Category Archives: Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Zelenskyy accuses Russia of ‘cynical’ attacks before Washington talks

Posted on by

Ukrainian president says latest strikes have killed at least 10 people and intended to ‘humiliate diplomatic efforts’

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of trying to humiliate Ukraine and Europe by “deliberately killing civilians” before talks with Donald Trump in the White House to be attended by Ukraine’s president and a group of European leaders.

Zelenskyy described the latest strikes by Moscow on four Ukrainian cities as “demonstrative and cynical”. At least seven people were killed in a drone attack on Kharkiv, including a small girl, while three were killed in another bombing in Zaporizhzhia, he said.

Continue reading...

Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine ‘have to make concessions’ for peace deal

Posted on by

US secretary of state says talks between Putin and Trump had ‘made progress’ but ‘big areas of disagreement’ remain

In a combative series of interviews on Sunday, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that “both sides are going to have to make concessions” for there to be a peaceful resolution to the war that erupted when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“You can’t have a peace agreement unless both sides make concessions – that’s a fact,” the Trump administration’s top diplomat said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “That’s true in virtually any negotiation. If not, it’s just called surrender. And neither side is going to surrender. So both sides are going to have to make concessions.”

Continue reading...

European leaders including Starmer to join Zelenskyy in Washington for meeting with Trump

Posted on by

Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and others will aim to push back against ceding of Ukraine territory in ‘peace plan’

European leaders including Britain’s Keir Starmer will join Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at a White House meeting on Monday with Donald Trump, in an extraordinary joint effort to push back on a US-backed plan that would allow Russia to take further Ukrainian territory.

As well as the UK prime minister, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, Italy’s PM, Giorgia Meloni, and the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, will all accompany Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.

Continue reading...

Keir Starmer hopes to exploit curious relationship with Trump in Ukraine talks

Posted on by

PM has positioned himself as someone who can get along with US president while stressing Europe’s red lines

Asked behind the scenes at June’s G7 summit if he could explain why Donald Trump seemed to like him so much, Keir Starmer admitted he did not really know. Whatever the reason, when it comes to Ukraine, the UK prime minister is once again hoping to exploit this somewhat curious relationship.

As soon as it was announced that a string of European leaders planned to join Volodymyr Zelenskyy to back the Ukrainian president in crucial talks with Trump at the White House on Monday, it was obvious Starmer would be joining them.

Continue reading...

Putin demands full control of Donetsk and Luhansk as condition for ending Ukraine war – live

Posted on by

Putin told Trump he would halt further advances and freeze Ukrainian frontline where Russian forces occupy significant areas, sources say

For those who feared the summit on Ukraine might resemble Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938, the reality was worse.

The Guardian’s David Smith has this politics sketch from Anchorage:

Today, following a conversation with President Trump, we further coordinated positions with European leaders. The positions are clear. A real peace must be achieved, one that will be lasting, not just another pause between Russian invasions.

Killings must stop as soon as possible, the fire must cease both on the battlefield and in the sky, as well as against our port infrastructure. All Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians must be released, and the children abducted by Russia must be returned. Thousands of our people remain in captivity – they all must be brought home. Pressure on Russia must be maintained while the aggression and occupation continue.

Continue reading...

Ukraine says it has bombed Russian ship carrying drone parts at Caspian port

Posted on by

Attack on cargo vessel more than 500 miles from frontline is show of force before Trump-Putin meeting

Ukraine says it has conducted a long-range drone attack on a supply ship that it claims was carrying drone components from Iran, striking it at a port north of the Caspian Sea, in a show of force hours before Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet for a summit in Alaska.

Photographs showed a partially sunken cargo vessel at Olya, near Astrakhan, more than 500 miles from the frontline. Ukraine’s military claimed credit for the attack and the overnight bombing of an oil refinery at Samara on the Volga River, deep inside Russia.

Continue reading...

Keir Starmer to host Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Downing Street – UK politics live

Posted on by

UK prime minister will be joined by Ukrainian president as he says Britain stands ready to ‘increase pressure’ on Russia if necessary

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has said it is a “day of celebration” for young people ahead of A-level results on Thursday.

