Ukraine-Russia conflict stay: Zelensky warns Trump of Putin’s ‘games’ as conflict enters fifth yr | EUROtoday

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has now been raging for 4 years – and regardless of repeated makes an attempt at peace talks brokered by the US, there seems to be no finish in sight.

As the conflict marks the grim anniversary milestone on Tuesday, the bloody conflict of attrition continues, having claimed the lives of greater than 15,000 Ukrainian civilians.

In the final yr, Moscow has ramped up its use of drones by 200 per cent, repeatedly launching lots of of strikes from unmanned plane.

Vladimir Putin’s forces have additionally more and more focused Ukraine’s power infrastructure, leaving tens of millions with out energy or warmth as they face their coldest winter in years, with temperatures as little as -26C.

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russian officers of taking part in video games within the peace talks in an interview forward of the conflict coming into fifth yr.

“Russians are playing games” and never critical about bringing the conflict to a detailed, Zelensky mentioned responding to a query on how the peace talks have been progressing, talking from his presidential workplace in Kyiv.

The Ukrainian chief has additionally accused Vladimir Putin of utilizing overtures to Donald Trump to weaken Kyiv’s negotiating place.

“I see it, because they are very poor actors. They are playing with Trump and playing with the entire world. That’s how it is,” Zelensky mentioned.

“Putin thinks he looks convincing and that he can be trusted. No — he is a bad actor,” he mentioned.

The Kremlin’s efforts to push higher management over the data area with restrictions on Whatsapp and Telegram has induced home hassle in Russia.

Russia’s reliance on Telegram as essentially the most broadly used social media platform for communication and entry to data, says Tatiana Stanovaya, the founding father of Russian political analysts R.Politik and senior fellow on the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center.

“Although preparations for such a move had been evident, the decision nonetheless came as a shock to many, including senior officials, businesses, and representatives of the pro-war community,” she said.

The move “has triggered unexpected internal resistance across the elite, including from domestic policy overseers, regional authorities, parts of United Russia, the military, pro-war bloggers and even the systemic opposition,” analysts have mentioned.

She added that whereas the systemic opposition’s resolution to talk out towards the measure carries no tangible political weight, “it signals emerging discrepancies within the ruling elite”.

“The FSB, which stands behind the decision, was compelled to justify its actions publicly,” she added.

“The measure is highly likely to be implemented, yet it will have a noticeable impact on public sentiment.”

Ukraine recovered management of 400 sq kilometres of territory, together with eight settlements, in February, the top of the navy introduced this morning.

Zelensky mentioned solely on 20 February that Ukraine’s Defense Forces had liberated 300 sq km within the south throughout a counteroffensive.

The conflict frontline in Ukraine has become a “robotic kill zone” with drones dominating the warfare, leaving troopers weak to assaults, the previous Ukrainian basic has mentioned.

Speaking on the Chatham House in London, Gen Valerii Zaluzhny who’s now the Ukraine ambassador to the UK, mentioned the conflict towards Russia “has lengthy since gone past lengthy trenches, highly effective tank fights and air battles”, as the battlefield is now “completely transparent”, saturated by surveillance drones and automated strike systems.

The immediate aerial attacks, controlled from kilometres away, have left human prone to dangerous attacks as irreplaceable resource, unlike the weapons used as they can be mass-produced.

“It takes a lot of time to restore them,” Gen Zaluzhny said of trained personnel. “It is simply impossible to quickly replace such a resource on the battlefield,” he said.

This has made the distancing of troops from the kill zone an operational necessity in Ukraine, where it is estimated 65,000 Russian soldiers alone have been killed by drones.

Rebuilding Ukraine’s economy will cost an estimated $588 billion over the next decade, the World Bank, United Nations, European Commission and the Ukrainian government said on Monday, a day before Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine enters its fifth year.

The latest assessment by the institutions, based on data from 24 February, 2022 through 31 December, 2025 showed a 12 per cent increase from last year’s estimate, based in part on a 21 per cent jump in damaged or destroyed energy infrastructure from a year ago.

The estimate, the fifth conducted since the start of the war, found direct damage in Ukraine had reached $195bn, up nearly 11 per cent from the previous assessment, with housing, transport and energy sectors most affected, the groups said. That is more than double the damage reported in the first report in 2022.

“The injury is immense and growing repeatedly,” the report said, noting that damages were concentrated in frontline areas and metropolitan areas including the capital Kyiv.

The study does not include data from Russia’s intensified attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities in January and February, which have left tens of thousands across Ukraine without heat, power and water during the coldest winter on record in decades.

Ukrainian troops have regained control of 400 square kilometres of territory, including eight settlements, along a section of the southern frontline since the end of January, Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Monday.

The rare battlefield gains in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region stand in contrast to the broader trend of slow and costly Russian advances across the frontlines over the past two and a half years a day before the war marks its four years anniversary.

Ukraine is keen to show the world, and particularly to US president Donald Trump, that it is not losing ground in its fight against Russia’s invasion, at a time when Washington is pressing Ukraine to agree to a peace deal.

Syrskyi’s statement did not make clear how much of the newly secured territory had previously been under Russian control and how much lay in “gray zone” areas not firmly held by either side.

Ukraine’s General Staff did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.

The front lines in Ukraine have become increasingly blurred as thousands of drones fill the skies each day, pushing soldiers underground or into hard cover and creating zones where neither army exercises full control.

Another round of talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine could be held at end of this week, president Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff told Ukrainian media.

Ukraine, Russia and the United States have held several rounds of talks in Abu Dhabi and Geneva as Washington seeks an end to four years of war since Moscow’s 2022 invasion.

“I feel on the finish of the week, this week,” Kyrylo Budanov told reporters when asked about the next round of talks.

“It isn’t any secret that the negotiations usually are not straightforward, however we’re positively shifting ahead and approaching the second when all sides might want to make last selections – whether or not to proceed this conflict or transition to peace,” the president’s office quoted him as saying.

Budanov also said the next exchange of prisoners of war between Russia and Ukraine could happen this week, and that it could be bigger than the previous one when the countries returned 157 POWs each but did not give a specific number.

Actions of the Hungarian government is act of political sabotage that make helping Ukraine impossible, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said on Monday, referring to a possible blocking of further EU sanctions on Moscow and a €90bn loan for Kyiv by Budapest.