Ukraine war latest: Kyiv to reveal new peace plan as Zelensky rules out ceding land

Volodymyr Zelensky kicked off the week with a full on day of diplomacy, visiting each London and Brussels as he met with leaders of the UK, France, Germany, the EU and Nato.

Prime of the agenda was ongoing efforts to revise a US-backed peace plan, and the usage of frozen Russian property to fund Ukraine’s battle effort.

Listed below are some footage from yesterday:

Volodymyr Zelensky hailed his “good and productive” assembly held with Nato and EU chiefs on Monday evening, which he mentioned demonstrated unity in all their positions.

“We mentioned intimately our work with US companions on steps towards peace, safety ensures, and strengthening our resilience,” the Ukrainian president mentioned after the assembly, which adopted one other assembly with European leaders in London.

“Our positions have been aligned on all points. We’re appearing in a coordinated and constructive method. Thanks for the assembly and in your assist!”

Ukraine will current a revised peace plan to the Trump administration on Tuesday, as Volodymyr Zelensky seems to be to withstand US stress into ceding territory to Russia.

For weeks, Kyiv has been aiming to stability out a US-backed draft peace plan which was seen broadly in Europe as a capitulation to Moscow.

A busy begin to the diplomatic week noticed the Ukrainian president head to London on Monday, the place he met Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz, earlier than heading to Brussels within the night to fulfill Nato secretary normal Mark Rutte, EU Fee chief Ursula von der Leyen and EU Council chief Antonia Costa.

After talks between the US and Ukraine over the weekend, a revised 20-point plan was proposed – however there was nonetheless no settlement on giving up territory, Zelensky mentioned.

Russia’s Defence Ministry has claimed that air defences downed 121 Ukrainian drones in a single day, together with 22 fired at occupied Crimea.

Moscow doesn’t sometimes reveal the complete variety of enemy drones in its skies in a single day, so the determine is probably going greater.

A complete of 49 drones have been downed within the Belgorod area, it mentioned. Smaller quantities have been downed in different areas together with the Ryazan, Voronezh, Rostov areas, the defence ministry mentioned based on Ukrainska Pravda.

Britain and Europe should urgently unite to battle again in opposition to escalating assaults by Russia and different hostile states, Yvette Cooper is about to warn on Tuesday in a serious speech.

Ms Cooper will inform an viewers of diplomats that there’s an “escalating” hazard to the UK and Europe, including: “Throughout Europe we’re witnessing an escalation in hybrid threats – from bodily by to cyber – designed to weaken important nationwide infrastructure, undermine our pursuits and intrude in our democracies all for the benefit of malign overseas states.

Lithuania declared a state of emergency on account of threats to public security from smuggled balloons originating in Belarus, the federal government mentioned this morning.

Lithuania accuses Belarus of permitting smugglers to make use of climate balloons to move contraband cigarettes throughout the border, repeatedly forcing Vilnius airport to halt operations, disrupting air site visitors.

The period of the emergency measures was not instantly clear.

Belarus, which allowed its territory for use for Russia’s invasion in 2022 of Ukraine, has denied duty for the balloons and accused Lithuania of provocations, together with allegedly sending a drone to drop “extremist materials”.

Lithuania, a Nato and European Union member which was as soon as a part of the Soviet Union, has rejected these accusations as false.

Russia’s prime normal claims his forces are advancing alongside the whole entrance in Ukraine and have taken greater than 30 per cent of the buildings within the japanese city of Myrnohrad.

Moscow repeatedly claims battlefield successes which can be then refuted by Ukraine, and Kyiv has but to touch upon the replace by Russian normal Valery Gerasimov.

Gerasimov’s feedback recognized Myrnohrad, a city with a pre-war inhabitants of some 46,000 folks to the east of Pokrovsk, as a key goal for Vladimir Putin.

Russia, which makes use of the Soviet-era identify of Krasnoarmeysk to consult with neighbouring Pokrovsk, says it has taken the entire of the town and claims to have additionally encircled Ukrainian forces in Myrnohrad, which Russians name Dimitrov.

Ukraine has repeatedly denied Russian claims that Pokrovsk has fallen and says it forces nonetheless maintain a part of the town and are preventing again in Myrnohrad.

Russia at present controls 19.2 per cent of Ukraine, together with Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, Luhansk, greater than 80 per cent of Donetsk, about 75 per cent of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, and slivers of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk areas.

Ukraine says it’s holding its defensive strains and forcing Russia to pay a excessive worth for what it says are comparatively modest positive factors.

Putin mentioned final week that Russia would take full management of Ukraine’s Donbas area by drive until Ukrainian forces withdraw, one thing Kyiv has flatly rejected.

Russia’s defence ministry on Tuesday mentioned air defence programs intercepted and destroyed 121 Ukrainian drones in a single day.

Moscow sometimes solely studies on the variety of drones it downs – it doesn’t gives tallies for the whole fired or people who hit their targets.

A navy court docket in Russian-occupied japanese Ukraine has sentenced 4 Russian troopers to jail for the killing of Russell Bonner Bentley III, an American-born pro-Kremlin fighter and propagandist who lived for a decade within the occupied Donbas, reported the New York Occasions.

The Donetsk Garrison Army Courtroom discovered that Maj Vitaly Vansyatsky, Lt Andrei Iordanov and Sgt Vladislav Agaltsev kidnapped Bentley in April 2024 after encountering him filming the aftermath of an artillery strike in Donetsk.

Investigators mentioned the boys suspected him of being an American saboteur, ignored his declare that he labored for Russia’s state-run Sputnik company, and took him to a command put up the place he was crushed and tortured to loss of life.

His physique was later blown up and burnt in an try and disguise the homicide. The foremost and the lieutenant every obtained 12-year sentences, whereas Agaltsev was jailed for 11 years.

All three have been stripped of their ranks. A fourth soldier was given 18 months for serving to cowl up the crime, based on the studies.

The court docket additionally awarded greater than $65,000 in damages to Bentley’s widow, Lyudmila Bentley.

Bentley, 64, a self-described Communist from Spherical Rock, Texas, moved to the area in 2014 and fought with Russia’s Vostok Battalion earlier than changing into a prolific on-line advocate for Moscow.

Often called the “Donbas Cowboy,” he often declared: “I hate Nazis.”