Russia Ukraine war latest: Putin’s forces claim capture of strategic town as Zelensky makes demand for Trump peace talks

Russia’s defence ministry announced yesterday that its forces had taken control of Velyka Novosilka, a town of strategic significance in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. However, Ukrainian officials contested this claim, asserting that their troops had only conducted a tactical withdrawal from parts of the town to prevent encirclement, rather than abandoning it entirely.

The 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade of Ukraine confirmed the withdrawal, stating that it was part of a strategy designed to inflict significant losses on Russian forces while minimising Ukrainian casualties.“This does not mean that we have completely left the city; the fighting in Velyka Novosilka continues,” the brigade emphasised in a statement.

“All actions are aimed at minimising our own losses and maximising damage to the enemy.”In addition, the brigade explained that the decision to retreat from certain positions was intended to make it more difficult for Russian forces to advance further.

“The enemy … will have no peace, any movement is cut off by shells and drones,” the brigade added, highlighting the strategic importance of the river, which is expected to become a significant obstacle for Russian troops in the area.

Russia’s air defence systems intercepted and destroyed 32 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Russian defence ministry said this morning.

Nearly half of the drones were destroyed over the region of Voronezh that borders Ukraine, and the rest in several nearby regions, the ministry said on its Telegram messaging app.

With Russia wearing down Ukraine’s stretched forces and new US President Donald Trump pressuring the two sides to end their nearly 3-year-old war, Kyiv and some of its European allies are discussing how that might be achieved in a way that would guarantee Ukraine’s future security.

Several ideas have been floated in the past, but the one currently gaining currency would station thousands of European troops in Ukraine, though not under a NATO banner, to serve as a deterrent and rapid reaction force should Russia invade again – an apparent non-starter for Moscow.

Kyiv has signalled a willingness to consider ceasefire terms, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said security promises from Kyiv’s allies would be key to a just peace and that without them, it would only be a matter of time before Russia invaded again. Ukrainian officials say past agreements with the Kremlin were worthless, pointing to 2014 and 2015 pacts Russia signed after illegally annexing Crimea but then broke with its 2022 invasion.

An undersea fibre optic cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged on Sunday, likely as a result of external influence, Latvia said, prompting Nato to deploy patrol ships to the area and triggering a sabotage investigation by Swedish authorities.

Sweden’s Security Service has seized control of a vessel as part of the probe, the country’s prosecution authority said.

“We are now carrying out a number of concrete investigative measures, but I cannot go into what they consist of due to the ongoing preliminary investigation,” senior prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said in a statement.

Nato was coordinating military ships and aircraft under its recently deployed mission, dubbed “Baltic Sentry”. The effort follows a string of incidents in which power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines have been damaged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Latvian prime minister Evika Silina said her government was coordinating with Nato and other countries in the Baltic Sea region to clarify the circumstances surrounding the latest incident.

“We have determined that there is most likely external damage and that it is significant,” Ms Silina told reporters following an extraordinary government meeting.

President Volodymyr Zelensky replaced the commander of a key Ukrainian military formation responsible for defending the eastern hub of Pokrovsk.

This is the third time within a year that Mr Zelensky has made changes to the command of the region that’s under increased risk of falling to Russian forces.

Mr Zelensky, in his nightly video address, said he put Ukraine’s new commander of ground forces, Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, in charge of the Khortytsia operational-strategic group, whose area of responsibility includes much of Ukraine’s eastern front.

“These are the toughest areas of fighting,” Mr Zelensky said, adding that he had discussed the changes at meeting with Ukraine’s commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Russia’s capture of the city would bring it closer to seizing the entire Donetsk region, which has been one of president Vladimir Putin’s key goals in his war in Ukraine.

Mr Zelensky added that Major General Drapatyi’s appointment will help to combine the combat work of the army with the proper training of brigades.

“It is the front-line needs that should determine the standards for staffing and training of brigades,” he said.

Drapatyi will replace Major General Andriy Hnatov, who has been in charge of Khortytsia since June and who will become a Deputy Chief of the General Staff to run training and communication.

The Russian president also echoed his US counterpart’s claim the conflict in Ukraine could have been prevented had he been in the White House in 2022 in what was his bluntest endorsement yet of Mr Trump’s refusal to accept his defeat in the 2020 election.

In the interview with Russian state television on Friday, Mr Putin praised Mr Trump as a “clever and pragmatic man” who is focused on US interests and said: “We believe the current president’s statements about his readiness to work together. We are always open to this and ready for negotiations.”

His iron-fisted rule since 1994 earned Alexander Lukashenko the nickname of “Europe’s last dictator”, relying on subsidies and political support from close ally Russia.

“It’s better to have a dictatorship like in Belarus than a democracy like Ukraine,” Mr Lukashenko said in his characteristic bluntness.

His reliance on support from Russian president Vladimir Putin helped him survive the 2020 protests.

His opponents, many of whom are imprisoned or exiled abroad by his unrelenting crackdown on dissent and free speech, called the election a sham – much like the last one in 2020 that triggered months of protests.

The crackdown saw more than 65,000 arrests, with thousands beaten, bringing condemnation and sanctions from the West.

Observers believe Mr Lukashenko feared a repeat of those mass demonstrations amid economic troubles and the fighting in Ukraine, and so scheduled the vote in January, when few would want to fill the streets again, rather than in August. He faces only token opposition.

President Alexander Lukashenko has won a seventh term in office in Belarus, according to the country’s Central Election Commission.

According to a statement by the Central Election Commission, the 70-year-old leader took nearly 87 per cent of the vote in Sunday’s election after a campaign in which four token challengers all praised his rule.

Mr Lukashenko has been in power since 1994 and has ruled the country of nine million people with an iron hand. He relies on subsidies and political support from Russia. He allowed Moscow to use the country’s territory to invade Ukraine in 2022 and later hosted some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons.

He still campaigned with the slogan “peace and security”, arguing he has saved Belarus from being drawn into war.

His opponents, many of whom are imprisoned or exiled abroad by his unrelenting crackdown on dissent and free speech, called the election a sham – much like the last one in 2020 that triggered months of protests.