cruise, ballistic and guided varieties.

The UN condemned a Russian missile attack on the city of Odesa in southern Ukraine that wounded at least seven people and damaged historic buildings.

The Black Sea port, known for its picturesque streets of 19th-century buildings, is regularly targeted by Russian strikes.

‘UNESCO condemns the missile attack on the historic centre of Odesa last night, a World Heritage site, severely damaging at least two cultural buildings placed under UNESCO Conventions’ protection,’ the UN agency said.

‘Our team is already at work to promptly support the urgent documentation of damage and identify with the Ukrainian authorities the required emergency interventions,’ it said, adding that a UNESCO mission will be deployed to Odesa.

Regional governor Oleg Kiper wrote on social media that ‘seven people are known to have been injured in the attack by Russian terrorists on the historical centre of Odesa.’

Kiper said in earlier posts that two women and a child were among the wounded.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky condemned what he called an ‘absolutely deliberate attack by Russian terrorists’, saying it was fortunate there were no deaths.

Kiper posted photos showing rescuers wheeling a woman on a stretcher outside the city’s historic Hotel Bristol. The photos show damage to the 19th-century hotel’s ornate facade and interior, including a grand staircase.

Ukraine’s emergency service posted video showing debris littering the street outside the Bristol and a woman with dust on her clothes being helped by rescuers.

It said firefighters had rescued a woman trapped in one room and extinguished a fire on the roof.

‘Among the people who were at the epicentre of the attack were Norwegian diplomatic representatives,’ Zelensky said.

‘There is a lot of damage and destruction in the UNESCO-protected area,’ Odesa’s mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said.

Odesa’s historic centre is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

Its Transfiguration Cathedral — destroyed by the Soviets and rebuilt in the 2000s — was badly damaged by a Russian strike in July 2023.

‘As a result of the explosions, a number of historical monuments, including the Literary, Historical and Local Lore, Archaeological Museums, Museum of Western and Eastern Art, and the Philharmonic, have had their windows smashed and their facades damaged,’ Kiper said.

Ukrainian media posted photos showing what appeared to be a large crater near the hotel, and fallen masonry, blown-out windows and debris littering the floor inside.

Russian military bloggers alleged that foreign military specialists were staying in the hotel.​
 

US wants Ukraine to hold elections following a ceasefire, says Trump envoy
REUTERS
Published :
Feb 01, 2025 21:50
Updated :
Feb 01, 2025 21:50

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US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meet at Trump Tower in New York City, US, September 27, 2024. Photo : REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/Files

The United States wants Ukraine to hold elections, potentially by the end of the year, especially if Kyiv can agree a truce with Russia in the coming months, President Donald Trump’s top Ukraine official told Reuters.

Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said in an interview that Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections, suspended during the war with Russia, “need to be done”.

“Most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important they do so,” Kellogg said. “I think it is good for democracy. That’s the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person potentially running.”

Trump and Kellogg have both said they are working on a plan to broker a deal in the first several months of the new administration to end the all-out war that erupted with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

They have offered few details about their strategy for ending the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two, nor when they might unveil such a plan.

The Trump plan is still evolving and no policy decisions have been made, but Kellogg and other White House officials have discussed in recent days pushing Ukraine to agree to elections as part of an initial truce with Russia, two people with knowledge of those conversations and a former U.S. official briefed about the election proposal said.

Trump officials are also debating whether to push for an initial ceasefire before trying to broker a more permanent deal, the two people familiar with the Trump administration discussions said. If presidential elections were to take place in Ukraine, the winner could be responsible for negotiating a longer-term pact with Moscow, the people said.

The sources declined to be named in order to discuss sensitive policy and security issues.

It is unclear how such a Trump proposal would be greeted in Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine could hold elections this year if the fighting ends and strong security guarantees are in place to deter Russia from renewing hostilities.

A senior adviser to Kyiv and a Ukrainian government source said the Trump administration has not yet formally requested Ukraine hold presidential elections by the end of the year.

SETTING A TRAP

Zelenskiy’s five-year term was supposed to end in 2024 but presidential and parliamentary polls cannot be held under martial law, which Ukraine imposed in February 2022.

Washington raised the issue of elections with senior officials in Zelenskiy’s office in 2023 and 2024 during the Biden administration, two former senior US officials said.

State Department and White House officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that elections were critical to uphold international and democratic norms, the officials said.

Officials in Kyiv have pushed back on elections in conversations with Washington in recent months, telling Biden officials that hosting polls at such a volatile moment in Ukraine’s history would divide Ukrainian leaders and potentially invite Russian influence campaigns, the two former US officials said.

