“Ukraine – Russia”

WASHINGTON — The US and Ukraine will finally sign a long sought-after mineral rights agreement next week after months of negotiations, according to officials from both countries.

President Trump announced in the Oval Office Thursday that an agreement had been reached, estimating that it would be formalized April 24 at a location to be determined later.

In a little-noticed series of X posts early Wednesday, Ukrainian Minister of the Economy Yulia Svyrydenko announced that “a positive new step has been made in the ongoing progress with the United States on the Economic Partnership Agreement and the creation of an investment fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine.”

Two Chinese citizens captured fighting against Ukraine said they were “fed lies” by Russia and that Vladimir Putin’s forces were not as strong as they claimed.

In an evening press conference organised by the Ukrainian security service, Wang Guanjung and Zhang Renbo said: “All Russia fed us are lies. They’re fake. Russia isn’t as strong as they claim, and Ukraine isn’t as backward as they say.”

Germany’s prized Leopard 2 tanks are failing on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to an assessment by its defence ministry.

In a classified transcript of a meeting between a German defence attaché stationed in Kyiv and about 200 Bundeswehr soldiers, the diplomat revealed the difficulties Ukrainians are facing in operating the heavy weaponry.

Eighteen of the Bundeswehr’s mainstay Leopard 2 tanks made their way to Ukraine in 2023 after months of foot-dragging by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and a full-on national public debate about whether Berlin should send heavy weapons to Ukraine.

At least 32 people have been killed and 84 injured, including 10 children, after a Russian attack on the centre of Sumy, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the “terrible strike by Russian ballistic missiles” hit an “ordinary city street, ordinary life”, adding that without strong pressure, “Russia will continue to drag out this war”.

This is how Palm/Good Sunday looks like in Sumy, Ukraine. Served by Russian, orthodox terrorists.

I am asking MAGA “Christians” again, are you ok with that?! pic.twitter.com/RpFZougQ9s

— Mario (@PawlowskiMario) April 13, 2025

General Keith Kellogg suggests UK and France could lead western zone of control in interview with The Times

President Trump’s envoy to Ukraine has said the country could be partitioned “almost like Berlin after World War Two” as part of a peace deal.

General Keith Kellogg, a leading figure in US efforts to end the three-year war, suggested that British and French troops could adopt zones of control in the west of the country as part of a “reassurance force”, with Russia’s army in the occupied east. Between them would be Ukrainian forces and a demilitarised zone.

For two days, oxygen-starved Russian troops crawled nine miles through a pitch-black underground pipeline, creeping behind enemy lines and springing a surprise attack that wiped out the enemy in a blaze of bullets.

The Ukrainian soldiers had no idea that Operation Potok was coming.

Hundreds of men streamed out of the pipeline, storming Ukrainian positions north of Sudzha, pushing them back out of Russia in a triumphant counter-offensive to save the motherland.

The United States has warned that it will not be fooled by President Putin into “endless negotiations” over a ceasefire in Ukraine, as European governments criticised the Russian leader for dragging his feet.

Speaking at the end of a two-day Nato meeting in Brussels, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said Washington would “know soon enough, in a matter of weeks, not months, whether Russia is serious about peace or not. I hope they are”.

Rubio added: “If this is dragging things out, President Trump’s not going to fall into the trap of endless negotiations about negotiations.”

Aside from the rhetoric, there is a growing consensus among Western diplomats, military analysts, military officers, heads of state, and even much of the media about how to end the endless Ukrainian war.

A proposed peace will see a DMZ established somewhere along an adjusted 1,200-mile Ukraine-Russia border. Tough negotiations will adjudicate how far east toward its original borders Russian forces will be leveraged to backstep.

President Vladimir Putin has called up 160,000 men aged 18-30, Russia’s highest number of conscripts since 2011, as the country moves to expand the size of its military.

The spring call-up for a year’s military service came several months after Putin said Russia should increase the overall size of its military to almost 2.39 million and its number of active servicemen to 1.5 million.

That is a rise of 180,000 over the coming three years.

It was supposed to be the showpiece of Nato’s support for the war in Ukraine – the first of 14 almost entirely Western-trained and equipped brigades that would push back the advancing Russian army.

In reality, the 155th Separate Mechanised Brigade was, in the words of one Ukrainian war correspondent, “from its first days, complete organisational chaos”.

Announced during D-Day commemorations in Normandy last June by Emmanuel Macron, the brigade was given the finest French military instructors and weaponry at a cost of more than €900 million.