Russia on Saturday said its troops had retaken three villages seized by Ukraine in its Kursk border region in a fresh setback for Kyiv as the prospect of peace talks draws closer.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced a number of new initiatives to bolster defence in a speech in Warsaw, as European powers appear set to comply with U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands that the continent pay for its own protection rather than relying on America.
French President Emmanuel Macron said in an address to the nation on Wednesday evening that Europe should be prepared to defend itself and Ukraine without the help of the United States, a demand long made by President Donald Trump.
Politicians in Britain and Europe flew into a complete meltdown after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a suspension of American aid to Ukraine, with some going so far as to suggest the leader of the free world is a “traitor” and a “Russian asset”.
Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky shot down the prospect of agreeing to an immediate ceasefire with Russia despite his country being on the back foot after three years of war with a much larger adversary.
The Ukraine war summit in London ended on Sunday with essentially as many questions remaining as before the meeting. No announcement was made of any other European nations willing to join Britain and France in committing troops on the ground, and continued demands were made that the United States underwrite the safety of any such force.
Britain and France will work to craft a Ukraine ceasefire deal that would be presented to the United States, UK Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer said ahead of a Downing Street summit on Sunday.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer embraced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday and told him he had the nation’s unwavering support a day after the blowout at the White House with President Donald Trump.
A prominent Ukrainian lawmaker declared it was “absolute idiocy” for President Volodymyr Zelensky to openly argue with U.S. President Donald Trump in front of the world during their Oval Office meeting on Friday.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky departed from the United States for Britain on Saturday, landing in London ahead of talks with European leaders earlier than expected after a dressing down in the Oval Office by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Amid the ongoing public spat with U.S. President Donald Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that he would be willing to step down in exchange for NATO membership for his country.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced on Tuesday that the Kingdom of Denmark will “massively” increase its military spending as European nations grapple with the reality that they can no longer merely rely on the American taxpayer to subsidise their defence.
Nearly half of German voters support Berlin deploying troops as part of a broader peacekeeping force in Ukraine after a potential Trump-negotiated settlement between Kyiv and Moscow.
Monday’s meeting in Paris appears to have validated the Trump administration’s reluctance to include European leaders in Ukraine peace talks as deep divides remain on Europe’s role in the peace process.
The Trump administration has reportedly called on European nations to outline the number of troops and weapons they are willing to commit to a peacekeeping force in Ukraine amid growing complaints from the continent of being sidelined from negotiations.
Russia said Saturday its forces had captured the village of Berezivka in their latest breakthrough in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where Ukrainian defenses are creaking.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the formation of an “Armed Forces of Europe” in a speech delivered before the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry is offering new financial and other benefits that it hopes will attract men between ages 18 and 24 to military service, as its short-handed armed forces toil on the front line against Russia’s bigger army in the almost three-year war.
Russian forces targeted Ukraine’s energy and gas infrastructure in a “massive” nighttime missile attack and Ukrainian drones struck an important oil refinery inside Russia, officials said Tuesday, as the almost three-year war rumbled on against a backdrop of renewed diplomatic efforts to end it.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed a new Ukrainian offensive in Russia’s Kursk region and said that North Korean troops were fighting alongside Russian forces there.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his country has only received around $76 billion in aid from the United States despite America authorising around $175 billion to support the war-torn country.
Competing claims emerged over a deadly attack on a boarding school in Sudzha, a city in Russia’s Kursk region that has been under Ukrainian control for five months, with Ukraine and Russia accusing each other of carrying out the strike.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that excluding his country from talks between the U.S. and Russia about the war in Ukraine would be “very dangerous” and asked for more discussions between Kyiv and Washington to develop a plan for a ceasefire.
At least five people died overnight as Russian drone and missile strikes pounded Ukraine’s towns and cities, local officials said Saturday.
Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital with a barrage of drones and missiles Saturday, leaving at least four people dead, while industrial sites in Russia were set ablaze by Ukrainian strikes.
Ukraine’s forces have captured two North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian troops in Russia´s Kursk border region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday urged Ukraine to have “realistic” expectations on territory as its fight against the Russian invasion heads into a fourth year, saying he saw no “quick and easy solution” to the conflict.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he will again call on allies to boost its air defenses at this week’s meeting in Germany, as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes over later this month with a vow to end the almost three-year war quickly.
Russia-appointed officials in Moscow-occupied Crimea announced a regional emergency on Saturday, as oil was detected on the shores of Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest city.
Russia launched an aerial attack on Ukraine on Tuesday, striking the capital and other regions with multiple missiles and drones.
Five months after their shock offensive into Russia, Ukrainian troops are bloodied and demoralized by the rising risk of defeat in Kursk, a region some want to hold at all costs while others question the value of having gone in at all.
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has offered up his country as a potential venue for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine just days after meeting with Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
A cross country survey in Europe has found that support for a forever war in Ukraine is falling, perhaps not coincidentally given President-Elect Donald Trump’s demands that the Europeans pay for their own defence.
Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks in the Kremlin on Sunday with Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, in a rare visit to Moscow by an EU leader since Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
More than 7,500 people, many of them volunteers, raced to rescue wildlife and clean up shorelines blighted by mazut, a heavy, low-quality oil product, according to Russian news reports.
Ukrainian drones struck a major Russian fuel depot for the second time in just over a week on Sunday, according to a senior Russian regional official, as part of a “massive” cross-border attack on fuel and energy facilities that Kyiv says supply Moscow’s military.
Ukraine brought the war into the heart of Russia Saturday morning with drone attacks that local authorities said damaged residential buildings in the city of Kazan in the Tatarstan region, over 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the front line.
A Russian ballistic missile attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv early Friday killed at least one person and injured nine others, officials said. Moscow claimed it was in response to a Ukrainian strike on Russian soil using American-made weapons.
French President Emmanuel Macron is reportedly leading efforts to deploy a European force of up to 100,000 troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers in the event of ceasefire deal brokered by incoming President Donald Trump.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that he’s open to the potential deployment of Western troops in Ukraine to guarantee the country´s security as part of a broad effort to end the almost three-year war with Russia.