Asked about what the former Western official and two other people familiar with the matter told Reuters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We do not have that information.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was cited by the Interfax news agency on Jan 27 as saying that direct contacts between Moscow and the Trump administration were not yet underway. The Russian Foreign Ministry says it is still waiting for the US to approve its new pick as Moscow’s ambassador in Washington, a post currently unoccupied.

Putin has said publicly he does not think Zelenskiy is a legitimate leader in the absence of a renewed electoral mandate and that the Ukrainian president does not have the legal right to sign binding documents related to a potential peace deal.

According to the Russian leader, however, Zelenskiy could take part in negotiations in the meantime but must first revoke a 2022 decree he signed banning talks with Russia for as long as Putin is in charge.

The Ukrainian government source said Putin was using the election issue as a false excuse to disrupt future negotiations.

“(He) is setting a trap, claiming that if Ukraine doesn’t hold elections, he can later ignore any agreements,” the source said.

RUSSIA’S BIDDING?

Ukrainian legislation explicitly prohibits presidential and parliamentary elections being held under martial law.

The former Western official raised concerns about the US push for elections, saying lifting martial law could allow mobilized soldiers to leave the military, trigger an exodus of hard currency and prompt large numbers of draft-age men to “run for the border”.

It could also ignite political instability, the source said, because it would make Zelenskiy a lame duck, diluting his power and influence and fueling jockeying by potential challengers.

If Trump pressures Zelenskiy to agree to elections, Washington would be playing into Putin’s recent statements questioning the Ukrainian leader’s legitimacy, the former Western official said.

“Trump is reacting, in my view, to ... Russian feedback,” the official said. “Russia wants to see an end to Zelenskiy.”

Some former US officials say they are skeptical that a peace deal can be reached in the coming months or that elections would take place in 2025, particularly because both sides appear to be at odds on how to begin formal negotiations.

The Kremlin has said repeatedly that Putin is open to talks without preconditions.

But William Taylor, a former US ambassador to Ukraine, said Putin has shown no readiness for serious negotiations.

Zelenskiy is seeking US and European security guarantees as part of any deal, including the deployment of a foreign military force on the frontlines to ensure Russia abides by any truce.​
 

Russian air attack kills four in Ukraine, Kyiv says
REUTERS
Published :
Feb 01, 2025 16:40
Updated :
Feb 01, 2025 16:40

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Rescuers work at the site of an apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Poltava, Ukraine February 1, 2025. Photo : Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Poltava region/Handout via REUTERS

Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least four civilians and damaging residential buildings and infrastructure across the country, Ukrainian officials said.

The Interior Ministry said that a Russian missile slammed into a residential building in the central city of Poltava, killing three people and injuring 10, including a child.

The ministry posted pictures on the Telegram messaging app showing the residential building with several top floors smashed and thick columns of smoke rising into the sky. Fire brigades and dozens of rescuers were going through the rubble.

One person was killed and four were wounded in the city of Kharkiv in the northeast as the result of a drone attack, the Kharkiv mayor said.

Officials said that the Russian forces also damaged buildings in the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian air defence was also repelling the attacks in Kyiv, but there were no immediate reports of major damage or casualties in the capital, they said.

"Russia's daily attacks on Ukraine are a signal that the aggressor will not stop committing its crimes," Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram.

"Last night and in the morning, Russia shelled Ukraine again: Odesa, Poltava, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia... The terrorist targets civilian infrastructure: residential buildings, educational institutions, cars."

As the war against Russia approaches its three-year mark this month, Moscow has stepped up its air attacks on Ukraine, sending dozens of drones in almost daily attacks.

The strikes in the morning hours on Saturday followed a Russian missile attack on the southern Black Sea port of Odesa the previous evening which damaged the city's historic centre.​
 

Russia, Ukraine trade blame for missile strike
Four killed; 84 people receive medical assistance

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Ukraine and Russia traded blame for a deadly missile strike on Saturday that killed at least four people in the dormitory of a boarding school situated in a part of Russia's Kursk region held by Kyiv forces.

Some of the war's fiercest battles in recent months have been taking place in the Kursk region that borders Ukraine, where Kyiv forces have held swathes of the land since staging a major cross-border incursion last August.

Ukraine's Armed Forces said on the Telegram messaging app that Russia had launched an aerial bomb from Russian territory that struck a boarding school in Sudzha, killing at least four. The boarding school housed people preparing for evacuation.

