Latest news with #territorialgains
Free Malaysia Today
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Ukraine makes small territorial gains in Sumy ahead of Trump-Putin summit
Ukraine's forces have liberated the settlements of Stepne and Novokostiantynivka along the frontline in Sumy. (EPA Images pic) KYIV : Ukraine has retaken two villages in its eastern region of Sumy, Kyiv's military said, adding to recent small territorial gains along the border with Russia ahead of peace talks at a summit of the US and Russian leaders set for Friday. US President Donald Trump said yesterday that Kyiv and Moscow will both have to cede land to end the war in Ukraine, and this week's talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin will show whether the Kremlin leader is willing to make a deal. 'Ukraine's forces have liberated the settlements of Stepne and Novokostiantynivka along the frontline in Sumy,' the general staff said in a report this evening. 'It's tough. But we are holding back the enemy,' Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, wrote on Facebook, following a meeting today with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Ukraine's top brass. 'In the Sumy direction, we are conducting active operations and have some success advancing forward, liberating Ukrainian land,' Syrskyi said. Yesterday's gains follow Sunday's news that Kyiv's military had retaken the village of Bezsalivka. Reuters could not independently verify the reports of gains in the Sumy region. The small gains come as Russian forces have been pushing westward for months along sections of the 1,000-km frontline, capturing new villages nearly on a daily basis, mainly in the Donetsk region. Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, mounted a new offensive this year in Sumy, following Putin's order to carve out a 'buffer zone' there and threatening the regional capital. Ukraine's authoritative Deep State online map project shows that Russian forces control about 200sq km of Sumy, and a total of about 114,000sq km in Ukraine.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump says he will meet Putin ‘very shortly' to discuss end to Ukraine war
Donald Trump has said he will meet 'very shortly' with Vladimir Putin to discuss the war in Ukraine, and said an end to the three-and-a-half-year war would have to involve 'some swapping of territories'. 'I'll be meeting very shortly with President Putin. It would have been sooner, but I guess there's security arrangements that unfortunately people have to make,' Trump told reporters at the White House late on Friday. Bloomberg reported on Friday that the deal could cement some of Putin's territorial gains in Ukraine, effectively freezing the battle lines in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Putin has claimed four Ukrainian regions in their entirety, although much of their territory remains under Ukrainian control. US and Russian officials were working on a deal under which Russia would halt its offensive in exchange for the territorial concessions – making it a politically fraught proposal in Ukraine, Bloomberg said. More details soon …
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Putin stalls. Trump changes his mind. Ukraine targets Moscow. Latest on the war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is stalling over a ceasefire. The White House has changed its mind about sending weapons to Ukraine. A major Ukrainian drone attack on Russia sowed chaos at airports serving Moscow. Russia's summer offensive in Ukraine has seen Moscow make its largest territorial gains in Ukraine since the start of the year, according to the Ukrainian open-source DeepState website and estimates by the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that specializes in military affairs and warfare. In the past month, Russian military units concentrated in Ukraine's Sumy region, which borders Russia in the northeast, the eastern cities of Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka, and Zaporizhzhia in the south, have gained about 200 square miles, according to data from the war study institute. That's an area a little larger than the size of Atlanta. Does that mean Russia is prevailing? Not really. It's not that simple. Here's the latest on Russia's war in Ukraine. Why is Russia gaining ground in Ukraine? Ukraine has liberated about 7% of the territory Russia occupied before and after Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to Ukrainian estimates and DeepState. That leaves about 19% still in Russian hands. Moscow still controls Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and about two-thirds of Ukraine's Donetsk region, a vast and heavily industrialized region which remains the center of the ground war. Russia has long had the upper hand in the war in terms of military manpower, but analysts say Moscow has suffered more casualties, and its loss of equipment − vehicles, artillery, tanks − also has been at a higher rate than Ukraine's. Though Russia has been advancing in recent months, those gains have been relatively slow and small, amounting to less than 0.1% of Ukraine's territory in July, according to a manual calculation. Still, one