Ukraine-Russia: Zelensky says 55,000 Ukrainian troopers killed in battle as Kremlin vows to battle on | EUROtoday

Donald Trump’s administration has pushed each Kyiv and Moscow to discover a compromise to finish the four-year-old battle, however the two sides stay far aside on key factors regardless of a number of rounds of talks with US officers.

“The good news is that for the first time in a very long time, we have technical military teams from both Ukraine and Russia meeting in a forum that we’ll also be involved in with our experts,” US secretary of state Marco Rubio stated in Washington yesterday.

“I don’t want to say talks alone is progress, but it’s good that there’s engagement going on,” he said.

The most sensitive issues are Moscow’s demands that Kyiv give up land it still controls and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which sits in a Russian-occupied area.

Moscow wants Kyiv to pull its troops out of all the Donetsk region, including heavily fortified cities regarded as one of Ukraine’s strongest defences, as a precondition for any deal.

Ukraine said the conflict should be frozen along current front lines and rejects any unilateral pullback of its forces.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russian troops would keep fighting until Kyiv made “choices” that could bring the war to an end.

Russia occupies about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 invasion. Analysts say Russia has gained about 1.5 per cent of Ukrainian territory since early 2024.

“Russia just isn’t successful its battle in opposition to Ukraine,” Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha told online media outlet Liga.

Ukraine’s energy minister warned households on Wednesday that planned blackouts could worsen in coming days and Russian forces could launch a new air attack to further disable power and heating networks.

Denys Shmyhal said well over 200 emergency crews were at work in the capital restoring heating to apartment buildings after a series of mass Russian attacks in January.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Tuesday that more than 1,100 buildings remained without heating.

“The state of affairs with vitality stays very tough. There is a danger that timetables for energy cuts might worsen,” Shmyhal wrote on Telegram after a daily meeting of senior officials devoted to energy issues.

“This is linked to the final strike and the truth that the shortfalls in technology within the energy system are nonetheless important. And the Russians are making ready for brand new assaults on the vitality sector within the coming week.”

Shmyhal said that buildings where restoring heating is likely to take some time were to receive assurances that they will have electricity for 18 hours a day.

United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres called the expiration of the New START Treaty a grave moment for international peace and security and urged Russia and the United States to negotiate a new nuclear arms control framework without delay.

New START, which was due to run out at midnight on Wednesday, capped the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land – and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.

“For the primary time in additional than half a century, we face a world with none binding limits on the strategic nuclear arsenals of the Russian Federation and the United States of America – the 2 States that possess the overwhelming majority of the worldwide stockpile of nuclear weapons,” Guterres said in a statement.

He said the dissolution of decades of achievement in arms control “couldn’t come at a worse time – the danger of a nuclear weapon getting used is the best in a long time”.

At the identical time, Guterres stated there was now a possibility “to reset and create an arms control regime fit for a rapidly evolving context” and welcomed the appreciation by the leaders of each Russia and the United States of the necessity to forestall a return to a world of unchecked nuclear proliferation.

“The world now looks to the Russian Federation and the United States to translate words into action,” Guterres stated.

“I urge both states to return to the negotiating table without delay and to agree upon a successor framework that restores verifiable limits, reduces risks, and strengthens our common security.”

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has criticised Europe for lax regulation of oil tankers that he says Russia is exploiting to continue to trade and fund its war.

Last year, he said, Russia involved more than 122 vessels in its oil trade that are operated or legally owned by European entities.

“This constitutes a significant portion of Russia’s tanker fleet,” he stated in his nightly deal with.

“Europe must act far more decisively to counter Russia’s tanker fleet.”

Fighting has intensified in recent weeks in key areas of the southeastern front, Ukraine’s military has said, particularly around the town of Huliaipole – 40km (25 miles) to the east of Tavriiske.

In Tavriiske and nearby villages, which sit in a bulge in the frontline with Russian forces on three sides, residents told Reuters during a recent visit that they feared for their lives amid the constant threat of drone and bomb attacks.

In the last few weeks, buses have stopped running to the village of Tavriiske in southeast Ukraine from the major city of Zaporizhzhia, some 50km (31 miles) away.

As the war with Russia has drawn nearer, the village is slowly emptying. Maryna Vyshnevska, 35, said it had become too dangerous for her and her five children – some of the few remaining residents – to stay.

“We thought they (the Russians) could be pushed again and all this might cease,” Vyshnevska said, before packing her family and a handful of belongings into a police evacuation bus. “But once we realised it might solely worsen and worse, it was higher to go away,” she stated.

At least seven individuals had been killed and eight extra damage in Russian assaults within the city of Druzhkivka within the Ukraine-controlled frontline area of Donetsk within the east, the regional governor stated.

Russia shelled the city with cluster munitions, focusing on the market, and dropped two aerial bombs, Vadym Filashkin stated his Telegram channel.

Filashkin stated the city situated about 11 miles from the frontline was struck straight at a busy morning market.

“This is another targeted war crime and further proof that all Russian statements about a ‘truce’ are worthless,” Filashkin wrote.

European Union ambassadors have authorised particulars of a €90bn (£77bn) mortgage for Ukraine, an initiative agreed by EU leaders in December to fulfill most of Kyiv’s monetary wants in 2026-2027 and sustain its battle in opposition to Russia’s invasion.

The ambassadors reached the settlement at a closed-door assembly in Brussels yesterday, diplomats stated.

The textual content of the settlement was not instantly obtainable however the Council of the EU stated in a press release that two thirds of the funds could be spent on navy assist and one third on common finances help.

On navy assist, the deal stipulates that Kyiv ought to use the mortgage primarily to purchase weapons from Ukraine or the EU however might purchase from different nations if sure circumstances are met.

“Defence products should in principle only be procured from companies in the EU, Ukraine, or EEA-EFTA countries. Should Ukraine’s military needs require the urgent delivery of a defence product which happens not to be available in the EU, Ukraine or an EEA-EFTA country, a set of targeted derogations would apply,” the Council stated.

The settlement additionally requires approval by the European Parliament, which diplomats stated they hoped would come quickly to permit the Commission to start out borrowing on the markets and make a primary cost to Ukraine in early April.

EU leaders agreed in December to fund the mortgage by means of EU borrowing reasonably than again a plan to make use of Russian belongings frozen within the bloc.