As of 10:00 pm (2000 GMT) on Saturday, 84 people had been rescued or received medical assistance, the statement said. Four of the injured were in a serious condition. Rescue efforts to clear rubble were proceeding.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack on Sudzha, some 12 km (7.5 miles) from the border with Ukraine, showed how Russia fights the war.

"They destroyed the building even though dozens of civilians were there," Zelensky wrote on the X social media platform.

"This is how Russia waged war against Chechnya decades ago. They killed Syrians the same way. Russian bombs destroy Ukrainian homes the same way."

Russia's Defence Ministry said early yesterday on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had launched "a targeted missile strike on a boarding school in the city of Sudzha" from Ukrainian territory.

In a statement, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called the strike a "terrorist attack" and vowed to bring Kyiv to justice.​
 

Ukraine strikes major oil, gas facilitites in Russia

UN warns Russian forces killing more captured Ukrainian troops in recent months

Ukraine struck energy facilities in southern Russia with dozens of drones launched yesterday, triggering fires at a major oil refinery and gas processing plant and disrupting flights from the Volga to the Caucasus Mountains, Russian and Ukrainian officials said.

Russia's defence ministry said that its air defence units intercepted and destroyed 70 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight, including 25 over the Volgograd region, 27 over the Rostov region and seven over the Astrakhan region, reports Reuters.

"The air defence forces of the defence ministry repelled a massive attack by aircraft-type drones on the territory of the Volgograd region," Volgograd Governor Andrei Bocharov said.

A pro-Russian paramilitary leader from eastern Ukraine was killed in a Moscow bomb blast.

Falling drone debris sparked several fires at an oil refinery, he said, though he did not say which refinery was on fire.

Since Russia sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022, Kyiv has tried to fight back against its much bigger neighbour by striking deep into Russia with drones and missiles, and even killing a senior military commander in Moscow.

In Moscow, a pro-Russian paramilitary leader from eastern Ukraine, Armen Sarkisyan, was killed yesterday when a bomb tore through parts of a luxury apartment block, state news agency TASS and other Russian media reported.

Meanwhile, the United Nations yesterday warned that Russian forces have been killing more captured Ukrainian soldiers over recent months, echoing growing allegations from officials in Kyiv, reports AFP.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have accused the other of committing war crimes, including killing prisoners of war, since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago.

The United Nations monitoring mission in Ukraine said that since the end of August last year it had "recorded 79 such executions in 24 separate incidents" by Russian forces.

"These incidents did not occur in a vacuum. Public figures in the Russian Federation have explicitly called for inhumane treatment, and even execution, of captured Ukrainian military personnel," said Danielle Bell, head of the mission.

Russian forces advanced 430 square kilometres into Ukrainian territory in January and are headed towards the logistics hub of Pokrovsk, according to an AFP analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

This marks a slight slowdown compared to previous months, after a record advance of 725 square kilometres in November and 476 square kilometres in December.​
 

RUSSIAN DRONE STRIKES ON UKRAINE GRID
IAEA chief warns of nuke risk from attacks

Russian missile kills five in the Ukrainian town of Izium

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi arrived in Kyiv yesterday and inspected an electricity distribution substation, warning that attacks on Ukraine's power grid could pose a risk of nuclear accident by disrupting supply.

"I'm at Kyivska electrical substation — an important part of Ukraine's power grid essential for nuclear safety," Grossi wrote on X. "A nuclear accident can result from a direct attack on a plant, but also from power supply disruption."

Grossi posted pictures of him visiting the substation alongside Energy Minister German Galushchenko, and being showed what appeared to be defences against Russian strikes.

Moscow has regularly bombarded Ukraine's energy infrastructure throughout its three-year invasion.

Moscow has regularly bombarded Ukraine's energy infrastructure, including substations, throughout its three-year invasion, although it has avoided direct strikes on Ukraine's nuclear plants.

Meanwhile, a Russian missile fired yesterday on the eastern Ukrainian city of Izyum killed four people and wounded 20, the governor of the broader Kharkiv region said on social media.

Izyum, which had a population of around 45,000 people before the Russian invasion launched in February 2022, was occupied for several months at the beginning of the war before being retaken by Ukraine.

But Russian forces are making gains in the region and undoing the advances Kyiv's army made in their 2022 counteroffensive, while stepping up bombardments here.

"According to initial reports, the occupiers used a ballistic missile. Four people were killed," Oleg Synegubov wrote on Telegram, adding that five people had been hospitalised.

Meanwhile, Ukraine received a surge in queries last month from Russian families seeking information on missing relatives serving in Moscow's army, Kyiv said yesterday.

Ukraine last year established a hotline for Russians to learn details of missing relatives and friends as part of efforts to streamline prison exchanges.

