The US is demanding control of a key pipeline in Ukraine used to send Russian gas to Europe, according to reports, while Kyiv negotiates a minerals deal with the Donald Trump administration.
Prospects for a breakthrough in the deal between Washington and Kyiv are scant given the “antagonistic” atmosphere of the talks, a source told Reuters following last week’s meeting.
The US has demanded that its International Development Finance Corporation take control of a natural gas pipeline running from the town of Sudzha in western Russia to the Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod.
Senior economist Volodymyr Landa told The Guardian Washington's bullying “colonial-type” demands had little chance of being accepted by Kyiv.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump said on Saturday that talks to end the war in Ukraine might be going well, adding that there was a time when you had to put up or shut up.
His envoy Steve Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg for four hours to discuss a “Ukrainian settlement” on Friday.
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Trump urges Putin to 'get moving' on ceasefire deal
Saturday 12 April 2025 04:52
,
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
US president Donald Trump has urged the Russian president to "get moving" on a ceasefire in Ukraine as Vladimir Putin met White House envoy Steve Witkoff in Russia.
The focus of the meeting, which lasted over four hours, was "aspects of Ukrainian settlement", the Kremlin said.
The Izvestia news outlet earlier released video of Mr Witkoff leaving a hotel in St Petersburg, accompanied by Kirill Dmitriev, Mr Putin's investment envoy.
Mr Dmitriev called the talks on Friday "productive".Mr Trump said in a post on Truth Social: "Russia has to get moving. Too many people (are) DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war - A war that should have never happened, and wouldn't have happened, if I were President!!!"
The Russian leader has said he is ready in principle to agree to a full ceasefire, while emphasizing that crucial implementation details remain unresolved and what he describes as the war's root causes have yet to be addressed.
Ukraine hires American law firm for US mineral deal - report
Saturday 12 April 2025 05:30
,
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Ukrainian justice ministry has reportedly hired American law firm Hogan Lovells to present Kyiv’s position in negotiations on a mineral deal with the US.
Kyiv is seeking the help of consultants and lawyers "to protect the national interests of Ukraine and to formulate the position of Ukraine", by taking into account American and Ukrainian legislations, a government document said.
The funds will be distributed across the economy and justice ministries, the document said, with the aim of hiring consultants with experience in public debt management and external borrowing, and those from leading international law firms, by a 15 April deadline.
Deputy prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on Monday that Ukraine will send a team to Washington this week to advance negotiations on the draft strategic agreement.
Zelensky honours 19 people killed
Saturday 12 April 2025 05:46
,
Jane Dalton
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has told how he honoured the memory of 19 people killed by a Russian ballistic missile strike – exactly one week ago.
“19 people were killed by a Russian missile, including 9 children,” he wrote on his website.
“I’m now in a shelter at the very school where three of those children studied – tragically, they were killed.
“That same day, there was also a Shahed drone attack, which claimed even more lives. Eternal memory to them all.”
Zelensky sanctions Russian journalists
Saturday 12 April 2025 06:00
,
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky has imposed 10-year sanctions on 18 companies and 130 people, including Russian journalists.
Alexander Sladkov, a military correspondent for the Rossiya-1 TV channel; Arina Sharapova, a TV host on Channel One; Andrey Norkin, a talk show host on NTV; Iskander Khisamov; editor-in-chief of the Ukraine.ru website, are among the journalists targeted, Russian news agency TASS reported.
The list includes 59 people from the alleged shadow fleet, a network of ships that Moscow allegedly uses to circumvent Western sanctions to export oil and gas.
"We are increasing pressure on war propagandists and those who justify Russia," Mr Zelensky said. He added that more sanctions were expected soon.
Russia using bilateral talks with US to delay negotiations on war, says think tank
Saturday 12 April 2025 07:10
,
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Russia's delay in accepting Washington’s proposal has frustrated Donald Trump and fueled doubts about whether Vladimir Putin really wants to stop the fighting while his bigger army has momentum on the battlefield.
“Russia continues to use bilateral talks with the United States to delay negotiations about the war in Ukraine, suggesting that the Kremlin remains uninterested in serious peace negotiations to end the war,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an assessment.
Washington remains committed to securing a peace deal, even though four weeks have passed since it made its ceasefire proposals, state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
“It is a dynamic that will not be solved militarily. It is a meat grinder,” Ms Bruce said about the war, adding that “nothing else can be discussed … until the shooting and the killing stops.”
Ukraine's domestic missile production grew eightfold in 2024, minister says
Saturday 12 April 2025 10:56
,
Andy Gregory
Kyiv’s domestic production of cruise missiles has increased eightfold in 2024, Ukraine’s strategic industries minister has said.
According to the Kyiv Independent, Herman Smetanin said Ukraine had only able to manufacture a single type of cruise missile, the Neptune, back in 2022. “Last year, we introduced many new models, allowing us to grow production eightfold compared to 2023,” he said. A total of 324 new types of weapons had been developed in Ukraine by the end of 2024.
Ukraine also more than doubled its production of long-range drones in 2024 compared to the previous year, which marks a 22-fold increase compared to 2022.
In total, Ukraine produced $9bn worth of arms in 2024, and the defence industry is on track to nearly quadruple that amount by the end of 2025, said Mr Smetanin. “By the end of 2025, we will have the capacity to produce $35bn worth of military equipment domestically.”
