Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to throw cold water on any possibility for peace with Russia last week when he told reporters that the Ukrainian public would never allow him to give up land in the eastern Donbas that is not yet in Moscow’s control.
Mark Rutte, the head of NATO, said last week that troops from NATO will be deployed “instantly” to Ukraine if a peace deal is ever hashed out between Kyiv and Moscow, just as the war approaches its fourth anniversary.
A retired French colonel said in an interview last week that for there to be peace in Eastern Europe, it is essential that Ukraine becomes a demilitarized zone, and ruled out western troop deployment inside the country if a peace deal is ever signed.
Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, was on the receiving end of another major Russian drone and missile attack early Saturday as negotiators met with the UAE to continue talks to bring an end to the war.
The European Union (EU) announced last week that it will indefinitely immobilize $246 billion in frozen Russian assets, a step in eventually deploying the funds to pay for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.
Ukraine acknowledged last week that it fired U.S.-provided ATACMS into Russia on Tuesday for the first time since the Trump administration lifted the ban, which was seen as a significant escalation because these systems require targeting and intelligence guidance to fire.
When Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau announced the arrests stemming from its investigation into an alleged $100 million embezzlement scheme, it delivered the news in a way usually reserved for Hollywood action movies, with explosions and suspenseful titles that reportedly captivated the country.
Ukraine’s state electricity transmission company announced Sunday that Russian attacks on energy infrastructure have left power-generating capacity inside the country at zero, and it was compelled to cut off power across most areas inside the country for up to 16 hours.
The Trump administration has lifted some previous restrictions that were placed on Western-provided long-range missiles given to Ukraine, which will allow Kyiv to reach deeper inside Russia—which was seen as a notable escalation.
Ukraine is going broke and will run out of money by the end of the first quarter in 2026, prompting a new sense of urgency in Europe to continue to prop up the country, looking to frozen Russian funds to fill the treasury gap, El Pais, the Spanish newspaper, reported, citing unnamed sources from the EU.