Jordan Maclachlan, 26, died on Friday while serving on the frontline in Ukraine, his family says
A Scottish man has been killed while serving on the frontline with the Ukrainian army, his family has said.
Jordan Maclachlan, 26, from Ardnamurchan in the Scottish Highlands, died on Friday while serving as a medic with the Ukrainian army, his family told the BBC.
Continue reading...Footage purports to show Ukrainian armoured columns advancing towards village of Bolshoe Soldatskoe
Ukrainian armed forces began a surprise offensive in Russia’s Kursk region on Sunday, in an apparent attempt to regain the initiative on the battlefield before Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House.
Video showed Ukrainian armoured columns advancing across snowy fields towards the village of Bolshoe Soldatskoe, north-east of the Ukrainian-held Russian town of Sudzha. Vehicles could also be seen driving through empty rustic settlements.
Continue reading...The US president-elect’s policy on the conflict may prove decisive, but appeasing both sides will be a challenge
A new year in Ukraine began in much the same way as the old one finished: with deadly Russian drone attacks across the country. In Kyiv, one person was killed and at least six others were injured in the first few hours of 2025.
It is Ukraine’s third new year since Russia’s invasion. If 2023 began with hopes high that Ukrainian battlefield gains would push Russia back and lead to an outright victory, by the start of 2024 the Ukrainian army and population were already settled in for the long haul and had few illusions about a quick victory.
Continue reading...Small FPV drones, which travel at 37mph, have become ubiquitous, evolving from ‘a novelty to a weapon of choice’
Denys, a soldier with Ukraine’s Khyzhak brigade, describes a new kind of war. Standing in a barracks workshop with piles of basic Ukrainian First Person View (FPV) drones behind him, he says simply: “There are fewer gunfights because there are more drone fights.”
Frontlines that were once a gunshot apart are now a killing zone several miles deep, as Russian and Ukrainian drone squads, hidden about one- to three miles behind the frontline, target each other’s forces with simple aerial attacks. “Back in 2022, we were still running around with machine guns from the tree lines,” Denys says, almost with nostalgia.
Continue reading...Pro-Russia Moldovan region suffers major hit after Ukraine ends transit agreement, with only food producers functioning
The shutdown of Russian gas supplies to Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region has forced the closure of all industrial companies except food producers.
The mainly Russian-speaking territory of about 450,000 people, which split from Moldova in the 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed, has suffered a painful and immediate hit from Wednesday’s cut-off of Russian gas supplies to central and eastern Europe via Ukraine.
Continue reading...Finnish real estate company says deal for sports and entertainment venue will restore it to its former glory
Helsinki’s main sports and entertainment arena is expected to reopen in the spring after getting caught in a Russian sanctions drama that left it disused, without power and starting to smell.
Helsinki Halli, formerly the Hartwall Arena, has been closed since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, when its Russian oligarch owners were subjected to sanctions from the EU and US, which meant they were boycotted by the entertainment industry, and banks and insurance companies refused to provide essential services. The last events to be held at the 14,000-capacity venue were an ice hockey game and the televised Finnish sport gala in January 2022.
Continue reading...Ukraine president hails ‘one of Moscow’s biggest defeats’ as deal’s end brings power cuts in breakaway Moldovan region
Russian gas has stopped flowing to Europe via Ukraine, ending a major energy route that goes back to Soviet times and had even survived three years of full-scale war between the two states.
Ukraine cut off the transit route after an agreement signed in 2019 expired in the early hours of New Year’s Day, marking a new milestone in Europe weaning itself off Russian gas supplies over the past few years, and prompting immediate power cuts for hundreds of thousand of people in a breakaway region of Moldova.
Continue reading...Ukraine ends agreement to allow gas to flow through its pipelines, with European supplies set to be tested as cold weather forecast later this week
Ukraine has halted Russian gas supplies to European customers through its pipeline network, almost three years into Moscow’s all-out invasion.
The move comes after a prewar transit deal expired during the final hours of 2024 and as the continent braces itself for a plunge in temperatures that could hasten the drain on gas reserves.
Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, confirmed on Wednesday morning that Kyiv had stopped the transit “in the interest of national security” after Russia refused to alter its stance on the war.
“This is a historic event,” he said in an update on the Telegram messaging app. “Russia is losing markets and will incur financial losses. Europe has already decided to phase out Russian gas, and [this] aligns with what Ukraine has done today.”
Exports to cease on New Year’s Day as Europe faces cold snap and higher than usual fall in reserves since September
Europe will receive the last Russian gas sent via Ukraine’s pipelines in the early hours of the new year as the continent braces for a plunge in temperatures that could hasten the drain on gas reserves.
The Russian state energy company, Gazprom, is expected to cut off its exports to Europe through Ukraine’s pipelines on New Year’s Day after a gas transit deal struck between the countries five years ago comes to an end overnight.
Continue reading...Some of the freed Ukrainians had been held since war’s early days, while Russians were captured in Ukraine’s Kursk offensive
Russia and Ukraine have carried out a major prisoner exchange, with at least 150 people from each side returning home before New Year’s Eve, in a swap partly brokered by the United Arab Emirates.