The hotline called "I want to find" is run by the Coordination Centre for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, which said it had received 8,548 requests last month.​
 

Russian missile kills five in east Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 05 February, 2025, 00:04

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Ukrainian communal workers and volunteers clean debris around a heavily damaged building near the site of a missile attack in Izyum, Kharkiv region, on Tuesday, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. | AFP photo

A Russian missile attack Tuesday on the Ukrainian city of Izyum, briefly occupied by Russia in 2022, killed five people and wounded more than four dozen others, officials said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said after the attack that it was ‘impossible to reconcile with this cruelty’ and urged allies to pile pressure on Moscow to end its invasion.

Oleg Synegubov, governor of the wider Kharkiv region bordering Russia, said 50 people had been wounded in the Russian strike, including a 15-year-old girl.

Images distributed by rescue workers showed a woman crying over body bags lined up in a row, a gaping hole in a damaged building and blood stains on debris.

Zelensky said the city council building had been damaged in the attack while Synegubov earlier said a five-storey residential building was hit.

‘We need to put pressure on Russia, use as much force as possible — the force of arms, the force of sanctions, the force of diplomacy — to stop the terror and protect lives,’ Zelensky wrote on social media.

Izyum, which had a population of around 45,000 people before the Russian invasion launched in February 2022, was occupied for several months at the beginning of the war before being retaken by Ukrainian forces later that year.

Russian forces are making gains in the region and undoing the advances Kyiv’s army made in their 2022 counteroffensive, while stepping up bombardments.

The town lies some 40 kilometres from the front line.​
 

909 Russian troops captured in 6 months
Says Kyiv; Ukrainian drone strike kills three in Russia’s Belgorod region

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Ukraine said yesterday it had captured more than 900 Russian troops over six months of fighting in the western Russian Kursk region.

Kyiv says a key goal of its struggling operation launched in August just over its border with Russia was to build up reserves of Russian soldiers to exchange for Ukrainian prisoners of war.

"During the operation, Ukrainian forces captured 909 Russian servicemen, significantly replenishing the exchange fund," the Ukrainian military said in a statement.

"This made it possible to bring home hundreds of Ukrainian defenders who had been held in Russian prisons," it added. Kyiv and Moscow still cooperate on prisoner exchanges despite being at war for nearly three years, and Ukraine has made returning its captured troops a priority.

Last year, the Ukrainian military said its forces had captured more than 700 Russian troops during operations in the Kursk region.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone hit a Russian border village yesterday, killing two teenaged girls and a man, the governor of Russia's Belgorod region said.

The strike targeted the village of Logachevka in the Belgorod region, which has a border crossing with Ukraine's Kharkiv region. The crossing has been closed since Moscow launched its 2022 offensive on Ukraine.

Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the drone hit a car near the village, adding: "a man and two girls aged 18 and 14 are believed to have been in the car... They died at the scene."

After launched its shock offensive -- the largest by a foreign army in Russia since World War II -- Ukrainian forces have been losing the swathes of Russian territory they initially captured.

Kyiv says the ground it holds in Kursk will be an important bargaining chip in any future peace negotiations with Russia, whose forces have been making steady gains across the front line.​
 

Russian strikes kill three in Ukraine
Agence France-Presse . Kyiv, Ukraine 08 February, 2025, 01:53

Russian strikes on the Ukrainian border region of Sumy overnight killed three people who were pulled from the rubble of a two-story residential building, prosecutors said on Friday.

They said Moscow’s forces had struck the village of Miropillia shortly before midnight in Sumy, which lies just across the border from Russia and has been coming under increasing fatal bombardments.

‘As a result of the enemy attack, three people were killed — their bodies were recovered from the rubble,’ the office of the prosecutor general wrote on social media.

The attack ripped a hole dividing two sections of a Soviet-era building, official images showed.

Prosecutors said they had opened a war crimes investigation into the strike they said comprised of three guided bombs.

Sumy borders the Russian region of Kursk where Ukrainian forces launched a shock offensive six months ago but Moscow in turn has stepped up its bombardments on the industrial and farming region.

A Russian drone attack on Sumy city late last month killed at least nine people in a residential building at night.​
 

Russia claims east Ukraine village near strategic town
Agence France-Presse . Moscow 10 February, 2025, 00:44

Russia said on Sunday that its forces had captured the eastern Ukrainian village of Orikhovo-Vasylivka, near the strategic military hub of Chasiv Yar that Moscow is attempting to seize.

There is intensive fighting in the frontline town of Chasiv Yar, one of the last remaining urban areas blocking Russia from advancing further into the region, according to Russian military bloggers.

