VOA Russian talked to experts after the U.S.-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia on how to end the Ukraine war. They warned that this is only the beginning of negotiations that may last for some time and take several turns. 

Exiled independent Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin compared the first meeting to “not even a warm-up of two boxers, but just a weigh-in ahead of the future bout.” 

Ukrainian expert Volodymyr Fesenko noted that it should come as no surprise that Washington deems negotiations with Moscow more important at this stage than negotiations with Kyiv, as Russia is a nuclear power and will need to be persuaded to consider any compromises. 

Click here for the full story in Russian. 
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Many Ukrainians are dealing with the reality of starting over after losing their homes in the war with Russia. One project helps them find new homes and jobs while assisting in the development of small villages. Lesia Bakalets reports from the Kyiv region. Camera: Vladyslav Smilianets.
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LONDON — Russia’s tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border three years ago this month, triggering the worst conflict on European soil since World War II. Ukraine has resisted the full-scale invasion largely thanks to the support of the United States and Europe. 

But on the frozen front lines, the war grinds on — and Russia’s forces are slowly edging forward.  

“Every day, it pushes back the Ukrainian front line somewhere by a kilometer or so. My judgment is that it could continue to do that over the rest of this year,” said Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. 

“We must remember this is a terrible war. My judgment is that over a million people have been killed or seriously wounded. Now the balance of casualties is probably in Ukraine’s favor. A figure of 700,000 or 800,000 Russian casualties seems credible to me. President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy says Ukraine has only suffered 48,000 killed. That seems implausibly low to me,” Barry told Agence France-Presse. 

Europe excluded 

As the war enters its fourth year, Europe and Ukraine fear they are being excluded from deciding their own fate. Behind the scenes, the geopolitical forces that are shaping the conflict appear to be changing fast.  

Russia and the United States began peace talks this week in Saudi Arabia. Ukraine and Europe were not invited.  

“There will be some very significant alarm in European capitals about what might be discussed with regards to the security of their continent, their whole region,” said David Blagden, associate professor of international security at the University of Exeter. 

“One sort of potentially really bad outcome for European capitals is to discover that the Americans have basically put them on the hook for attempting to do some sort of peacekeeping mission in Ukraine or whatever without their say-so,” he told Reuters.  

Peacekeepers 

Britain and France have already said they may be willing to contribute to a peacekeeping force in Ukraine, a requirement of an estimated 100,000 troops.  

There are deep concerns over the potential risks of sending peacekeeping troops, according to Armida van Rij, head of the Europe program at London’s Chatham House. 

“The U.S. seemed to have taken away NATO’s Article 5 protection [on collective self-defense] for any troops that would be put in Ukraine. That means that they would not be protected, so that deterrent effect is gone. We know that Russia tends to break agreements. It has a long history of doing that under [President Vladimir] Putin and previous presidents. So, it is quite likely that Russia may well break the terms of any ceasefire or peace agreement that may come …  and then the question is, ‘OK, so what do the Europeans then do in response?’ That might put them in direct confrontation with Russia, which is a terrifying thought,” van Rij told VOA. 

Defense spending 

The European Union says it has provided around $145 billion in military, financial, humanitarian and refugee aid to Ukraine over the past three years, more than half the total global assistance for Kyiv. 

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said this month that European security will no longer be a priority, and Washington is demanding NATO allies increase their defense spending. 

“Where that money’s going to come from is a key question,” said van Rij. “The European Commission seems open to allowing some flexibility to their fiscal rules, which will make it a little bit easier for countries to spend on defense. But all of that still takes time, so it’s still going to be really difficult.” 

Hard decisions will have profound implications for Europe, according to British Defense Secretary John Healey.  

“The decisions that we make right now over the coming weeks will not only define the outcome of the conflict in Ukraine, but the security of our world for a generation to come,” Healey said in a speech Tuesday in London. 
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As Russia’s war on Ukraine enters its fourth year, European leaders warn that the outcome of ongoing peace talks between Moscow and Washington will have profound implications for all of Europe. But as Henry Ridgwell reports, leaders of the continent’s nations — including Ukraine — fear they are being excluded from deciding their own fate.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine and Russia said Wednesday the United States understands the needs for security guarantees for Ukraine, as he visited the country for talks with Ukrainian officials.

Gen. Keith Kellogg told reporters in Kyiv that he was in Ukraine “to listen,” hear the concerns of Ukrainian leaders and return to the United States to consult President Trump.

Kellogg said the United States wants the war in Ukraine to end, saying that would be good for the region and the world.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters ahead of an expected meeting with Kellogg that while U.S. officials have said there will be no U.S. troops deployed as part of any potential post-war peacekeeping mission, there are still other ways it can help, such as providing air defense systems.

“You don’t want boots on the ground, you don’t want NATO,” Zelenskyy said. “Okay, can we have Patriots? Enough Patriots?”

The discussions in Kyiv come amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, including French President Emmanuel Macron hosting European leaders Wednesday for a second round of talks about the conflict and European support for Ukraine.

Kellogg also met earlier this week with European leaders, and on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia.

Rubio said both Ukraine and Russia would have to make concessions to achieve peace.

“The goal is to bring an end to this conflict in a way that’s fair, enduring, sustainable and acceptable to all parties involved,” Rubio told reporters. No Ukrainian or European officials were at the table for the talks.

Zelenskyy objected to being excluded from the meeting, a position that drew criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Today I heard, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said of Ukraine’s leaders. “You should have never started it.”