reason Russia may have been able to make progress, according to the war study institute, is that Russia has substantially increased its use of drone attacks, and missiles and shells, on Ukraine. These grew at an average monthly rate of 31% in June and July. Russia has been using drones to pin down Ukrainian troops. No, then yes, to more American weapons for Ukraine. Why? President Donald Trump began his second term promising to end the war in Ukraine in his first 24 hours in office. He quickly halted the flow of military aid to Kyiv and temporarily stopped sharing some intelligence. He also cast blame on Ukraine for the war, giving President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a public dressing down in the Oval Office when he tried to push back on that assertion and counter Trump by saying Putin was not a reliable negotiator. Since then, the leaders have revised their stances and welcomed more nuance in their discussions. The war is still raging. Trump has appeared to change his tune on Ukraine and Putin as the Russian leader has pushed forward with drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and repeatedly rebuffed Trump's attempts to broker a ceasefire. In early July, Trump said he would resume shipping arms to Ukraine. He also announced a new arrangement with NATO that will see the military alliance transfer advanced U.S.-made air defense systems to Kyiv. He also altered his attitude about the Russian leader. "He's very nice to us all the time," Trump said July 9. "But it turns out to be meaningless." What about the diplomacy? Two rounds of Trump-brokered ceasefire talks between Ukraine and Russia have come to nothing. As the relationship between Putin and Trump has soured, a broad coalition of U.S. lawmakers has lined up ready to place new aggressive sanctions on Russia. Trump also has threatened "severe" economic penalties on Moscow if it does not commit to a ceasefire by early September. The Kremlin has dismissed this as "bluster." The Russian government has suggested that Trump and Putin could meet in Beijing in September when Russia's leader is there for the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. Moscow said it had not heard whether Trump plans to attend. The White House has not commented. But there's little doubt Moscow, for now, is on the back foot geopolitically, and perhaps even militarily. Zelenskyy and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot announced in Kyiv a series of manufacturing deals with French companies on July 21 that will launch drone production in Ukraine. Overnight, Russia launched its latest barrage of drones and missiles at Kyiv. But Ukraine is also fighting back in ways increasingly difficult for Moscow to ignore. Videos published by Russian media showed people sleeping on the floor of Sheremetyevo, Russia's busiest airport, amid long lines and canceled flights after Ukraine bombarded it with drones. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ukraine-Russia war: Who's winning now and what could happen next
CNA
08-06-2025
- Politics
- CNA
Russia advances to east-central Ukrainian region amid row over dead soldiers
MOSCOW/KYIV: Russia said on Sunday (Jun 8) its forces had advanced to the edge of the east-central Ukrainian region of Dnipropetrovsk amid a public row between Moscow and Kyiv over peace negotiations and the return of thousands of bodies of soldiers who fell in the war. Amid talk of peace, the war is stepping up with Russian forces grabbing more territory in Ukraine and Kyiv unfurling high-profile drone and sabotage attacks on Russia's nuclear-capable bomber fleet and, according to Moscow, on railways. Russia, which controls a little under one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, has taken more than 190 sq km of the Sumy region of eastern Ukraine in less than a month, according to pro-Ukrainian open-source maps. Now, according to the Russian defence ministry, units of the 90th Tank Division of the Central Grouping of Russian forces have reached the western frontier of Ukraine's Donetsk region and are attacking the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region. "The enemy does not abandon its intentions to enter the Dnipropetrovsk region," Ukraine's Southern Defence Forces said on Telegram. "Our soldiers are courageously and professionally holding their section of the front, disrupting the occupier's plans. This work does not stop for a minute." Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said the Dnipropetrovsk offensive showed that if Ukraine did not want to accept the reality of Russia's territorial gains in peace talks then Moscow's forces would advance further. The pro-Ukrainian Deep State map showed Russian forces very close to the Dnipropetrovsk region, which had a population of more than 3 million before the war, and advancing on the city of Kostyantynivka in the Donetsk region from several directions. A Ukrainian military spokesman, Dmytro Zaporozhets, said that Russian forces were trying to "build a bridgehead for an attack" on Kostyantynivka, an important logistical hub for the Ukrainian army. Russia on Saturday accused Ukraine of delaying the swap of prisoners of war and return of the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers, though Ukraine denied those claims. Russia said on Sunday it was moving bodies towards the border and television showed refrigerated trucks containing the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers on the road in the Bryansk region. Ukraine accused Russia of playing propaganda games and said that the exchange of prisoners of war and the bodies of fallen soldiers was scheduled for next week. Russia said Ukraine was playing politics with the dead. US President Donald Trump, who says he wants an end to the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, on Thursday likened it to a fight between young children and indicated that he might have to simply let the conflict play out. ACCUSATIONS OVER WILLINGNESS FOR PEACE Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he did not think Ukraine's leaders wanted peace, after accusing them of ordering a bombing in Bryansk, western Russia, that killed seven people and injured 115 a day before talks in Turkey. Ukraine, which has not commented on the attack on a Bryansk bridge, has similarly accused Moscow of not seriously seeking peace, citing as evidence Russian resistance to an immediate ceasefire. Russia is demanding international recognition of Crimea, a peninsula annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014, and four other regions of Ukraine that Moscow has claimed as its own territory. Ukraine would have to withdraw its forces from all of them. Russia controlled 113,273 sq km, or 18.8 per cent, of Ukrainian territory as of Jun 7, according to the Deep State map. That is an area bigger than the US state of Virginia. The areas under Russian control include Crimea, more than 99 per cent of the Luhansk region, over 70 per cent of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, all in the east or southeast, and fragments of the Kharkiv and Sumy regions in the northeast. Putin told Trump on Wednesday that he would have to respond to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia's bomber fleet and the bombings of the railways. The United States believes that Putin's threatened retaliation against Ukraine over its attacks has not happened yet in earnest and is likely to be a significant, multi-pronged strike, US officials told Reuters. Russia also hit the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday evening and overnight with drones, missiles and guided bombs, killing at least four people and injuring more than 60, including a baby, local officials said on Saturday.
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russia plans to occupy Ukraine east of Dnipro, cut Black Sea access, Ukrainian official says
Russia aims to occupy all Ukrainian territory east of the Dnipro River and advance toward Odesa and Mykolaiv in a broader plan to sever Ukraine's access to the Black Sea, President Volodymyr Zelensky's Deputy Chief of Staff Pavlo Palisa said, Politico reported on June 6. The remarks come amid continuing Russian offensives in eastern and northern Ukraine, along with escalating diplomatic efforts that have yet to yield a ceasefire. According to Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR), Moscow hopes to seize the entirety of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts by this fall and establish a buffer zone along Ukraine's northern border with Russia. The second phase of the plan envisions more ambitious territorial gains, including an advance into southern Ukraine aimed at cutting the country off from the sea. "Unfortunately, they are not speaking about peace. They are preparing for war," Palisa said during a press briefing at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington. The warning comes days after Russia presented Ukraine with a so-called "peace memorandum" during a second round of negotiations in Istanbul on June 2. The document, published by Russian state media outlet TASS, demands that Kyiv recognize Russia's claimed annexation of four Ukrainian oblasts — Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Luhansk — and fully withdraw from them. Moscow also calls for Ukraine's demobilization and a formal ban on NATO membership. During the talks, Ukraine's delegation submitted a separate proposal calling for an all-for-all prisoner exchange, the return of abducted Ukrainian children, and the release of civilians held in Russian captivity. Kyiv also reiterated its call for a Western-backed 30-day ceasefire as a foundation for future negotiations — a proposal Moscow again rejected. Ukraine's military leadership has warned that Russian forces are preparing for a major summer offensive in Donetsk Oblast, where daily assaults have continued since 2022. Despite suffering heavy losses, Russian troops are advancing through mass wave attacks that gain only tens of meters per day. According to the U.S.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Moscow currently occupies roughly 20% of Ukraine. Read also: Ukraine war latest: Ukraine strikes Russian missile base in Bryansk Oblast, damages Iskander launchers; Trump dismisses timeline to impose Russian sanctions We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