The Russian defence ministry said in a daily briefing that ‘as a result of decisive attack actions, the South group of troops liberated the settlement of Orekhovo-Vasilevka in the Donetsk region,’ using the Russian name for the village.

Orikhovo-Vasylivka is located around 10 kilometres north of Chasiv Yar and near the road to the Ukraine-held city of Sloviansk.

The latest advance comes as Russian troops are pushing further into the Donetsk region. They claimed the key mining town of Toretsk on Friday, while Ukraine denies Moscow troops are in full control there.

Ukraine’s Khortytsia army unit, which is fighting in the area, said Sunday that it had repelled attacks in the areas of Chasiv Yar and Toretsk and shot down a Russian military jet near Toretsk.

Ukraine’s air force said that overnight Russia had attacked six regions with 151 drones, of which it shot down 70 while a further 74 were lost ‘without negative consequences’.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed 35 Ukrainian drones overnight and one in the northwestern Leningrad region on Sunday morning.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin on Sunday declined to confirm or deny a US report of a phone call between US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Washington and Moscow have not officially confirmed any communication between the leaders since Trump took office on a pledge to swiftly end the Ukraine fighting.

The New York Post late Saturday reported that Trump told the publication he had spoken on the phone to Putin to discuss bringing an end to the conflict in Ukraine and the Russian told him he ‘wants to see people stop dying’.

The newspaper quoted Trump as saying he had ‘better not say’ how often the leaders have spoken.​
 

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: Red Cross probes fate of 50,000 missing
Agence France-Presse . Geneva 13 February, 2025, 23:19

The Red Cross said on Thursday it was trying to find out what happened to nearly 50,000 people who have disappeared in the past three years of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The International Committee of the Red Cross also said it had been notified of around 16,000 prisoners of war and civilians who had been detained by both sides.

Shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the ICRC created a special bureau of its Central Tracing Agency, dedicated to searching for those missing on both sides in the conflict.

‘Since February 2024, the number of open cases of missing persons has more than doubled, reaching almost 50,000 today,’ the CTA bureau chief Dusan Vujasanin told reporters in Geneva, adding that the vast majority of the missing were military personnel.

A year ago, the bureau said it was seeking to determine the fate of some 23,000 people who had gone missing in the war, and that it was striving to determine whether they were captured, killed or had lost contact after fleeing their homes.

The aim of the bureau’s work, Vujasanin said Thursday, was ‘to prevent disappearances, search for those who go missing and inform their families as soon as possible’.

To date, the bureau has been informed by both sides in the conflict that they had detained around 16,000 prisoners of war and civilians since the start of the full-scale conflict.

‘This is not equal to the number of PoWs currently detained,’ Vujasanin said, pointing out that several thousand prisoners had been released since the start of the war.

The CTA bureau plays the role of a neutral intermediary between the parties for information about missing persons, but it also works to search for the missing.

Vujasanin highlighted that much of the Red Cross network was working together to help find those who had gone missing.

‘Today, more than 80 Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies and ICRC delegations around the world are working together to support families looking for their missing loved ones in relation to the Russia–Ukraine armed conflict and provide them with answers as soon as possible,’ Vujasanin said.​
 

Kyiv, EU alarmed by prospect of ‘dirty deal’ after Trump-Putin call
REUTERS
Published :
Feb 13, 2025 21:48
Updated :
Feb 13, 2025 21:48

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A view shows residential buildings destroyed by Russian military strikes in the frontline town of Orikhiv, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine February 12, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Stringer

Kyiv and its European allies demanded on Thursday that they be included in any peace negotiations, after US President Donald Trump spoke by phone with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and said Ukraine could neither have all of its land back nor join NATO.

Russia’s financial markets soared and the price of Ukraine’s debt rose at the prospect of the first peace talks since the early months of Europe’s deadliest war since World War Two, soon to enter its fourth year.

But Trump’s unilateral overture to Putin, accompanied by apparent concessions on Ukraine’s principal demands, raised alarm for both Kyiv and the European allies in NATO who said they feared the White House might make a deal without them.

“We, as a sovereign country, simply will not be able to accept any agreements without us,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

He said Putin aimed to make his negotiations bilateral with the United States, and it was important not to allow that.

European officials took an exceptionally firm line in public towards Trump’s peace overture, saying any agreement would be impossible to implement unless they and the Ukrainians were included in negotiating it.

“Any quick fix is a dirty deal,” European foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. She also strongly denounced the apparent concessions offered in advance.

