#Russia-Ukraine war

#Russia-Ukraine war

The Time reported that Russia used chemical weapons 6,540 time in 2025 and since the start of the war on 24 February 2022 they have been used more than 9,000 times. European and Ukrainian officials have said Russia has used chloropicrin which is a choking agent, this has not been used since World War I. The Time reported, "The concern, voiced quietly in allied capitals, is that a prolonged or stalemated war in Ukraine could tempt the Kremlin to resort to more dangerous battlefield weapons."

But the echoes of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin's imperial land grab of the waiter's own country are clear to him. They're crazy. The pair of them. For those paying more attention in Ukraine, amid Russian airstrikes, the freezing cold and power cuts, the correspondences are not only clear, but often alarming even if for now Trump has switched from sabre rattling to trying to rationalise a vague and incoherent deal he thinks he struck for the territory with Nato.

Putin, confident in his strategic calculus that the West would provide only token assistance to Ukraine, which would quickly fold under the weight and violence of Russian military might, fatefully launched his attack days later with disastrous consequences for Russia. The country he leads is now even poorer, more isolated, brittle, and dependent (on China) than before. Putin grossly underestimated Ukrainian will, overestimated the competence of his own military and intelligence apparatus, and misjudged Western cohesion.

A peace deal is "90 percent ready...but the remaining 10 percent contains, in fact, everything...that will determine the fate of peace, the fate of Ukraine and Europe, and how people will live," he said in the televised address. "What does Ukraine want? Peace? Yes." "But at any cost? No. We want the end of the war. Not the end of Ukraine," he added.

Just before Zelensky and his delegation arrived at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, the U.S. and Russian presidents spoke in a call described as "productive" by Trump and "friendly" by Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov. Ushakov, in Moscow, said Putin told Trump a 60-day ceasefire proposed by the European Union and Ukraine would prolong the war. The Kremlin aide also said Ukraine needs to make a quick decision about land in the Donbas.

Would you like to have food, or would you consider that a bribe? Trump asked. And therefore you could not write honestly, or therefore you have to write a bad story. Trump started to smirk as he made his quip, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner appeared to get a kick out of the question while sitting at the end of the table. Would you like something to eat at this time? Yes or no? You can speak, Trump continued. Yes sir, the reporter told him.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday he had agreed to a meeting with US President Donald Trump in the "near future." "A lot can be decided before the New Year," he posted on social media. The announcement follows weeks of stepped-up diplomatic efforts to end Ukraine's war with Russia. On Thursday, Zelenskyy gave a positive assessment of his conversation with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner about ending the war.

There are people who argue that Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine is not motivated by fears or imperial ambitions, but by other countries' disrespect. Russia once commanded authority as one of the world's two superpowers, but it has since forfeited that status. It knows it has lost the respect of other countries (Barack Obama famously dismissed Russia as just a regional power), and the Ukraine war is its way of winning it back.

A Russian missile strike on port infrastructure in Odesa in southern Ukraine killed eight people and wounded 27, Ukraine's emergency service said Saturday, as a Kremlin envoy was set to travel to Florida for talks on a U.S.-proposed plan to end the nearly four-year war, The discussions are part of the Trump administration's monthslong push for peace that also included meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin earlier this week.

Frozen assets are financial funds or property that the owner cannot access or use for any transaction or transfer because of restrictions imposed by a government or bloc such as the European Union. In Russia's case, sovereign assets in the form of cash, bonds and securities held abroad as well as private assets such as yachts and real estate owned by sanctioned Russian billionaires were frozen. Assets are usually frozen via sanctions.

Russia cannot escape paying the bill for its war in Ukraine, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said at the establishment of an International Claims Commission for Ukraine in The Hague on Monday. The commission, which will validate war damages in Ukraine to be paid by Russia, sends a message to future aggressors, Kallas said, that "if you start a war, you will be held to account".