Russia launches barrage of drones overnight, Ukraine says
Russia launched 178 drones at Ukraine overnight, Kyiv has said, as hopes for a 30-day ceasefire grow.
Ukrainian air defences said it destroyed 130 out of 178 drones launched by Russia during its latest overnight strike.
It added that another 38 drones had been “locationally lost”, typically a reference to electronic jamming, and that Russian forces had also fired two ballistic missiles.
Athena Stavrou15 March 2025 07:30
The ‘nyet’ factor: Will Putin accept a ceasefire in Ukraine?
Putin’s response to the Ukraine ceasefire proposal isn’t an outright ‘no’, it’s a ‘yes but no but’, writes Mary Dejevsky – and for all his prevaricating, it’s clear the Russian president wants an end to the war.
Shahana Yasmin15 March 2025 07:30
Starmer to host ‘coalition of the willing’ to discuss Ukraine
UK prime minister Keir Starmer is set to convene a second meeting of global leaders on Saturday to discuss the war in Ukraine.
The meeting, which Mr Starmer has called the “coalition of the willing”, will be conducted virtually and see around 25 countries, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ukraine and officials from NATO and European Union’s executive, participating.
“If Russia finally comes to the table, then we must be ready to monitor a ceasefire to ensure it is a serious, and enduring peace,” Mr Starmer is set to tell leaders, in remarks released by his office ahead of the meeting.
“If they don’t, then we need to strain every sinew to ramp up economic pressure on Russia to secure an end to this war.”
Shahana Yasmin15 March 2025 06:51
Playing for time, Vladimir Putin is toying with Donald Trump
Not long ago, Donald Trump remarked of Volodymyr Zelensky: “The only thing he was good at was playing Biden like a fiddle.” Grossly unfair, plainly – but might the same thing be said of how Vladimir Putin is getting a tune of his own composition out of the Trump ceasefire plan?
Shahana Yasmin15 March 2025 06:30
Steve Witkoff: Who is the real estate mogul Trump picked to broker Ukraine peace with Putin?
On Thursday as a US delegation arrived in Russia for high-level talks aimed at ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, among the group was a real estate magnate turned White House foreign policy fixer.
Steve Witkoff, a longtime pal of President Donald Trump, is a key player in the Republican administration’s efforts to end the war in Gaza.
Shahana Yasmin15 March 2025 06:10
Ukraine loses ceasefire leverage as troops reportedly withdraw from Russian territory
Over 200 people were evacuated from Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region as Moscow intensified its aerial offensive to reclaim the area from Ukrainian forces, reported Associated Press.
On Friday, Russia announced it had recaptured another settlement in Kursk that was previously under Ukrainian control.
Sudzha, which had a population of around 5,000 before the offensive, was the largest town seized by Ukrainian forces last year during their unexpected cross-border incursion.
Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, stated on Thursday that Russian aircraft had carried out relentless airstrikes on Kursk, nearly destroying Sudzha. Kyiv reported successfully repelling nearly two dozen Russian assaults in the region.
While Syrskyi did not confirm whether Ukraine still controlled the settlement, he stated that Ukrainian forces were “maneuvering troops to more advantageous positions.”
Shahana Yasmin15 March 2025 05:52
Russian troops reportedly close in on Ukrainian forces in Kursk
Russian forces have nearly encircled Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk region, forcing some Ukrainian units to abandon their vehicles during a retreat, according to a US military official quoted by NBC News.
The official noted increasing signs that Russia could regain control of Kursk “very soon”.
This advance aligns with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cautious approach to a US-brokered ceasefire proposal in Ukraine, as Russian forces intensify efforts to push back Ukrainian troops in the region, two Western officials reported.
In an attempt to divert Russian forces from the brutal frontlines in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv smashed across the border into the Kursk region in August, the biggest attack on Russian territory since the Nazi invasion of 1941.
Shahana Yasmin15 March 2025 05:50
Is Trump being schooled in the art of the deal, Russian-style?
No one has ever accused Donald Trump of lacking self-belief. Perhaps that had helped him in life, and to overcome deficits in his personality that might have prevented him from becoming a billionaire and president of the United States. Which he did.
He famously wrote a book about this – ghost-written, actually – with the title, The Art of the Deal (the ghost-writer also came up with that). And we never stop hearing about it.
Vladimir Putin has probably never read Trump’s much-cited 1987 business memoir, nor his other works, including Kick Ass and Think Big, How to Get Rich, or the more modestly titled Midas Touch. But the ex-KGB man and modern-day czar has also done quite well for himself. Could he be about to give Trump a masterclass in how to do deals the Russian way?
By turning his nose up at the US-proposed ceasefire, Vladimir Putin has deployed a typically skilful diplomatic negotiating ploy – agreeing with the US president ‘in principle’ while disagreeing in practice, writes Sean O’Grady
Shahana Yasmin15 March 2025 05:30
Germany to pledge £2.5bn military aid to Ukraine, says Merz
Germany’s parliamentary coalition has agreed to allocate €3bn (£2.53bn) in new military aid to Ukraine, part of an effort to boost Berlin’s defence spending, according to The Kyiv Independent.
The announcement came from incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz on Friday.
The coalition—comprising Mr Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic alliance, the Social Democratic Party, and the Green Party—has also agreed to reform Germany’s “debt brake” policy to facilitate increased defence spending. Their collective support ensures Merz has the required two-thirds majority to pass the budget when it goes to vote on 18 March.
“Germany is back,” Mr Merz said. “Germany is making its large contribution to the defense of freedom and peace in Europe.”
Mr Merz also confirmed that outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz will authorise the additional aid to Ukraine once the defence package is approved by parliament.
Shahana Yasmin15 March 2025 05:10
North Korean soldiers sent in ‘suicidal attacks’ to soften up Ukraine troops for Putin’s final push in Kursk
The launch of the Kursk operation was marked by attempts to break through Ukrainian lines outside the salient of land captured by Kyiv in a surprise assault in August.
Likening the North Korean tactics to a cyber attack that can crash a website with mass attempts to access it, a Ukrainian military officer told The Independent: “[We faced] human waves like DDOS attacks on our positions… we killed eight out of 10 North Koreans.
“But in some areas we had only small numbers of troops and so they killed and killed until they were overrun,” the senior officer commanding a reconnaissance unit added.
Shahana Yasmin15 March 2025 04:50
