North Korean and Russian leaders in call to reaffirm alignment over Ukraine
During the call on Tuesday, Mr Putin praised the 'bravery, heroism and self-sacrificing spirit' displayed by North Korean troops as they fought with Russian forces to repel a Ukrainian incursion into Russia's Kursk border region, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
Mr Putin also shared with Mr Kim information about his upcoming talks with Mr Trump scheduled to take place on Friday, according to Russia's TASS news agency, citing the Kremlin.
Mr Kim told Mr Putin that Pyongyang would fully support 'all measures to be taken by the Russian leadership in the future, too', as they discussed advancing ties in 'all fields' under a strategic partnership agreement they signed during a summit last year, KCNA said.
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Mr Kim has made Moscow the priority of his foreign policy as he aims to break out of diplomatic isolation and expand relations with countries confronting Washington.
His government has dismissed Washington and Seoul's stated desires to restart diplomacy aimed at defusing the North's nuclear programme, which derailed in 2019 following a collapsed summit with Mr Trump during his first term.
According to South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent around 15,000 troops to Russia since last autumn and also supplied large quantities of military equipment, including artillery and ballistic missiles, in support of Mr Putin's war efforts against Ukraine.
Mr Kim has also agreed to send thousands of military construction workers and deminers to Russia's Kursk region, a deployment South Korean intelligence believes could happen soon.
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The Independent
28 minutes ago
- The Independent
Putin demands Zelensky surrenders Donestsk region as condition for ending war in Ukraine
The Russian leader told Donald Trump that he would be prepared to stop fighting on the rest of the frontline if Ukraine gave in to the demand and address 'root causes of the conflict'. The concessions were discussed at the highly-anticipated summit of the two leaders in Alaska on Friday, which ended with no peace deal despite nearly three hours of talks. Sources very close to the meeting told The Independent the dramatic move appears to have been endorsed by Mr Trump as a means to bring an end to the war. They said that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky would want to 'clarify this on Monday' when he meets with Mr Trump on Monday in Washington DC. Mr Putin's condition for Ukrainian troops to withdraw from Donetsk and Luhansk, which make up the Donbas region, follow circulated reports on the demand ahead of Friday's summit. The Russian president also said he would freeze the frontline in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where his forces occupy large territory. However, Putin made clear he would not fall back on core demands to 'resolve root causes of the conflict', that includes Ukraine becoming a neutral state and abandoning Nato aspirations. The Donetsk region has been centre of much of recent fighting, with Russian troops making a sudden thrust near the eastern town of Dobrophillya in the days before the summit. While Russia controls almost all of Luhansk, it holds about 70 per cent of Donetsk. Last week, Mr Zelensky insisted he would reject any proposal to withdraw from the industrial Donbas region, claiming it would 'open a bridgehead' for Russian offensive. All eyes will now turn to his meeting with Mr Trump on Monday. After Friday's summit, the US president said a permanent peace deal was now the best way to end the war, appearing to abandon aims at the summit for a ceasefire agreement. He also told Fox News in an interview that he would advise Mr Zelensky to make a deal. 'Yeah. Look, Russia is a very big power, and they're not,' he said when asked what he would say. Speaking ahead of Monday's meeting, Mr Zelensky said: 'I plan to discuss all the details regarding the end of the killings, the end of the war with President Trump in Washington on Monday. Grateful for the invitation.' On Saturday, Mr Putin, who also plans to visit Washington to meet Mr Trump, said Friday's meeting was 'timely' and 'useful'. The US and Russia are now 'closer to making appropriate decisions', Putin added. Meanwhile, European leaders have been putting piling pressure on Mr Trump not to cave to Putin's demands. They also support Mr Zelensky in his demand for security guarantees as part of a peace deal, to deter Russia from invading again in the future. Sir Keir Starmer and leaders from Italy, France and Germany were also on the call with Mr Zelensky spoke and the US president after Friday's summit. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said the security guarantees - inspired by the transatlantic NATO alliance's Article 5 - had been the most interesting development at the summit. Speaking at the press conference after the summit, Mr Putin, who has hitherto opposed involving foreign ground forces, said he agreed with Trump that Ukraine's security must be "ensured". On Sunday afternoon, the coalition of the willing, a group of countries that have pledged to protect Ukraine, including the UK, will meet, with French president Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Sir Keir expected to lead it. In a statement on Saturday, Sir Keir said: 'President Trump's efforts have brought us closer than ever before to ending Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. His leadership in pursuit of an end to the killing should be commended. 'While progress has been made, the next step must be further talks involving President Zelenskyy'.