Speaking to Times Radio, she said:

I’ll just start by saying that this is a really exciting day for young people. They’ve worked really hard. They’ve had brilliant support from their teachers and parents. It’s a day for celebration for our young people and there are lots of great routes out there.

University is one of them, but for young people who are considering other routes there are apprenticeships and plenty of other opportunities available too, and lots of advice available if you haven’t quite got what you needed, through Ucas and clearing, and also through the National Career Service.

I think it’s a matter of personal choice.

I do think it’s a good thing that more young people are studying subjects like maths. There are often great roots into careers. The same is, of course, true of subjects like languages, and that was my personal passion.

Continue reading...

Putin ready to make Ukraine deal, Trump says before Alaska summit

Posted on by

US president’s comment that Russian and Ukrainian leaders may have to ‘divvy’ things up likely to raise alarm

Donald Trump has said he believes Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal on the war in Ukraine as the two leaders prepare for their summit in Alaska on Friday, but his suggestion the Russian leader and Volodymyr Zelenskyy could “divvy things up” may alarm some in Kyiv.

The US president, who left the White House on Friday at 7.30am, implied there was a 75% chance of the Alaska meeting succeeding, and that the threat of economic sanctions may have made Putin more willing to seek an end to the war. “HIGH STAKES!!!” he posted on Truth Social as his motorcade idled outside the White House shortly after sunrise in Washington.

Continue reading...

EU leaders defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide future ahead of Trump-Putin summit

Posted on by

Statement on Ukrainian sovereignty signed by all EU leaders except for Viktor Orbán before call with Trump

European Union leaders made a rallying call to defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide its own future in advance of their virtual summit with Donald Trump – convened to discuss US strategy before the president’s talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday.

With the exception of Hungary, all EU leaders signed a joint statement, with Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, also calling for the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to attend the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Friday.

Continue reading...

Europe’s leaders raise pressure on Trump to involve Ukraine in Putin talks

Posted on by

Move comes as Germany warns White House against any deal hatched ‘over heads of Europeans and Ukrainians’

Europe’s leaders have raised the pressure on Donald Trump to involve Ukraine in a planned summit with Vladimir Putin, as Germany warned the White House against any deal hatched “over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians”.

Speaking before a bilateral meeting expected to take place between the US and Russian leaders on Friday in Alaska, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he hoped and assumed that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would also be involved.

Continue reading...

Confusion over the Alaska summit shows Vladimir Putin still calls the shots

Posted on by

Donald Trump rewarding the Kremlin’s hardline attitude shows Russia can still sideline Ukraine from deal to end war

In the five months since Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met at the Oval Office in late February, Ukrainian officials have worked hard to repair the damage of that day, which ended with the Ukrainian president being kicked out of the White House.

With advice from European allies, Zelenskyy recalibrated his strategy for dealing with the Trump administration, and there was a feeling it was broadly going well. “We managed to reset communications, to find a new language to work with Trump,” said one senior official in Kyiv a week ago.

Continue reading...

Path to peace cannot be decided without Ukraine, says Europe

Posted on by

Ukrainian and European partners to join UK foreign secretary and US vice-president at Chevening for talks

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the US vice-president, JD Vance, held a meeting with Ukrainian and European partners in Britain on Saturday to discuss the drive for peace in Ukraine.

The summit comes before a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin set for next Friday in Alaska. In a comment that that was met with pushback from Kyiv, the US president said that an end to the war must involve “some swapping of territories”. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, stressed early on Saturday that “Ukrainians will not give their land to occupiers”.

Continue reading...

‘Freeze’ in Ukraine war may be close, says Tusk, as US and Russia plan talks

Posted on by

Polish PM makes remarks after speaking with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, amid White House efforts to end the conflict

A “freeze” in the war in Ukraine may be close, the Polish prime minister said on Friday, as the White House and the Kremlin push forward with discussions for a high-level summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in the coming days.

Donald Tusk’s remarks came after he spoke with the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has communicated with Trump and European leaders in recent days as the White House continues to try to broker an end to the three-and-a-half-year war.

Continue reading...