“The return of our people from Russian captivity is always very good news for each of us. And today is one of such days: our team managed to bring 189 Ukrainians home,” the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a message posted on Telegram on Monday.
Continue reading...Zla Mavka movement – meaning ‘wicked forest spirit’ – drops fake rouble notes bearing pro-Ukrainian images and shares messages of solidarity
On 8 March 2023, International Women’s Day, Russian soldiers were handing out tulips and boughs of mimosa to women and girls in the city of Melitopol, southern Ukraine – a move designed to promote friendly relations between the occupiers and the inhabitants.
But the night before, someone had been discreetly sticking posters to walls and lamp-posts. They bore the image of a young Ukrainian woman, dressed in a traditional embroidered shirt, smashing a bouquet over a Russian soldier’s head. “I don’t want flowers,” read the slogan. “I want my Ukraine.”
Continue reading...UN humanitarian body warns that dramatic increase in harm to children should not become the ‘new normal’
Nearly one in five of the world’s children live in areas affected by conflicts, with more than 473 million children suffering from the worst levels of violence since the second world war, according to figures published by the UN.
The UN humanitarian aid organisation for children, Unicef, said on Saturday that the percentage of children living in conflict zones around the world has doubled from about 10% in the 1990s to almost 19%, and warned that this dramatic increase in harm to children should not become the “new normal”.
Continue reading...Airforce hits military industrial facility in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, in Russia’s Rostov region, says Ukrainian military
Russia and Kazakhstan have sought to temper speculation about the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash, with the Kremlin urging people to wait for the results of the investigation, writes the Guardian’s European community affairs correspondent Ashifa Kassam and Pjotr Sauer, the Russia affairs correspondent.
A Ukrainian national security official has claimed that the crash, which killed 38 people on Christmas Day, was caused by Russian air defence fire.
Continue reading...Family and friends hold grave fears for man identified as Oscar Jenkins who was reportedly captured by Russian soldiers in Donbas region
Moscow is looking into reports that the Russian army may have captured an Australian citizen fighting with Ukrainian forces, while a foreign affairs official noted Canberra’s “hostile stance towards Russia” at a briefing.
Family and friends hold grave fears for Australian man Oscar Jenkins who was reportedly captured by Russian soldiers while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region.
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Continue reading...Zelenskyy describes cruise and ballistic missile strikes, which caused blackouts in several regions, as ‘inhuman’
Christmas morning in Ukraine was overshadowed by a massive Russian aerial attack using cruise missiles to target energy infrastructure across the country, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned as “inhuman”.
“Today, Putin deliberately chose Christmas to attack. What could be more inhuman? More than 70 missiles, including ballistic missiles, and more than a hundred attack drones,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram.
Continue reading...November was Ukraine’s worst month since September 2022 for territory lost to Russian forces. These charts and maps show the latest developments in the war
Ukraine lost an area equivalent to the size of New York City to Russian forces in November – the worst monthly figure for Ukrainian defenders since September 2022.
After the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia gained ground quickly before being pushed back in a Ukrainian counteroffensive. Last year, with the conflict mostly at a stalemate, Institute for the Study of War (ISW) data shows that Russian forces took 2,233 sq km (862 sq miles) of territory. Already in 2024 they have taken about 2,656 sq km.
Continue reading...MPs vote to give leave to bring in private members’ bill on PR but it will have no practical effect
Lord Robertson, the former Labour defence secretary and former Nato secretary who is leading the government’s strategic defence review, is giving evidence to the Commons defence committee. He has told MPs that the Americans are being fully consulted about the review. This is from Shashank Joshi, the Economist’s defence editor.
Listening to George Robertson & Richard Barrons, who are writing the UK’s defence review alongside Fiona Hill, giving evidence to the Commons defence committee. They’re in “constant contact” with allies, Robertson says, and have a US officer on the review team.
Continue reading...Scholz said Germany was ‘strongest supporter of Ukraine in Europe’ and promised speedy arms deliveries
Olaf Scholz has met the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an unannounced visit to Kyiv that was his first since the early months of full-scale war as he sought to reassure Ukraine of German support.
The German chancellor announced a military aid package worth €650m (£540m) during the trip amid doubts over his Ukraine policy at home and uncertainty over the upcoming presidency of Donald Trump and what it may mean for the war in Ukraine.
Continue reading...She stepped down as Estonia’s prime minister to take up foreign policy role replacing tough talker Josep Borrell
It was no surprise that Kaja Kallas went to Ukraine on her first day as the EU’s chief diplomat.
Kallas, who stepped down as Estonia’s prime minister to take up the role, was accompanied in Kyiv on Sunday by the new European Council president, António Costa, and European enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, marking the leadership changeover at the EU institutions on 1 December.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk traveled Saturday to his country’s border with the Russian region of Kaliningrad to inspect progress in the construction of military fortifications along the eastern frontier, calling it “an investment in peace.”
“The better the Polish border is guarded, the more difficult it is to access for those with bad intentions,” Tusk said at a news conference near the village of Dabrowka as he stood in front of concrete anti-tank barriers.
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