Russia has issued a stark warning to Germany as US officials meet Emmanuel Macron for talks on ending the war. Catch up on analyst Michael Clarke’s latest Ukraine war Q&A below as he discusses: Why does it increasingly look like Vladimir Putin is manipulating Donald Trump?
Thursday 17 April 2025 16:14, UK
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It’s 4.30pm in London, 5.30pm in Paris, 6.30pm in Kyiv and in Moscow.
It’s been yet another eventful day as diplomatic efforts to bring the war in Ukraine to an end continue. Here’s how the day has unfolded:
As we’ve been reporting, officials from Ukraine, the US and Europe have been meeting today in Paris.
We can now bring you the latest from those discussions, with US secretary of state Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff seen speaking opposite a group of delegates from Ukraine and France.
Earlier, Andriy Yermak, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s top aide, said talks so far today had included how to reach a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine.
The involvement of a “multinational military contingent” operating in Ukraine after any peace deal and the development of “effective security architecture” were also discussed, Yermak added.
If you missed it yesterday, military analyst Professor Michael Clarke covered several topics during his weekly Q&A session on Ukraine.
One of those questions centred around whether Vladimir Putin will be held accountable for war crimes after any potential peace negotiation.
As you may recall, an arrest warrant was issued for Putin over alleged war crimes by the International Criminal Court two years ago – but as we explained at the time, he was never going to be arrested while he remained in power in Russia:
Asked whether Putin will be held accountable for war crimes after peace, Clarke says “almost certainly not”.
“The chances of Putin appearing at The Hague are very remote. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.”
The point of the International Criminal Court is for its 125 members to determine that there has been a crime and that he is a criminal who ought to answer for it, says Clarke.
“It is important to the principle of law that those indictments stand.”
Vladimir Putin is showing “absolutely no signs” of wanting a ceasefire but could be forced to the negotiating table if Donald Trump changes his tactic, the former head of the British Army’s chemical weapons unit says.
Speaking to presenter Leah Boleto, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon says recent Russian attacks across Ukraine prove the Russian leader has no interest in ending the war.
But he adds that if Trump were to place tariffs on Russia, especially on its oil, it could bring Putin closer to a potential peace deal.
“He seems to tariff everybody else,” De Bretton-Gordon says.
“But if oil, which is the bedrock of Putin’s economy and is allowing him to keep on fighting, drops to a price where he can no longer do that and Trump has the ability to do it, then these are things the Americans can do.
“I think that would bring Putin to the negotiation table. But at the moment he’s happy to fight on because he thinks he’s winning.”
The Czech Republic is independent of Russian oil for the first time in its history, the country’s prime minster has announced.
Prague is now receiving alternative fuel supplies thanks to the expansion of the western Transalpine Pipeline, which runs through Italy, Austria and Germany.
The move underscores European efforts to end reliance on Russian oil and gas in response to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“For the first time in history, the Czech Republic is completely supplied by non-Russian oil, and fully supplied through Western routes,” Petr Fiala said.
A Russian attack on Ukraine’s southern city of Nikopol has killed two people and injured five others, its governor says.
Serhii Lysak said two men aged 56 and 61 were killed, while four of the injured victims were currently hospitalised and in a serious condition.
Nikopol, which is located just across the Dnipro river from Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, is a regular target of artillery and drone strikes.
Elsewhere in the region, one person was killed during an air strike on Kherson, its mayor said.
It comes after a massive Russian drone attack killed three people and injured at least 30 in the city of Dnipro overnight (see 10.37am post).
Russia’s foreign ministry says Germany would be directly participating in the war in Ukraine if Kyiv uses Taurus missiles to hit critical Russian infrastructure.
Friedrich Merz, the incoming German chancellor, has proposed providing Kyiv with its Taurus missiles, something his predecessor Olaf Scholz refused to do, fearing it could drag Berlin into direct war with Moscow.
Taurus is a powerful cruise missile system that can strike targets deep inside Russian territory, making it a potential game changer for Ukrainian forces if it could use them.
The UK and France already provide Ukraine with their own long-range missile support in the form of UK Storm Shadows and French Scalps.
Russia might be incentivised to end its war in Ukraine in return for future economic agreements with the US, the White House says.
However, press secretary Karoline Leavitt stressed yesterday that such deals would only come after a ceasefire in Ukraine and no sooner.
She said US envoy Steve Witkoff, who met with Vladimir Putin for the third time last week, has already made this explicitly clear to the Russian leader.
“There is an incentive for Russia to end this war and perhaps that could be economic partnerships with the US,” she said. “But we need to see a ceasefire first and the president and the presidential envoy made that very clear to the Russians.”
Leavitt did not specify any potential economic agreements, saying she did not want to get ahead of the official negotiations.
The previous day, Witkoff told Fox News that he saw the possibility of “reshaping” the Russian-US relationship through some “very compelling commercial opportunities”.
This could provide “real stability to the region”, he added.
Russia has once again accused Ukraine of violating a US-brokered pause on energy infrastructure strikes.
In March, a Washington-brokered agreement saw both Ukraine and Russia commit to not targeting oil fields, power stations and other key energy infrastructure on both sides of their shared border.
State media Interfax quotes the Russian foreign ministry as saying Ukraine has carried out 10 attacks on such targets over the last 24 hours.
Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also claimed Ukraine has violated the 30-day moratorium 80 times since it came into effect.
For context: Both Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly accused each other of violating the pause since it was agreed in March.
Yesterday, Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson told a news briefing that Russia attacked energy facilities in Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south and Poltava in the centre of the country over the past 24 hours alone.
Earlier this morning, Ukraine’s largest private energy producer DTEK said a Russian attack had damaged its energy infrastructure in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
French President Emmanuel Macron has just met US secretary of state Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff in Paris.
The group are set for talks this afternoon on Ukraine following earlier discussions involving officials from Kyiv and across Europe (see 12.03pm post).
Ahead of the talks, Macron spoke on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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