US envoy Steve Witkoff meets Putin as Trump’s Ukraine deadline approaches

Posted on by

Talks between Trump’s negotiator and Russian president lasted about three hours as US pushes for peace deal

Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff spent three hours in the Kremlin talking to Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, two days before a deadline the US president set for Russia to reach a peace deal in the Ukraine war or face fresh sanctions.

It was not immediately clear whether any agreement had been reached during the talks, which Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov described as “useful and constructive”. Ushakov said that it was only after Witkoff reported back to Trump that it would be possible to say more about the outcome of the meeting.

Continue reading...

Ukrainian attack sparks blaze at Russian oil depot as countries trade strikes

Posted on by

Video shows black smoke pouring from facility in Sochi, while Russian attack on Mykolaiv wounds seven people

An overnight Ukrainian drone attack on an oil depot near the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi ignited a raging fire, as the two countries traded strikes at the end of one of the deadliest weeks in Ukraine in recent months.

More than 120 firefighters worked to put out the blaze, said the regional governor, Veniamin Kondratyev, as emergency officials reported a fuel tank with a capacity of 2,000 cubic metres (70,000 cubic feet) had burned before it was extinguished.

Continue reading...

Kyiv protesters celebrate as parliament votes to restore anti-corruption bodies’ power

Posted on by

Reversal of curbs adopted the previous week comes as Russia attacks capital with drones and missiles

Ukraine’s parliament has passed a law restoring independence to two anti-corruption bodies, essentially annulling another law adopted last week that prompted the biggest street protests since Russia’s full-scale invasion three years ago.

Several hundred protesters outside the parliament building in Kyiv erupted into chants of “the people are the power” as the bill passed on Thursday lunchtime.

Continue reading...

Ukraine parliament to vote on law to restore powers of anti-corruption bodies

Posted on by

Move follows protests in Ukrainian cities over bill passed last week that curtailed independence of two bodies

Ukraine’s parliament will vote on a new law on Thursday that would restore independence to two anti-corruption bodies, backtracking on a law passed last week that curtailed their powers and led to a political crisis.

Last week’s legal changes prompted rare wartime street protests against the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and accusations that the presidential office was trying to protect powerful associates from anti-corruption investigations.

Continue reading...

Trump cuts deadline for Putin to reach Ukraine peace deal to ‘10 or 12 days’

Posted on by

US president expresses frustration with Putin after meeting with UK PM amid pressure on Russia for ceasefire

Donald Trump’s timeline for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine has sped up, the president said while visiting Nato ally Great Britain on Monday.

“I’m going to make a new deadline of about 10, 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump said in response to a question while sitting with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer. “There’s no reason in waiting. There’s no reason in waiting. It’s 50 days. I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.”

Continue reading...

‘That idiot Putin wants to take it all’: Russia’s kamikaze tactics fuel a slow advance in Ukraine

Posted on by

Latest wave of displaced citizens curse ‘imperial ambition’ that has led to an estimated one million Russian casualties

It was last year when Valentyn Velykyi noticed Russia’s war with Ukraine was getting closer. In early summer, it arrived on his doorstep. “You could hear explosions day and night. Recently missiles started flying over my house. There’s a rumbling sound. You can see a trail in the sky,” the 72-year-old pensioner recalled.

Velykyi’s home is at No 18 Petrenko Street, in the small agricultural village of Maliyivka. It is located on the administrative border between Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk provinces in central-eastern Ukraine. Once Russian troops were far away. Latterly, they have crept nearer, besieging the city of Pokrovsk and capturing one grassy meadow after another.

Continue reading...

Russia launches record attacks on Ukraine as country struggles to defend itself

Posted on by

Moscow’s drone production is improving, leading to rise in salvoes and civilian casualties

Night by night, the blitz develops. Russian drones, decoys, cruise and ballistic missiles – increasingly aimed at a single city or location – are being launched in record numbers into Ukraine, straining the country’s ability to defend itself and raising questions about how well it can endure another winter of war.

One day earlier this month, 728 drones and 13 missiles were launched, mostly at the western city of Lutsk, home to many Ukrainian airfields. Large salvoes now come more frequently: every three to five days, rather than every 10 to 12, and civilian casualties are rising: 232 people were killed in June, the highest monthly level for three years.

Continue reading...