“Why are we giving them (Russia) everything that they want even before the negotiations have been started?” said Kallas. “It’s appeasement. It has never worked.”

A European diplomatic source said ministers had agreed to engage in a “frank and demanding dialogue” with US officials - some of the strongest language in the diplomatic lexicon - at the annual Munich Security Conference beginning on Friday.

Trump, who made the first publicly acknowledged White House call with Putin since the February 2022 full-scale invasion, and then followed it up with a call to Zelenskiy, said he believed both men wanted peace.

But the Trump administration also said openly for the first time that it was unrealistic for Ukraine to expect to return to its 2014 borders or join the NATO alliance as part of any agreement, and that no US troops would join any security force in Ukraine that might be set up to guarantee a ceasefire.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday the world was fortunate to have Trump, the “best negotiator on the planet, bringing two sides together to find a negotiated peace”.

‘POLITICAL WILL’

The Kremlin, for its part, said it was “impressed” by Trump’s position, which it contrasted with that of his predecessor Joe Biden.

“There is a political will, which was emphasised during yesterday’s conversation, to conduct a dialogue in search of a settlement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and its proxies captured territory in the east in 2014, before its full-scale invasion in 2022 when it captured more land in the east and south.

Ukraine pushed Russian troops back from the outskirts of Kyiv and recaptured swathes of territory in 2022, but its outmanned and outgunned forces have slowly ceded more land since a failed Ukrainian counter-offensive in 2023.

Relentless fighting has killed or injured hundreds of thousands of troops on both sides - there is no reliable death toll - and pulverised Ukrainian cities.

Through years of fighting there has been no narrowing of positions on either side. Moscow demands Kyiv cede more land and be rendered permanently neutral in any peace deal; Kyiv says Russian troops must withdraw and it must win security guarantees equivalent to NATO membership to prevent future attacks.

Ukrainian officials have acknowledged in the past that full NATO membership may be out of reach in the short term and that a hypothetical peace deal could leave some occupied land in Russian hands.

But Kyiv and its European allies made clear they were alarmed by Trump having opened negotiations with apparent concessions to Moscow, without first agreeing a common position.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Kyiv remained committed to applying to join NATO, which he said was the simplest and least expensive way the West could provide the security guarantees needed to ensure peace.

“All our allies have said the path of Ukraine towards NATO is irreversible. This prospect is in our constitution. It is in our strategic interest.”

‘SURRENDER’

The mood in Ukraine’s capital on Thursday was downbeat.

Kyiv resident Myroslava Lesko, 23, standing near a sea of flags downtown honouring fallen troops, said: “It truly looks as if they want to surrender Ukraine, because I don’t see any benefits for our country from these negotiations or Trump’s rhetoric.”

However, Ukrainians have been worn out by three years of war, and many say they are prepared to sacrifice some aims to achieve peace.

Many were frustrated by US policy under former President Biden, who had vowed to help Ukraine win all its land back and provided tens of billions of dollars worth of military hardware, but with restrictions and delays that Ukrainian commanders say allowed Russian forces to regroup.

Trump, at least, is being more forthright about the limits of US support, said Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics.

“The difference between Biden and Trump is that Trump says out loud what Biden was thinking and doing about Ukraine,” he said.​
 

Zelensky says Russian drone damages Chornobyl plant's radiation shield
REUTERS
Published :
Feb 14, 2025 23:57
Updated :
Feb 14, 2025 23:57

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that a Russian drone had caused significant damage to the radiation containment shelter at the disused Chornobyl nuclear power plant overnight.

Zelensky and the UN's atomic energy watchdog both said that radiation levels remained normal after the incident, which came as top US, Ukrainian and European officials gathered at the Munich Security Conference to discuss the war in Ukraine.

Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, accused Zelensky of orchestrating a drone attack to coincide with the Munich event as part of a lobbying effort to secure more weapons and money from the West.

Chornobyl was the site of the world's worst civil nuclear catastrophe when one of its four reactors exploded in 1986. That reactor is now enclosed by a shelter to contain the lingering radiation.

Chornobyl's last working reactor shut in 2000. Russia occupied the plant and the surrounding area for more than a month during its push to take the Ukrainian capital Kyiv at the beginning of the invasion.

The drone struck the radiation shelter, causing a fire that was then extinguished, Zelensky wrote on the Telegram app.

"According to initial assessments, the damage to the shelter is significant," he said.

Ukraine's emergency services said there were several areas of damage.

Ukraine's SBU security service showed pictures of what it said was the drone, which it said had been carrying a high-explosive warhead.