Ukraine can nearly produce full range of weapons it needs, says Zelensky aide
Saturday 12 April 2025 11:15
,
Andy Gregory
Ukraine can nearly supply its armed forces with the full range of military equipment if requires, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
In remarks reported by the Kyiv Independent, Oleksandr Kamyshin told a briefing marking Ukraine’s Gunsmith Day, in which it was said that Ukraine had developed a total of 324 types of weapons domestically between 2022 and 2024: “Today, according to various estimates, 30 per cent to 40 per cent of what our troops use on the front lines is made in Ukraine.
“It’s not only about war — it’s about our economy. As of last year, defence manufacturing made up a significant share of our GDP. After our victory, I’m confident we’ll be exporting Ukrainian-made weapons to the world.”
Opinion | It’ll take more than a ‘reassurance force’ to fill the US-sized hole
Saturday 12 April 2025 11:46
,
Andy Gregory
Our associate editor Sean O’Grady writes:
There’s a terrible sense of poignancy – if not doom – around all the meetings of the “coalition of the willing”, impressive as the grandiloquent words, the formidable roll call of nations and the glittering array of military uniforms might be.
To be brutally frank, and with the best will in the world, these capable, dedicated ministers and generals may be wasting their time.
The problem is American resistance to the whole idea. The danger is that if Vladimir Putin doesn’t like the COTW reassurance force – and everything suggests that he hates it – and obstructs Donald Trump’s peace deal, then Trump will agree.
The best Putin will accept so far is a conventional UN peacekeeping force, ie the kind of thing that so recently proved useless and was humiliated by Israel in Lebanon. No Nato members, under any flag, will be allowed in. If nothing is agreed, Putin will carry on, likely with Trump’s acquiescence – because it seems to me that Trump is basically a coward.
Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking its energy infrastructure five times in past 24 hours
Saturday 12 April 2025 11:52
,
Andy Gregory
Russia's defence ministry has claimed that Ukraine had carried out five attacks on Russian energy infrastructure over the past day, in an alleged violation of a US-brokered moratorium on such strikes.
Ukraine and Russia agreed to pause strikes on each other's energy facilities last month, but both sides have repeatedly accused each other of breaking the moratorium.
It was not possible to verify Russia’s claims, and Moscow has repeatedly made false claims about Ukrainian attacks since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Turkey and Russia’s top diplomats discuss Ukraine ceasefire efforts, source says
Saturday 12 April 2025 12:13
,
Andy Gregory
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan have discussed efforts to secure a ceasefire in the Ukraine war, a Turkish diplomatic source has told Reuters.
The pair also discussed energy cooperation issues and bilateral relations during a meeting on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in southern Turkey, the source said.
Trump’s envoy ‘tells him quickest way to end war is for Ukraine to cede four regions to Russia’
Saturday 12 April 2025 12:42
,
Andy Gregory
Shortly after dining with a Russian negotiator in Washington last week, Donald Trump’s envoy to Moscow is reported to have told the US president that the quickest way to end the war would be to support a strategy handing Vladimir Putin the four Ukrainian regions he sought to illegally annex seven months into his full-scale invasion.
Steve Witkoff, a former real estate mogul, who met with Mr Putin on Friday, was said to have made the remarks by two US officials and five people familiar with the situation, Reuters reported. Mr Witkoff has previously been unable to name all four regions to which he referred.
However, Mr Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg is claimed by two sources to have pushed back against Mr Witkoff, saying that Ukraine would never agree to completely hand over all four territories to Russia.
The meeting is reported to have ended without Mr Trump making a decision to change Washington’s strategy.
Republicans called White House to complain after Trump envoy's interview on Ukraine, report says
Saturday 12 April 2025 13:10
,
Andy Gregory
Mutiple Republican members of the US congress were so alarmed by Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff’s remarks about Russia’s war during an interview with Tucker Carlson that they called the White House national security adviser and secretary of state Marco Rubio to complain, a source has told Reuters.
During the interview last month, Mr Witkoff praised Mr Putin as “super smart” and not “a bad guy”, while claiming the “central issue” and “elephant in the room” in peace negotiations is whether Ukraine can cede four regions – which he was unable to name – to Russia.
According to the report, some US officials worry that Moscow is taking advantage of Mr Witkoff’s – a former real estate mogul – lack of experience at the negotiating table.
“Witkoff must go, and Rubio must take his place,” Eric Levine, a major Republican donor, said in a letter sent on 26 March to a group including fellow donors to the party.
US demands control over Ukraine pipeline carrying Russian gas - report
04:16
,
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
The US has demanded control of a key pipeline in Ukraine that is used to send Russian gas to Europe, according to reports, while Kyiv negotiates a mineral deal with Donald Trump's administration.
Prospects for a breakthrough in the minerals deal between Washington and Kyiv were scant given the meeting's "antagonistic" atmosphere, a source told Reuters, following last week's meeting.
The US has demanded that the government's International Development Finance Corporation take control of a natural gas pipeline, which runs from the town of Sudzha in western Russia to the Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod.
Senior economist Volodymyr Landa told The Guardian that Washington's bullying “colonial-type” demands had little chance of being accepted by Kyiv.
Ukrainian prime minister Volodymyr Zelensky last week said a minerals deal should be profitable for both countries and could be structured in a way that would help modernise Ukraine.
The latest draft would give the US privileged access to Ukraine's mineral deposits and require Kyiv to place in a joint investment fund all income from the exploitation of natural resources by Ukrainian state and private firms.
The proposed deal, however, would not provide US security guarantees to Kyiv – a top priority of Mr Zelensky – for its fight against Russian forces occupying some 20 per cent of its territory.