President Donald Trump's national security adviser said Sunday that top administration officials will meet with European officials this week about how to end the war in Ukraine, nearly three years after Russia launched an all-out invasion. Less than a day earlier, the New York Post reported that Trump had a phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss steps toward a negotiated solution. There was no immediate confirmation from the White House or the Kremlin. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz declined to comment in a television interview. Waltz said the Russian economy is not doing well and that Trump is prepared to tax, to tariff, to sanction Moscow to get Putin to the negotiating table. But Waltz also underscored the Trump administration is looking to use this week's engagements to begin talks on clawing back some of the United States' assistance to Ukraine. He said European allies will also need to take a greater role in supporting Ukraine going forward. We need t
Trump while attending the signing ceremony at Oval Office on January 21, said that the Russia-Ukraine conflict would not have happened if he were the President
Zelenskyy also expressed gratitude for Dragone's first foreign visit to Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed a new Ukrainian offensive in Russia's Kursk region and said that North Korean troops were fighting alongside Russian forces there. In the areas of the Kursk operation, new assaults have taken place, Zelenskyy said during his Friday address, adding, Russia has once again deployed North Korean soldiers alongside its troops. According to Zelenskyy, a significant number of enemy troops were destroyed. He gave no details but said the losses were in the hundreds. Russia's Ministry of Defence said on Saturday that it had repelled a Ukrainian counterattack in the Kursk region. Russia said Friday its forces had captured the mining town of Toretsk in their latest breakthrough in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region, where Ukrainian defences are creaking. Ukrainian officials did not confirm the report. South Korea's military said last month that it suspected North Korea was preparing to send additional troops to Russia after its soldiers suffered
Nearly three years after President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, his troops are making steady progress on the battlefield. Kyiv is grappling with shortages of men and weapons. And the new US president could soon halt Ukraine's massive supply of military aid. Putin is closer than ever to achieving his objectives in the battle-weary country, with little incentive to come to the negotiating table, no matter how much US President Donald Trump might cajole or threaten him, according to Russian and Western experts interviewed by The Associated Press. Both are signalling discussions on Ukraine - by phone or in person - using flattery and threats. Putin said Trump was clever and pragmatic, and even parroted his false claims of having won the 2020 election. Trump's opening gambit was to call Putin smart and to threaten Russia with tariffs and oil price cuts, which the Kremlin brushed off. Trump boasted during the campaign he could end the war in 24 hours, which later became six months. He
The Trump administration's Justice Department has disbanded a Biden-era program aimed at seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs as a means to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. The move to disband Task Force KleptoCapture is one of several moves undertaken by the Justice Department under the new leadership of Attorney General Pam Bondi that presage a different approach toward Russia and national security issues. The department also ended the Foreign Influence Task Force, which was established in the first Trump administration to police influence campaigns staged by Russia and other nations aimed at sowing discord, undermining democracy and spreading disinformation. The U.S. government in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election aggressively moved to disrupt propaganda campaigns by Russia, which officials have assessed had a preference for Trump. In a memo addressed to all employees Wednesday the first day of Bondi's tenure the attorney general's office stated that ...
Ukraine wants to collaborate with partner countries on postwar projects worth billions of dollars not just in mining rare earth elements, but also in energy and construction sectors to help rebuild the country, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Wednesday. Sybiha responded to comments by President Donald Trump who said Monday that he wanted to gain access to Ukraine's valuable rare earth materials as a condition for continuing support for its war against Russia. Ukrainian officials have said Russia wants to get its hands on Ukraine's vast natural resources. Kyiv intends to offer guarantees of the presence of major businesses in Ukraine and the vested interests of our closest allies the United States in developing these (rare earth) deposits and ensuring their protection, the foreign minister said. But cooperation should not be limited to rare earth materials, Sybiha said in a news conference alongside visiting U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy. Ukraine has huge poten
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov welcomed what he described as an acknowledgment from Trump that drawing Ukraine towards NATO was a mistake
Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, said Ukraine was willing, adding that he wants equalisation from Ukraine for Washington's close to $300 billion in support
Zelenskyy, who had long called for all Russian troops to leave Ukraine as a pre-condition, has in recent weeks spoken of the need for talks on moving the conflict to a just end
Moscow's renewed attacks on Ukraine's electricity infrastructure this winter have heightened scrutiny over the Ukrainian Energy Ministry's failure to protect the country's most critical energy facilities near nuclear power sites. Despite more than a year of warnings that the sites were vulnerable to potential Russian attacks, the Energy Ministry failed to act swiftly, current and former Ukrainian officials in Kyiv told The Associated Press. Two years of punishing Russian strikes on its power grid have left Ukraine reliant on nuclear power for more than half of its electricity generation. Especially vulnerable are the unprotected nuclear switchyards located outside the perimeters of its three functioning nuclear plants, which are crucial to transmitting power from the reactors to the rest of the country. The switchyards that handle electrical routing from nuclear power plants are a vital component of Ukraine's nuclear energy infrastructure powering homes, schools, hospitals, and oth