It said the drone was a Geran-2, the Russian name for the Iranian-designed Shahed-136, and had been intended to hit the reactor enclosure.

IMAGES SHOW FIRE AT TOP OF CHORNOBYL RADIATION ENCLOSURE

Marcel Plichta, Fellow at the Centre for Global Law and Governance at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, said the visuals released by Ukraine almost certainly showed a Shahed-136.

"The warhead of these drones is usually around 30 kg (66 lb), which is notable because it means Russia can grab headlines by launching the attack, but probably wouldn't cause large amounts of damage like you would see from a traditional missile," he said.

"Russia frequently uses attacks like this to regain control of the narrative."

Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, posted photographs that appeared to show a small fire near the top of the shelter, known as the New Safe Confinement.

The hulking, arched steel and concrete structure was completed in 2019 to cover an earlier Soviet-built version, which had deteriorated.

It is 108 metres high (354 feet) and 162 metres long, spans 257 metres and has a lifetime of at least 100 years, according to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.

It cost 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) and was financed by 45 donor countries and institutions.

Zelensky told reporters in Munich that the drone had flown in below radar range, at a height of 85 metres.

He was in Munich to meet US Vice-President JD Vance at a delicate moment for Ukraine, with the new US president, Donald Trump, pushing for rapid negotiations and an end to the war.​
 

Vance says US wields economic, military leverage on Russia in Ukraine talks
REUTERS
Published :
Feb 14, 2025 21:57
Updated :
Feb 14, 2025 21:57

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US Vice President JD Vance shakes hands as he participates in a bilateral meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at the Commerzbank in Munich, Germany, February 14, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Leah Millis

US Vice President JD Vance said Washington would be able to wield economic and military leverage in talks with Russia to ensure a good peace deal over Ukraine, but his spokesman later denied he was making any threats against Moscow.

Vance also urged Europe to spend more on defence in remarks before arriving for the Munich Security Conference, a major annual gathering of political leaders, military officers and diplomats.

In his keynote address to the conference, Vance lambasted the European Union for its regulation of hate speech and misinformation, which he said amounted to censorship.

He only briefly referred to Ukraine, saying he hoped a “reasonable settlement” could be reached.

However, Ukraine, and prospects for peace talks, preoccupied many at the high-profile global gathering after Donald Trump startled U.S. allies by calling Russian President Vladimir Putin and announcing the start of talks to end the war in Ukraine.

Vance, who was due to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy later on Friday, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal before the conference that Trump could use several tools - economic and military - for leverage with Putin.

Vance’s spokesman William Martin said later on X that Vance “didn’t make any threats. He simply stated the fact that no one is going to take options away from President Trump as these negotiations begin.”

Martin published what he said was a transcript from the interview, according to which Vance was asked what implicit threat and pressure Washington was considering towards Putin. He said Vance responded that “the range of options is extremely broad, and there are economic tools of leverage. There, of course, military tools of leverage (too).”

Vance mentioned none of this in his speech to the conference, instead focusing on criticising the 27-nation EU’s policy towards hate speech.

“The threat I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor,” he said, adding that it was what he called a retreat from fundamental values of protecting free speech - as well as immigration, which he said was “out of control” in Europe.

A Reuters reporter in one of the side rooms where more delegates could listen to Vance said people watched in stunned silence, with no applause.

EUROPEAN FEAR OF EXCLUSION FROM UKRAINE DEAL

The Kremlin had said earlier on Friday that it hoped the US would clarify Vance’s remarks to the Wall Street Journal. “We have not heard such formulations before,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed Vance’s comments. “Just like with the tariffs, it will depend on how President Putin comes to the table,” he told Fox Business Network.

“If we believe that taking the sanctions regime up to a maximum threshold level will help us achieve negotiating leverage - and as you know, no one understands negotiating leverage better than President Trump, so - that will be his decision, and Treasury will implement it.”

Trump’s phone call with Putin stoked fears among European governments that they might be frozen out of a settlement to end the Ukraine war that could wind up being too favourable to Russia and undermine European security as a whole.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock reiterated those concerns on Friday.

“A sham peace - over the heads of Ukrainians and Europeans - would gain nothing,” she said. “A sham peace would not bring lasting security, neither for the people in Ukraine nor for us in Europe or the United States.”

Germany’s defence minister said it was a mistake for Trump to take the bargaining chips off the table, namely Ukraine’s wish for NATO membership and its objective to recover all territories taken by Russian forces since 2014.

Russia now holds about 20 per cent of Ukraine nearly three years after launching a full-scale invasion, saying Kyiv’s pursuit of NATO membership posed an existential threat. Ukraine and the West call Russia’s action an imperialist land grab.

