“Ukraine – Russia”

President Putin wished President Trump a merry Christmas on Thursday, the Kremlin has said, hours after President Zelensky appeared to wish death upon the Russian leader in his Christmas Eve address.

Putin sent Trump a congratulatory message, according to the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, but the leaders are not expected to speak on Christmas Day.

On Christmas Eve, Zelensky said: “Today we all share one dream. And we make one wish — for all of us: ‘May he perish.’” It is widely understood to be a reference to Putin. Beforehand, Zelensky hinted at a plan for demilitarised zones in eastern Ukraine.

Zelensky wishing for Putin’s death on his Christmas message:

My dear people, since ancient times, Ukrainians believed that on Christmas night, the heavens open.

And if you tell them your dream, it will surely come true.

Today, we all have one dream. And we have one wish for… pic.twitter.com/spaWEIsyoz

— Clash Report (@clashreport) December 24, 2025

As the coffin is carried through the cobbled streets of Lviv, a hush descends and passersby drop to their knees. Traffic comes to a standstill, a lone bugler sounds his tune and Stepan Telychko, the latest of the city’s fallen warriors, is sent to his final rest.

The mourners will gather at the graveside not in Lviv’s storied Lychakiv Cemetery, known as Ukraine’s Père Lachaise, nor in the adjacent military cemetery known as the “Field of Mars”. After almost four years of war, on December 10 it ran out of burial plots.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has given details of an updated peace plan that offers Russia the potential withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the east that Moscow has demanded.

Giving details of the 20-point plan agreed by US and Ukrainian negotiators in Florida at the weekend, Zelensky said the Russians would give their response once the Americans had spoken to them.

Describing the plan as “the main framework for ending the war” Zelensky said it proposed security guarantees from the US, Nato and Europeans for a co-ordinated military response if Russia invaded Ukraine again.

The latest haggling over ending the war in Ukraine appears to be focused on three elements, two of which could be labeled “promissory” and one “instant delivery.”

The instant delivery bit concerns an agreement to let Russia keep the chunk of Donbas it has conquered. That is what US President Donald Trump calls “territorial concession” by Ukraine.

In his latest meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seemed to have accepted such an outcome with the caveat that it be regarded as de facto rather than de jure.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has said there will be no more wars after Ukraine if Russia is treated with respect – and claims that Moscow is planning to attack European countries are “nonsense”.

In a marathon televised event lasting almost four and a half hours, he was asked by the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg whether there would be new “special military operations” – Putin’s term for the full-scale war.

“There won’t be any operations if you treat us with respect, if you respect our interests just as we’ve always tried to respect yours,” he asserted.

Volodymyr Zelensky is urging European Union leaders gathered at a crunch summit in Brussels to loan billions of euros in frozen Russian money to fund Ukraine’s military and economic needs.

Most of Russia’s €210bn (£185bn; $245bn) worth of assets in the EU are held by Belgium-based organisation Euroclear, and so far Belgium and some other members of the bloc have said they are opposed to using the cash as a “reparations loan”.

Russia has warned the EU not to use its money, but without a boost in funding Ukraine’s finances are set to run dry in a matter of months.

“I hope we will be able to get a positive decision,” Zelensky told reporters. “Without this there will be a big problem for Ukraine”.

What exactly is the ‘platinum security guarantee’ that Donald Trump is pushing Volodimir Zelensky to accept? While the full details remain confidential, the deal is described as an ‘Article 5 style’ guarantee after the clause in Nato’s charter that states that ‘an armed attack against one Nato member shall be considered an attack against all members’ and triggers ‘an obligation for each member to come to its assistance.’

Sounds reassuring. Except that little weasel word ‘style’ covers an abyss of real-world back-pedalling and caveats. For a start, Nato’s charter does not oblige members to actually take military action if one is attacked but instead leaves that decision to individual states. The ‘assistance’ required by Article Five ‘may or may not involve the use of armed force’ and can include instead ‘any action that Allies deem necessary to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.’ Whatever Trump’s ‘platinum’ guarantee may be, it will be less binding even than that.

The United States told Ukraine to accept its “platinum” offer of security guarantees or risk losing them completely.