Ukrainian long-range drones struck one of Russia's biggest oil refineries for the second time in three days, a senior Kyiv official said Monday, as Ukraine tries to slow the Russian army's push along parts of the front line and the third anniversary of the war approaches. The attack late Sunday hit a refinery in the Volgograd region, which is one of Russia's 10 biggest refining facilities, processing close to 6% of the country's oil, an official in Ukraine's Security Service told The Associated Press. Russian authorities acknowledged only a brief fire at the Volgograd refinery during the drone attack. Ukrainian defences are creaking under months-long Russian drive to occupy more land, especially in Ukraine's eastern industrial heartland, before the possible start of peace negotiations steered by US President Donald Trump. Ukraine, though heavily dependent on Western military aid, has been developing its own arms industry, including drones that can fly increasingly long ranges with
Russia's aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said that it was suspending flights from the airports of Astrakhan as well as from four others, in Kazan, Nizhnekamsk, Saratov and Ulyanovsk to ensure air safety
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that excluding his country from talks between the US and Russia about the war in Ukraine would be very dangerous" and asked for more discussions between Kyiv and Washington to develop a plan for a ceasefire. Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Zelenskyy said Russia does not want to engage in ceasefire talks or to discuss any kind of concessions, which the Kremlin interprets as losing at a time when its troops have the upper hand on the battlefield. He said US President Donald Trump could bring Russian President Vladimir Putin to the table with the threat of sanctions targeting Russia's energy and banking system, as well as continued support of the Ukrainian military. I think these are the closest and most important steps, he said in the interview in the Ukrainian capital that lasted for more than an hour. Zelenskyy's remarks followed comments Friday by Trump, who said American and Russian officials were
US-funded aid programs around the world have begun firing staff and shutting down or preparing to stop their operations, as the Trump administration's unprecedented freeze on almost all foreign assistance brings their work to a sudden halt. Allies including Ukraine also are struggling to save part of their security funding from the 90-day freeze, ordered by President Donald Trump last week. Trump also just paused federal grants and loans inside the United States. The Trump administration says it ordered the foreign aid pause to give it time to decide which of the thousands of humanitarian, development and security programs will keep getting money from the US. Meantime, US officials ordered the programs to stop spending immediately. Only emergency food programs and military aid to allies Israel and Egypt were exempt. The freeze means schools in Liberia are prepared this week to fire cooks who provide children with lunch. US efforts to aid American businesses abroad and to counter ..
As Russia moved closer to invading Ukraine nearly three years ago, the United States and its allies took the extraordinary step of declassifying and sharing intelligence to expose Moscow's plans. Information flew across the Atlantic from US spy agencies to NATO and Western partners showing that Russia was poised to launch the biggest attack on a European country since World War II. It was designed to muster support for Kyiv, and on the strength of the US warning, some nations sent weapons to Ukraine, which moved some equipment out of the range of Russian strikes. Now, officials are bracing for a potentially changed security landscape under President Donald Trump. He has criticized America's allies and lambasted its intelligence agencies. He's been accused of disregarding secrecy rules and hoarding classified documents. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick for director of national intelligence, has parroted Russian propaganda while his nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, has promised change
Russia on Sunday claimed its troops had captured a strategically important town in eastern Ukraine as part of a grinding campaign to weaken Kyiv's grip on the country's industrial heartland. Russia's Defense Ministry announced the fall of Velyka Novosilka, which had around 5,000 residents before the war, following a months-long battle. Its statement could not be independently verified, and Ukraine claimed its troops had only strategically withdrawn from certain areas. But if confirmed, it would make Velyka Novosilka the first significant town to capitulate in 2025 under Moscow's onslaught in the eastern Donetsk region against Ukraine's weary and short-handed army. The war is set to reach its three-year milestone in February. Ukrainian forces withdrew from certain parts of Velyka Novosilka to avoid encirclement, the 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade said in a statement on its official Telegram channel Sunday. The brigade is active in that patch of the frontline. Analysts have long .
US President Donald Trump has said that he would soon speak to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and help in settling the war in Ukraine. Trump's comments came a day after Putin said Russia is ready for talks with the US on a broad range of issues. He wants to speak and will be speaking soon. I've spoken to (Ukrainian) President (Volodymyr) Zelensky numerous times, and they'd like to see peace. They would like to see an end to the war. I think President Putin would like to see an end to the war too, Trump told reporters on Saturday. So, we'll see if we can help it along. I think it's a shame it's a war that would have never happened, he said. Trump has repeatedly said he wouldn't have allowed the conflict to start if he had been in office. Putin on Friday said he was ready to discuss the war in Ukraine with Trump and suggested it would be a good idea for them to meet. Putin told a Russian state TV journalist: We believe the current president's statements about his readiness
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday the US has not stopped military aid to Ukraine after newly sworn in US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced he would pause foreign aid grants for 90 days. Zelenskyy did not clarify whether humanitarian aid had been paused. Ukraine relies on the US for 40% of its military needs. I am focused on military aid; it has not been stopped, thank God, he said at a press conference with Moldovan President Maia Sandu. The two leaders met in Kyiv on Saturday to discuss the energy needs of Moldova's Russian-occupied Transnistria region, which saw its natural gas supplies halted on Jan 1 due to Ukraine's decision to stop Russian gas transit. Ukraine has said it can offer coal to the Transnistrian authorities to make up for the shortfall. The future of US aid to Ukraine remains uncertain as President Donald Trump begins his second term in office. The American leader has repeatedly said he wouldn't have allowed Russia's invasion of Ukraine t
Putin claims Ukraine war could've been avoided if Trump won in 2020, praising him as 'smart' and 'pragmatic'