PRESSURE ON EUROPE

Vance also repeated Trump’s demand that Europe do more to safeguard its own defence so Washington can focus on other regions, particularly the Indo-Pacific.

“In the future, we think Europe is going to have to take a bigger role in its own security,” he said in a bilateral meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Vance was “absolutely right” about the need for Europe “stepping up” and doing more for its own defence. “We have to grow up in that sense and spend much more,” Rutte said.

At the conference, several European leaders echoed his comments, saying Europe would step up its defence spending but also needed to discuss with Washington on a gradual phasing-out of its support.

As a senator, Vance expressed blunt scepticism about US support for Ukraine.

Speaking on a podcast in 2022, he said: “I don’t really care what happens in Ukraine one way or the other.”​
 

Zelensky calls for European army amid US support doubts
Agence France-Presse . Munich, Germany 15 February, 2025, 22:13

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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. | File photo

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky called Saturday for the creation of a European army, as he insisted Kyiv and its backers on the continent must be listened to in peace talks with Russia.

Speaking at a gathering of top policymakers in Munich, the Ukrainian leader said that with the return of president Donald Trump to the White House Europe could no longer count on Washington to always have its back.

Trump stunned allies and upended the status quo of US support for Ukraine this week when he announced he would likely soon meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin to start truce talks.

Zelensky’s rallying cry came a day after he met US vice-president JD Vance as Kyiv scrambles to ensure it is not sidelined in Washington’s push to wrap up the three-year war.

‘Let’s be honest—now we can’t rule out the possibility that America might say no to Europe on issues that threaten it,’ Zelensky said.

‘I really believe that time has come. The Armed Forces of Europe must be created.’

The push for a joint continental force has been mooted for years without gaining traction and Zelensky’s intervention seems unlikely to shift the balance.

In the short-term, the priority for Kyiv remains ensuring its voice is heard at any peace talks involving Russia and that it doesn’t get a bad deal.

‘Ukraine will never accept deals made behind our backs without our involvement,’ Zelensky said in a speech.

‘No decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine. No decisions about Europe without Europe.’

Zelensky cautioned Putin would seek to use Trump as a ‘prop in his own performance’, possibly by trying to get him to Moscow for Russia’s WWII victory parade in May.

Zelensky is pushing for ‘security guarantees’ from both the United States and Europe to ensure that any peace deal does not allow Moscow just to restart the war later.

‘Putin cannot offer real security guarantees, not just because he is a liar but because Russia in its current state needs war to hold power together,’ he said.

The Ukrainian leader said forceful sanctions on Russia and building up Ukraine’s military could help secure peace, and said he was ‘open’ to eventually having European peacekeepers.

European leaders backed up Zelensky’s call to action and for their continent to play a key role.

‘There will only be peace if Ukraine’s sovereignty is secured,’ German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the Munich Security Conference.

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk pressed Europe to establish its own stances on Ukraine and security as the United States sows doubts about its commitment to Europe.

‘Europe urgently needs its own plan of action concerning Ukraine and our security, or else other global players will decide about our future,’ Tusk said.

‘This plan must be prepared now. There’s no time to lose.’

NATO boss Mark Rutte said that leaders in Europe were ‘now getting into the concrete planning phase’ of possible security guarantees.

US officials have said that Ukraine will not be left in the cold after three years of battling Russia’s invasion.

Vance said after his sit-down with Zelensky that Washington was looking for a ‘durable, lasting peace’ that would not lead to further bloodshed in coming years. But US officials have sent mixed messages over Washington’s strategy after Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth appeared to rule out Ukraine joining NATO or retaking all of its territory.

That has sparked major worries in Kyiv and Europe that Ukraine could be forced into a bad deal that leaves the continent facing an emboldened Putin.

In a bid to keep Washington close, Kyiv has held talks over granting access to its rare earths mineral deposits in return for future US security support.

Zelensky said the negotiations were ongoing after his meeting with Vance.

While Zelensky engages in his diplomatic push, on the ground in Ukraine the situation for his forces continued to deteriorate.

Russia’s army on Saturday claimed to have captured a village in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region close to a road linking key towns as Moscow slowly eats up territory.

Despite suffering heavy battlefield losses, the Russian army has been creeping forwards in eastern Ukraine for more than a year as it looks to cut off access to Pokrovsk.

The advances came after a Russian drone struck a cover built to contain radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, with radiation levels remaining normal.

‘A country that launches such attacks does not want peace. Not. They don’t want it,’ Zelensky said. ‘It is not preparing for dialogue.’​
 

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