“Ukraine – Russia”

This week, new regulations on the departure of young Ukrainian men, who might be subject to military conscription, came into force in Ukraine.

If they are under 22, they can now cross the border unhindered. “We want Ukrainians to maintain as many ties with Ukraine as possible,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said about the rule change.

Previously men aged between 18 and 60 had not been allowed to leave Ukraine. That’s because they might eventually be drafted into the army and the grinding fight against Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.

The majority of Americans in a poll do not think Donald Trump can broker a peace deal to end the Ukraine war.

According to the data, 78 per cent doubt that the US and its allies will be able to negotiate an end to the more than three years of fighting.

Meanwhile, 67 per cent of US citizens are either “very” or “somewhat” pessimistic that any peace agreement can be reached between Moscow and Kyiv.

I would not bet against him.

Ottawa is watching closely as U.S. President Donald Trump attempts to play peacemaker in the war in Ukraine.

Canada has volunteered to play a role in helping maintain peace in Ukraine, if a ceasefire deal can be reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to end the fighting that Moscow started in 2014.

The way the war ends could reverberate for decades.

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon has for months been blocking Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia, U.S. officials said, limiting Kyiv from employing a powerful weapon in its fight against Moscow’s invasion.

A high-level Defense Department approval procedure, which hasn’t been announced, has prevented Ukraine from firing any U.S.-made long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, against targets in Russia since late spring, the officials said. On at least one occasion, Ukraine sought to use ATACMS against a target on Russian territory but was rejected, two officials said.

The U.S. veto of long-range strikes has restricted Ukraine’s military operations as the White House has sought to woo the Kremlin into beginning peace talks.

Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelensky has accused Russia of “doing everything it can” to prevent a meeting with Vladimir Putin to try to end the war.

US President Donald Trump has sought to bring the two leaders together, but he said on Friday “that’s like oil and vinegar… they don’t get along too well”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Putin was ready to meet Ukraine’s leader “when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all”, accusing Zelensky of saying “no to everything”.

President Trump has accused Joe Biden of making it nearly “impossible” for Ukraine to defeat Russia because he restricted Kyiv from launching cross-border strikes.

In a post on Truth Social, the US president accused Biden of not allowing Ukraine to “FIGHT BACK”. Speaking after Russia struck a US electronics company in western Ukraine, Trump promised “interesting times ahead”.

“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader’s country. It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense,” Trump wrote.

Though you wouldn’t know from the smiles around the table at the White House this week, a trap has been set by Vladimir Putin designed to split the United States from its European allies. In Washington on Monday, Europe’s leaders, plus Sir Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelensky, agreed with Donald Trump that the killing in Ukraine should and can be ended as soon as possible. They lavished praise on Trump for reaching out to the Kremlin, despite having themselves treated Putin as a pariah for the past three years. And they even enthusiastically applauded the notion of security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5 “all-for-one and one-for-all” mutual defense clause as a way to safeguard Ukraine’s borders in the future.

Volodymyr Zelensky and his European counterparts believe that any eventual peace agreement must be protected by the deployment of ground forces to Ukraine, providing “security guarantees”. The intention is that these forces would serve as a tripwire-style deterrence against a future Russian invasion five, 10 or 15 years down the line. After reconstituting Russia’s military and economy thanks to post-war sanctions relief, Vladimir Putin or his successor might then decide to attack Ukraine. But the Russian military would have to deal with Western military forces as well as those of Kyiv.

Russia has launched 574 drones and 40 missiles on Ukraine in one of the heaviest bombardments in weeks, Ukrainian officials say.

One person was killed in a drone and missile strike on the western city of Lviv, while 15 others were reported wounded in an attack on the south-western Transcarpathia region.

The attacks came as US President Donald Trump spearheads diplomatic moves to halt the war. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the strikes highlighted why efforts to bring it to an end were “so critical”.

The main target of Russia’s overnight attack was one of the biggest American investments in Ukraine — an electronics plant or @Flexintl in Mukacheve on the Hungarian border. Hundreds of workers managed to flee to shelters just before two Russian missiles struck, according to… pic.twitter.com/4uykSa4aor

— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) August 21, 2025

h/t Mauser

German prosecutors say a Ukrainian man has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea, several months after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The man, identified only as Serhii K, was arrested in the province of Rimini and was part of a group who planted explosives under the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines from Russia to Germany, federal prosecutors say.

The blasts severed a key source of natural gas for Europe when leaders were facing an energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war.