US officials said Nato-style guarantees were on offer on Monday in Germany, at peace talks that could end the war if Ukraine agrees to cede territory to Russia.

But they also warned that “those guarantees will not be on the table forever”, in an apparent ultimatum to Volodymr Zelensky to agree to the terms.

Ukraine is willing to sacrifice its longstanding ambition to join Nato if it receives guarantees that the West would prevent another Russian invasion, President Zelensky has said.

The Ukrainian leader arrived in Berlin on Sunday for talks with European leaders and American officials, as President Trump’s envoys pressure him to accept territorial concessions to achieve a peace deal with the Kremlin.

A FEW days ago it seemed as though President Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan for Ukraine still had some mileage.

Last Tuesday the Epoch Times reported hopefully that ‘conversations involving Washington, Moscow, and Kyiv have continued since Trump’s proposed plan to end the conflict came to light in November’. Apace, in fact, the article commented.

Helpfully the ET reminded us where the talks began and where they stood (by last Tuesday). First it went through the original plan drafted by the US special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The 28 points covered an array of topics including territory, the military, future international relations, post-war reconstruction funding, and internal politics.

In the city of Pokrovsk, territory is constantly changing hands. Amid the ruins, Ukrainian troops risk their lives to deliver supplies and rescue comrades

When Joseph saw the explosives-laden drone barrelling straight towards his flatbed lorry, his vision darkened and the world switched into slow-motion. His thoughts turned to the two young soldiers riding in the back alongside a mountain of ammunition and drones bound for Pokrovsk.

“You don’t have fear in those moments, you just think of the lives you have to save,” Joseph recalled. He remembered swerving left in a split second, dodging the full impact of the drone, which crashed into the window frame and exploded, blowing out the windows. From the back he heard one of the soldiers shout: “I’m 300, I’m 300.”

The ‘coalition of the willing’ can barely defend itself, let alone protect Ukraine from Russian aggression

Sir Keir Starmer’s blatant attempt to undermine the Trump administration’s Herculean effort to end the Ukraine conflict would be a great deal more credible if he and his European chums had the military clout to back their alternative diplomatic offering.

While leaders of Starmer’s so-called “coalition of the willing” were at pains not to criticise US president Donald Trump directly, their unstated intention during their Downing Street summit this week was to encourage Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to resist Trump’s land for peace proposal.

None of England, France or Germany can control the Muslim invaders within their borders, Russia can’t be too worried about them.

If bear hugs were army divisions and brave words cash euros, Volodymyr Zelensky would have ended his tour of European capitals this week the best-armed and best-funded leader in the world.

‘We stand with Ukraine,’ vowed Sir Keir Starmer after hosting a summit for Zelensky and top European allies at Downing Street on Monday. ‘We support you in the conflict and support you in the negotiations to make sure that this is a just and lasting settlement.’ Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz declared that ‘nobody should doubt our support for Ukraine’ and added that ‘the destiny of this country is the destiny of Europe.’ France’s president Emmanuel Macron promised that Europe has ‘a lot of cards in our hands.’ Zelensky went from London to Rome yesterday, where his staunch supporter Giorgia Meloni offered more hugs, while Pope Leo gave his blessing.

As soldiers face endless Russian pressure, the prospect of dying to defend land that could be given away at the peace table is damaging morale

The explosion reverberated through the city streets as another drone hit, drowning out staccato bursts of anti-aircraft fire. The Ukrainian troops defending Kramatorsk barely batted an eyelid.

The largest Ukrainian-held city in the Donbas, Kramatorsk is at the heart of the country’s “fortress belt” — probably its strongest defensive line. A series of heavy fortifications run 30 miles down the H20 highway and around four large cities, Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostyantynivka, as well as several smaller towns.

For 11 years, President Putin has tried and failed to take these cities by force. First through hybrid warfare in 2014, then the full-scale invasion of 2022. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based military think tank, estimates it would still take Russian troops another “several years” to do so. Yet now President Trump wants to hand it to him as part of a US-brokered peace deal that would force Ukraine to surrender all its unoccupied territory in the Donbas.