Telegraph
28 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Trump's astonishing gamble may pay off spectacularly
After speaking with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders overnight, Donald Trump changed the dial on what at first seemed like a lacklustre summit. The American president announced that he would be pursuing a peace settlement instead of a ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump justified this shift by highlighting the potential fragility of a Ukraine ceasefire deal. Historical evidence shows that Trump's concerns are well-placed. While the February 2015 Minsk II Accords halted Russian territorial expansion in eastern Ukraine, ceasefire violations by Putin's brutal regime were rampant. By March 2016, the US department of defence estimated that 430 Ukrainian soldiers died after Minsk II's signing and warned that Russia was 'pouring heavy weapons' into Donbas. Despite the inherent logic in Trump's push for a grand bargain solution to the Ukraine War, the devil is ultimately in the details. 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Ukraine would still be nominally a neutral country and not become a full Nato member; yet it will have most of the protections that are afforded to countries within the alliance bloc. This proposal could gain traction within the US foreign policy community and rare bipartisan support. Based on my past engagements with American experts familiar with the Biden administration's thinking on a peace settlement, a plan consisting of territorial concessions and Nato-style security guarantees was under consideration back then. The main disagreement pertains to the legal status of the Russian-annexed regions. Biden's team was firmer about the need to avoid official recognition of these territories and inclined to support Ukraine's claims to their future reintegration. Trump's team, meanwhile, is more willing to torpedo the principle of Westphalian sovereignty and recognize the regions as Russian to stem Putin's aggression. If the US settles on this formula, Europe and Ukraine are unlikely to mount a fierce resistance campaign against it. Its chances of success hinge on its implementation, and there are two issues that need to be resolved for it to be effectively adopted. The first challenge pertains to settling Ukraine's new de facto borders. These involve extremely difficult decisions for Zelensky. In exchange for abandoning Donbas, Ukraine will almost certainly want a land swap deal that guarantees control over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the occupied half of Kherson. It is unclear whether Putin will accede to these demands, as Russia has officially annexed these areas, but a compromise is possible as they have less resonance to Russian ultra-nationalists than Donbas. Regardless of whether a land swap deal transpires, Ukraine will be forced to tragically dismantle its civilian institutions in Donetsk and potentially integrate hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons. It will also have to respond in a measured fashion to Putin's imposition of Russian culture on all remaining Donbas residents and the subjugation of more Ukrainians to the totalitarian nature of Russian occupation. Once these challenges are achieved, Ukraine will need to ensure that its new borders are defensible. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum security guarantees unravelled due to a lack of will amongst signatories and denialism about the evil threat of Russian neo-imperialism. While these sources of complacency are much less striking now, there are still reasons for concern. The varying paces of arms deliveries to Ukraine and heated debates about escalation risks suggest that Nato does not have a united post-war plan. Therefore, it will be incumbent on Ukraine's strongest supporters within the alliance to quickly provide security assistance and steer as many of their more reluctant counterparts to follow suit. Britain's pledge to deploy ground troops to Ukraine within a week of a ceasefire and use Royal Air Force jets to patrol Ukraine's skies provides a positive example for its like-minded Nato allies. The US's active participation in the post-war peacekeeping coalition is critical. While Americans are evenly divided on the acceptability of peacekeeper deployments and military retaliations against Russia if peacekeepers are attacked, Trump must transcend politics for the cogency of the Nato alliance. Aside from the deployment of peacekeepers and integration of Ukraine into Nato's military technology supply chains, post-war reconstruction investments are a further guarantor of peace. If Ukraine's economy can attract large-scale capital infusions from both Western powers and Russia-friendly Global South stakeholders, such as the Gulf monarchies and China, the costs of further Russian aggression would rise precipitously. Putin's appalling wars have been driven by his false confidence in easy victories and a belief in Russian impunity. These assumptions need to be unequivocally put to rest. The Alaska summit failed to live up to its billing as a stepping stone for peace in Ukraine right now. Despite this, Trump's newest proposals suggest that it might just be around the corner.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Trump to back ceding of Ukrainian territory to Russia as part of peace deal
Donald Trump will back a plan to cede unoccupied Ukrainian territory to Russia to secure an end to the war between the two countries, it was reported on Saturday, after details of his post-summit call with European leaders leaked out. Trump told European leaders that he believed a peace deal could be negotiated if the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, agreed to give up the Donbas region, which Russian invaders have not been able to seize in over three years of fighting, the New York Times reported, citing to two senior European officials. Two sources with direct knowledge of the talks in Alaska told the Guardian that Putin demanded Ukraine withdraw from Donbas, which is made up of the Donestk and Luhansk regions, as a condition for ending the war, but offered Trump a freeze along the remaining frontline. Although Luhansk is almost entirely under Russian control, Ukraine still holds key parts of Donetsk, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and heavily fortified positions whose defence has cost tens of thousands of lives. Putin told Trump that in exchange for Donetsk and Luhansk, he would halt further advances and freeze the frontline in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where Russian forces occupy significant areas. Trump's support for ceding Ukraine's Donbas region, which is rich in mineral resources, including coal and iron ore, to Russia comes as he voiced support for moving straight to a peace deal and not via a ceasefire, which, Trump said in a social media post on Saturday, 'often times do not hold up.' US support for ceding the Donbas to Russia represents a breach with Ukraine and European allies that oppose such a deal. As part of a deal, the US is ready to be part of security guarantees for Ukraine, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said on Saturday. Trump has threatened economic penalties on countries that buy Russian oil if Moscow refuses a deal and flew US bombers over the Russian leader as he arrived in Alaska. But Ukrainian and European leaders fear that a straight-to-peace deal, skipping over a preliminary ceasefire, gives Moscow an upper hand in talks. Zelensky is expected in Washington on Monday to meet with Trump. Europeans were invited to join the Ukrainian leader at the White House, officials told the New York Times. Trump claimed on Saturday in his post that 'it was determined by all' that it was better to go directly to negotiated a peace agreement, though European leaders indicated this was not their view. A joint statement issued by European leaders said they were 'ready to work with US President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy towards a trilateral summit with European support' but 'it will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. International borders must not be changed by force.' Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion The statement was signed by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen; the French president, Emmanuel Macron; the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni; the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz; the British prime minister, Keir Starmer; the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb; the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk; and the European Council president, António Costa. They said they 'welcomed President Trump's efforts to stop the killing in Ukraine, end Russia's war of aggression, and achieve just and lasting peace'. Zelensky said in a statement after his conversations with Trump and the European leaders: 'The positions are clear. A real peace must be achieved, one that will be lasting, not just another pause between Russian invasions. Killings must stop as soon as possible, the fire must cease both on the battlefield and in the sky, as well as against our port infrastructure. All Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians must be released, and the children abducted by Russia must be returned.' European leaders, including Macron, Merz and Starmer, are set to discuss the issues with Zelenskyy on Sunday via video call ahead of his meeting with Trump, the French president's office said in a statement.
