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Trump says he ‘personally’ asked Putin to stop firing on Kyiv which has grappled with power shortages
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A second round of trilateral peace talks to be held on Sunday could be delayed due to tensions in Iran, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday.
Delegates from the US, Russia and Ukraine met last week to iron out their respective differences in order to move towards securing a peace deal with a follow-up to be held this weekend in Abu Dhabi.
“It is very important for us that everyone we agreed with be present at the meeting, because everyone is expecting feedback,” Zelensky told reporters on Friday.
“But the date or the location may change – because, in our view, something is happening in the situation between the United States and Iran. And those developments could likely affect the timing.”
On Wednesday US secretary of state Marco Rubio’s office said that President Donald Trump’s top envoys Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner would not participate in the meeting to be held this weekend.
Meanwhile, Trump said Russian president Vladimir Putin had agreed to not attack Ukrainian cities at a time the war-hit nation is experiencing a harsh winter.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine is ready to reciprocate if Russia stops its attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure.
President Donald Trump said the countries had agreed to a temporary ceasefire due to unprecedented cold weather, with temperatures plummeting to -30C.
“The Americans said they want to raise the issue of de-escalation, with both sides demonstrating certain steps toward refraining from the use of long-range capabilities in order to create more space for diplomacy,” the Ukrainian leader told reporters on Friday in remarks released by his office.
“At this stage, this is an initiative of the American side and personally of the President of the United States. We regard it as an opportunity rather than an agreement.”
Zelensky said that no official ceasefire agreement on energy targets had been formally agreed yet. Russia is yet to respond to the reports.
Chaotic, unprincipled and dangerously effective, Donald Trump’s latest foreign policy move in Ukraine may secure a brief respite from Russian bombing in plunging temperatures that has left civilians freezing in their homes.
The danger lies in what he expects to get in return for securing a week-long agreement from Vladimir Putin to hold off on tormenting Ukraine. The concession he will, no doubt, demand is that Kyiv give in to the Kremlin’s demands to hand over his most potent defensive lines and fortress cities without a shot being fired in return for a longer “ceasefire”.
Trump has been backing the wrong side in Ukraine and may soon launch a war in Iran that he cannot control.
A Russian cargo ship dropped anchor in the Bristol Channel near undersea data cables amid growing concerns around Russia’s shadow fleet.
The Sinegorsk cargo ship, sailing under the Russian flag, cruised into the Bristol Channel on Tuesday night and appeared to anchor about two miles off Minehead, on the north coast of Somerset, near to where vital undersea telecom cables, connecting Britain to the US, Canada, Spain and Portugal, lie.
Data from MarineTraffic showed the ship sailing up the British Channel on Tuesday night and stopping two nautical miles off Minehead around 11pm, where it remained stationary until 2pm on Wednesday.
Bryony Gooch reports:
President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that Ukraine will technically be able to join the European Union in 2027.
A “fast track” accession to the bloc is part of the country’s security guarantees as US-brokered trilateral agreements continue.
“Technically, we will be ready in 2027,” the Ukrainian leader told reporters on Friday, adding that by the end of 2026 the country will have implemented the main steps required for membership.
“I would like Ukraine to receive a clear timeline.” Zelensky said the government was committed to the necessary reforms to join the EU.
New analysis appears to show that the Russian army’s advance into Ukraine is the slowest pace seen in more than 100 years of warfare.
The Centre for Strategic and International Studies published the findings on Thursda y and said that Russian forces are advancing at a rate of between 15 to 70 metres a day in their most prominent offensives.
President Donald Trump says that Russian president Vladimir Putin has agreed not to strike Ukraine during a week of “extraordinary cold” weather.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky welcome the agreement, which has yet to be confirmed by Russia.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week, and he agreed to do that,” Trump said at a televised cabinet meeting.
“It was very nice. A lot of people said, ‘Don’t waste the call, you’re not going to get that.’ And he [Putin] did it.”
Temperatures are set to hit -30C this week as Ukraine braces itself for one of the coldest winters on record.
Earlier this week Zelensky had warned that Russia was preparing for a “massive strike” across the country, after a spate of overnight drone attacks that have killed several people, including five on a passenger train that he called an act of “terrorism”.
The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides of Russia’s war on Ukraine could hit two million by the spring, a report has warned – with Russia suffering the largest number of troop deaths recorded for any major power in any conflict since the Second World War.
The study by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies revealed the slow, deadly grind of the conflict, and comes before the fourth anniversary of the Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.
The report said Russia suffered 1.2 million casualties, including up to 325,000 troop deaths, between February 2022 and December 2025. “No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of casualties or fatalities in any war since World War II,” the authors said.
Russian forces are advancing at the slowest pace for any army in more than 100 years of warfare, a new assessment has shown.
“In all of its offensives over the last two years, Russia has failed to generate rapid breakthroughs to collapse the Ukrainian front line and allow for sweeping territorial gains,” said the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The US-based think tank compared the average rates of advance for major offensives in Ukraine since 2022 alongside historical benchmarks from the First World War and the Second World War and other wars.
“Russia’s Pokrovsk offensive has advanced slower than Allied forces in the Battle of the Somme in World War I, one of the most grinding offensives of the war. Russia’s offensives around Kupiansk and Chasiv Yar have been even less efficient, moving at mere fractions of the pace of historical campaigns,” the CSIS said.
In stark contrast, French forces advanced around 80 metres a day during the infamously attritional Battle of the Somme in the First World War.
“Despite claims of battlefield momentum in Ukraine, the data shows that Russia is paying an extraordinary price for minimal gains and is increasingly a declining power,” CSIS said in its annual assessment.
Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky and German chancellor Friedrich Merz have welcomed Donal Trump’s limited ceasefire on Kyiv and other cities, calling it “efforts in favour of a truce”.
Zelensky has said he expected the implementation of an agreement by Russia to not fire on Kyiv and other cities for a week because of the “extremely cold” winter weather, as announced by the US president Donald Trump.
“Our teams discussed this in the United Arab Emirates. We expect the agreements to be implemented,” Zelensky said. “De-escalation steps contribute to real progress toward ending the war,” he said.
“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the systematic destruction of Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure by Russian attacks. I spoke about this with @ZelenskyyUa on the phone. We welcome the efforts to achieve a ceasefire. Ukraine needs a just and lasting peace,” he said on X.
The German leader said “the systematic and brutal destruction of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure by Russian attacks” was “still ongoing”.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said the issue of who gets what territory was not the only one holding up a potential deal to end the fighting in Ukraine.
Russia wants Ukrainian forces to withdraw from the roughly 20 per cent of Donetsk region which the Russian army does not control. Kyiv has said it does not want to gift Moscow territory which Russia has not won on the battlefield.
Earlier this week, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said that active work was under way to reconcile the issue at US-mediated talks. He described the disagreement as a key remaining issue that was “very difficult” to resolve.
When asked on Thursday whether he agreed that the territorial question was the only outstanding one, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said: “I don’t think so.”
He did not name the other key issues yet to be resolved.
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