Category: World

Zelensky warns Ukraine risks losing US support over White House peace plan47 minutes agoShareSaveJaroslav LukivShareSaveZelensky/TelegramPresident Zelensky addressed the nation on Ukraine's Dignity and Freedom DayUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Kyiv risks losing US support over a White House plan on how to end the war with Russia.
Addressing the nation on Friday, Zelensky said Ukraine “might face a very difficult choice: either losing dignity, or risk losing a key partner”, adding that “today is one of the most difficult moments in our history”.
The widely leaked US peace plan includes proposals that Kyiv had previously ruled out: ceding eastern areas it now controls, significantly cutting its army size, and pledging not to join Nato.
These provisions are seen as heavily slanted towards Russia, whose President Vladimir Putin said the plan could be a “basis” for peace settlement.
At Friday's meeting with his security cabinet, Putin said Moscow had receiv..

Steve Rosenberg: Putin uncompromising as leaked plan reaches Moscow6 hours agoShareSaveSteve RosenbergRussia editorShareSaveEPAIt was quite a contrast.
On Thursday, a US Pentagon delegation was in Kyiv. They were talking to President Zelensky about a draft plan to end the war in Ukraine.
The same day, on Russian state TV, President Putin was in military fatigues. He was talking to his army chiefs about fighting on.
“We have our tasks, our goals,” the Kremlin leader declared. “The chief one is the unconditional achievement of the aims of the special military operation.”
The Izvestia newspaper called President Putin's visit to a command post “a signal to America that he's prepared to negotiate on Ukraine, on Russia's terms”.
Which brings us back to the peace plan.
On Friday night, President Putin said he had seen the US settlement plan for Ukraine.
Addressing a meeting of the Russian security council in Moscow, he described the American proposals as a “modernised” version ..

Zelensky to speak to Trump after US proposes Russia-Ukraine peace plan5 hours agoShareSaveLaura GozziShareSaveGetty ImagesZelensky's office said the US believed the draft plan could “help reinvigorate diplomacy”Volodymyr Zelensky will speak to Donald Trump after the US presented Ukraine with a draft peace plan to end the war with Russia.
The plan was reportedly drafted by US special envoy Steve Witkoff and his Russian counterpart Kirill Dmitriev, without Ukraine's involvement.
In a statement, Zelensky's office said the US believed the draft plan could “help reinvigorate diplomacy” and added that Ukraine had “agreed to work on the plan's provisions in a way that would bring about a just end to the war”.
Kyiv supported “all substantive proposals capable of bringing genuine peace closer,” the statement said.
The Ukrainians did not share any details of what the proposal entails, although according to sources quoted by Axios, the Financial Times and Reuters, it include..

Bush lauds Dick Cheney as a 'thinker and listener' at funeral5 hours agoShareSaveShareSaveReutersDemocrats and Republicans have come together to mourn former US Vice-President Dick Cheney at his funeral in Washington DC.
Cheney, who served under President George W Bush from 2001-09, died from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease in early November. He was 84.
Bush, a Republican, said in his eulogy: “In a profession that attracts talkers, he was a thinker and a listener.” Former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, also attended.
Cheney was one of the most powerful vice-presidents in history, a key architect of Bush's “war on terror” after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and an early advocate of the invasion of Iraq.
Watch: George W Bush honours former Vice President Dick CheneyIn Thursday's ceremony at Washington National Cathedral, Bush revealed that during the difficult 2004 re-election campaign, Cheney had offered to step off the ticket.
“I arriv..

US military officials in Ukraine for talks on ending war3 hours agoShareSaveJaroslav LukivShareSaveReutersUS Army Secretary Dan Driscoll (L) met Ukrainian Defence Minister Denys Shmyhal on WednesdaySenior Pentagon officials have arrived in Ukraine to “discuss efforts to end the war” with Russia, the US military has said.
The team, led by US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, is expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Thursday when he returns from a trip to Turkey.
Reports began surfacing on Wednesday that the US and Russia had prepared a new peace plan, containing major concessions from Ukraine. Neither Washington nor Moscow has officially confirmed the plan.
Earlier in the day, at least 26 people were killed in a Russian missile and drone attack on Ukraine's western city of Ternopil, officials there said. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Secretary Driscoll and team arrived this morning in Kyiv on behalf of the administration on a fa..

Children among 26 killed in one of Russia's deadliest strikes on western Ukraine3 hours agoShareSaveJonathan Beale,Defence correspondent in Kyiv and Mattea BubaloShareSaveWatch: Aftermath of Russian attack on UkraineAt least 26 people have been killed including three children in a Russian missile and drone attack that hit two blocks of flats in the western city of Ternopil, Ukrainian officials say.
They say another 93 people were wounded, 18 of them children, in the strike early on Wednesday – one of the deadliest in the region since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Ukraine's air force later said Russian X-101 cruise missiles had hit the residential flats.
The neighbouring Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions were also struck, and a drone attack on three districts of the north-eastern city of Kharkiv wounded more than 30 people. Photos posted online showed buildings and cars ablaze.
Ukraine's air force said it had shot down 442 of 476 drones and 41..