Russian losses in Avdiivka may be its worst of 2023, says UK; Ukraine and Netherlands start bilateral agreement talks
Russia would confiscate assets belonging to EU states it deems unfriendly if the bloc “steals” frozen Russian funds in a drive to fund Ukraine, a top ally of president Vladimir Putin said. It comes after Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said that the EU executive was working on a proposal to pool some of the profits derived from frozen Russian state assets to help Ukraine and its post-war reconstruction.
Russia and Ukraine are locked in a stalemate on the frontlines of their war and the two sides need to sit down and negotiate an end to the conflict, the Belarus leader said. Alexander Lukashenko, a key Putin ally, described the current state of the conflict as “head-to-head, to the death, entrenched … Seriously stalemate.”
Russian forces are believed to have suffered some of the country’s biggest casualty rates so far this year as a result of continued “heavy but inconclusive” fighting around the Donetsk oblast town of Avdiivka.
Four Ukrainian police officers were wounded when a shell fired by Russian troops exploded by their police car in the city of Siversk, located in the partly occupied Donetsk province.
A third round of Ukrainian-backed peace talks opened in Malta, but without Moscow. In a statement, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said 66 countries had taken part, proof that his plan “has gradually become global”.
The head of the office of the president of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, has praised Qatar’s role in facilitating the return of four Ukrainian children from Russian captivity earlier this month.
Ukraine and the Netherlands began talks on a bilateral agreement on security guarantees in Malta, Yermak also announced. It is the sixth country to start bilateral negotiations with Ukraine on security guarantees.
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