“Ukraine – Russia”

This week’s trial of three undercover operatives, accused of helping the Kremlin to wage a hybrid warfare campaign to “destabilise” France, sounds like a surefire recipe for drama, sophistication, and intrigue.

If only.

Over the course of three days, in a spacious, pine-panelled courtroom on the northern edge of Paris, the case against three seemingly unremarkable Bulgarian men, seated behind glass and shadowed by three police officers who seemed absorbed with their own mobile phones, unfolded with all the panache and excitement of a half-whispered lecture in a library.

Ukraine’s young men are fleeing the country, and that’s potentially fatal news for its increasingly desperate war effort. In August the Kyiv government allowed men aged 18 to 22 to leave the country for the first time the invasion, and since then some 100,000 have crossed the border into Poland.

At the same time increasingly violent Ukrainian army press gangs are helping to recruit some 30,000 new recruits a month, according to MP Fedir Venislavskyi. But thousands, perhaps as many as 20,000, desert or go absent every four weeks. Since the beginning of the war Ukrainian prosecutors have launched some 290,000 formal criminal cases for desertion.

He described how the war has changed in the past three-and-a-half years, since the time he sent back video of him guiding mortar fire from a hide 600 metres away from the Russian lines.

“The fast progression of this war was unreal. It started with (the Russians being in the) next building beside you, close quarters combat. The next time I went back, there were a few drones for reconnaissance and they were armed. And then all of sudden I came back after that and joined the Vendetta group (59th brigade, 10th battalion Ukrainian Army). And when I got there, the place was littered with $400 drones with IEDs (improvised explosive devices) on them.

An Italian court has approved the extradition of a Ukrainian man suspected of taking part in the 2022 explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, his lawyer confirmed Monday.

The explosions destroyed three of the four Nord Stream gas pipelines, which had become a contentious symbol of Germany’s dependence on Russian energy after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

One week ago I had the distinct feeling it was Groundhog Day, or as the Russians call it, Dyen Surka.

Amid US threats to pressure Moscow – by supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine – Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump held a telephone call. The result: the announcement of a US-Russia summit in Budapest.

Last August, amid threats of additional US sanctions against Russia, Putin met Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. The result: the announcement of a US-Russia summit in Alaska.

Déjà vu.

Donald Trump’s lead negotiator has been pushing Volodymyr Zelensky to hand over the entire Donetsk region to Russia in order to end the war in Ukraine, it has emerged.

Steve Witkoff, who has met with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, five times this year, told the Ukrainian delegation visiting the White House last Friday to surrender the territory its forces control.

It is one of the key demands made by Putin, who made clear in a phone call with Mr Trump last week that he still wants Ukraine to give up the stretch of land as a precondition for peace, The Washington Post reported.

Ukrainians’ hopes that President Trump might conclusively swing behind their cause have once again been dashed.

On Friday, after a meeting with President Zelensky, Trump said he was looking forward to meeting President Putin and advocating a peace deal that would leave Russia in control of almost a fifth of Ukraine: “Stop at the battle line and both sides should go home, go to their families.”

One British diplomat said: “It’s a powerful reminder that while the Russians can often be crass and clumsy, they can also be unexpectedly nimble. This time, they outmanoeuvred Zelensky, there’s no point trying to pretend otherwise.”

News of the phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, in which they agreed to meet in person to discuss the war in Ukraine, will have come as an unwelcome surprise to Kyiv.

The country is being hit hard.

The last 24 hours alone have seen Russia launch dozens of missiles and more than 300 drones at multiple targets.

Donald Trump has said that he will meet with Vladimir Putin in Hungary to discuss ending the Ukraine war after the two leaders held a phone call on Thursday.

The date is yet to be determined. The call came after Trump threatened to send long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine and as the president prepares to welcome Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House on Friday.

The US leader posted on his Truth Social platform: ‘I am speaking to President Putin now. The conversation is ongoing, a lengthy one, and I will report the contents, as will President Putin, at its conclusion. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’

Donald Trump has threatened to send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine if Vladimir Putin blocks a peace deal.

Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with the US president in Washington, DC on Friday, following two phone conversations this weekend in which they discussed the long-range missiles.

Provision of Tomahawks, which would theoretically allow Ukraine to strike Moscow and much of western Russia, would mark a major step-up in American support and a hardening of Mr Trump’s stance against Putin.

Barely two weeks on the job and Chrystia Freeland is making a global pitch that support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia should be viewed not as charity but a sound investment in the west’s collective strength.

In a Financial Times opinion piece published Wednesday, Freeland, who is Canada’s newly named special representative for the reconstruction of Ukraine, said there is a strong geopolitical business case for providing continued financial support to the eastern European country.

“It’s time to stop thinking of Ukraine as a victim and to recognize that it can be a victor,” the former deputy prime minister and transport minister wrote.

Germany is seeking to extradite a Ukrainian man arrested in Poland on suspicion of diving down to the Baltic sea bed to plant explosives in the 2022 Nord Stream gas pipeline attack.

The man, identified in Polish media reports as Volodymyr Z and by Germany as Vladimir Z, is described as a trained diver and is sought by investigators in Germany, who believe he was part of a group that sabotaged the pipeline, consisting of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines.

“He was part of a group of people who placed explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines near the island of Bornholm in September 2022,” Germany’s federal court of justice said. “The accused participated in the necessary dives.”