Russia began the war with its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy added Wednesday that while he has “great respect” for Trump, the American leader is living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”

Zelenskyy postponed a trip to Saudi Arabia that had been scheduled for this week, suggesting that he wanted to avoid his visit being linked to the U.S.-Russia negotiations.

The United States and Russia agreed to “appoint respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement. Bruce characterized the meeting as “an important step forward” toward peace.

Rubio said Ukraine and European nations would have to be involved in talks on ending the war. He said that if the war is halted, the United States would have “extraordinary opportunities … to partner” with Russia on trade and other global issues.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she and other European foreign ministers spoke to Rubio after the U.S.-Russia meeting, and she expressed support for a Ukraine-led resolution.

“Russia will try to divide us. Let’s not walk into their traps,” Kallas said on X. “By working together with the US, we can achieve a just and lasting peace — on Ukraine’s terms.”

Russia now controls about one-fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized 2014 territory, including the Crimean Peninsula that it unilaterally annexed in 2014, a large portion of eastern Ukraine that pro-Russian separatists captured in subsequent fighting, and land Russia has taken over since the 2022 invasion.

As the invasion started, Moscow hoped for a quick takeover of all of Ukraine. But with stiff Ukrainian resistance, the war instead evolved into a grinding ground conflict and daily aerial bombardments by each side.

Zelenskyy has long demanded that his country’s 2014 boundaries be restored, but U.S. officials have said that is unrealistic, as is Kyiv’s long-sought goal of joining NATO.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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As President Donald Trump’s administration launched intense diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, VOA Russian looks at how Washington uses different channels and different modes in building relationships with various partners, alternating messages they were delivering during the Munich Security Conference depending on who was the messenger and who was in the audience. 

Click here for the full story in Russian. 
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Russia shot down 21 Ukrainian drones late Tuesday, but a drone attack on an oil pumping station in southern Russia reduced oil supplies for Kazakhstan and the global market, Russian officials said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces said one of their drones struck and knocked out a North Korean self-propelled howitzer on the eastern front.

“In Luhansk region, fighters of the 412th separate regiment of Nemesis drones struck a very rare M-1978 North Korean self-propelled artillery vehicle with a gun caliber of 170 mm,” the Ukrainian military posted on the Telegram messaging app.

The Russian defense ministry said 20 drones in the Bryansk region on the Ukrainian border and another in Crimea were shot down within an hour late Tuesday.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the drone attack on the pumping station reduced oil flows through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium by 30%-40% on Tuesday.

“As a result of the attack, energy equipment, a gas turbine unit, and a substation were damaged,” he said on Russian television. CPC pumps crude from companies that include Chevron and Exxon Mobil, Reuters reported.

Novak said repairs might take several months.

Earlier Tuesday, a Russian drone hit an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Dolynska, officials said Tuesday, injuring at least three people.

Andriy Raikovych, governor of the Kirovohrad region where the attack took place, said on Telegram that authorities evacuated dozens of people from the building and that those injured included a mother and two children.

The attack was part of a widespread Russian aerial assault overnight, which the Ukrainian military said included 176 drones.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 103 of the drones, with intercepts taking place over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions, the military said Tuesday.

Cherkasy Governor Ihor Taburets said on Telegram that debris from a destroyed drone damaged four houses in his region.

Some information for this story was provided by Reuters.
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The Trump administration on Tuesday hailed talks in Saudi Arabia that included U.S. and Russian officials but no Ukrainians. The White House said this parallel-track diplomacy — speaking separately with the warring partners — is a key first step in ending the three-year conflict that has rocked Europe. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington. Kim Lewis contributed.
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U.S.-based supporters of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny marked one year since his sudden and unexplained death in an arctic prison with vigils and protests in many U.S. cities, including Washington, New York and Los Angeles. VOA Russian correspondents spoke to Navalny supporters who urged the U.S. authorities to demand a release of Russian political prisoners as part of a U.S.-Russia deal on the war in Ukraine. 

Click here for the full story in Russian. 
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Germany is set to hold an election on Sunday, with voter frustrations over migration and the cost of living at the forefront of a bitter campaign. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the lead candidate to be Germany’s next chancellor has accused Washington of interfering in the election.
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A British couple detained in Iran last month has been charged with spying, Iran’s state media reported Tuesday.  

Britain’s Foreign Office has identified the couple as Craig and Lindsay Foreman. 

“The detained individuals entered the country as tourists and collected information in several provinces of the country,” reported Iran’s judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency. Iran has accused the couple of having connections with “hostile countries.”   

“We are deeply concerned by reports that two British nationals have been charged with espionage in Iran,” a British Foreign Office spokesman said Tuesday. “We continue to raise this case directly with the Iranian authorities.” 

The Associated Press reported that Hugo Shorter, Britain’s ambassador to Iran, has met with the couple in the southern city of Kerman, where they are jailed, with Iranian government officials in attendance.   

The Foreign Office said it is providing the couple with consular assistance and is in close contact with their family. 

The couple’s family said in a statement on Saturday, after the couple’s arrest, “This unexpected turn of events has caused significant concern for our entire family, and we are deeply focused on ensuring their safety and well-being during this trying time.” The family said it is “united on our determination to secure their safe return.”  

The two were traveling around the world on motorbikes, according to an AP report, which said that they crossed Armenia’s border into Iran on December 30.   

Iran has long used Western detainees to gain concessions in negotiations with Western countries, a move Tehran denies.  

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France Presse.  
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