Russia invaded Ukraine almost three years ago.
Putin has demanded that Ukraine withdraw its troops from the four regions that Russia illegally annexed in September 2022.
A recent US diplomatic blitz on the war has sent Kyiv and key allies scrambling to ensure a seat at the table amid concerns that Washington and Moscow could press ahead with a deal that won’t be favourable to them.
In Ukraine the fighting continues, as soldiers on both sides battle for every inch of land and drone strikes are almost every day.
Follow updates from the frontline in Ukraine below:
23/02/2025: Russia captures two more villages in Ukraine
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Sunday that its forces had taken control of the villages of Ulakly and Novoandriivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
22/02/2025: Russian forces capture another village in eastern Ukraine, RIA reports
Russian forces have captured the village of Novolyubivka in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region, the RIA state news agency reported on Saturday, citing the Russian defence ministry.
Reuters could not independently verify the report.
The defence ministry said Russian forces had hit Ukrainian military airfields, drone storage sites and ammunition and fuel storage facilities, Russian state agencies reported
21/02/2025: Russia claims it has taken control of two more east Ukrainian villages
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Friday that its forces had taken control of the villages of Nadiivka and Novosilka, both of which are in the southern part of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
20/02/2025: Russia claims to be advancing in all directions
Russian forces have taken back more than 309sq miles of territory from Ukraine in the Kursk region of western Russia, or about 64 per cent of the total taken by Ukraine since an incursion began last year, a top Russian general said.
Colonel General Sergei Rudskoi, head of the General Staff’s main operational directorate, told the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper that Russia was advancing in all directions and Ukraine had been pushed into a defensive stance since February 2024 amid a major Russian offensive that took back considerable territory.
Rudskoi said Russia now controlled 75 per cent of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions and more than 99 per cent of the Luhansk region.
He said the four regions are now legally part of Russia and will never be returned to Ukraine.
“Last year was a turning point in achieving our goals. The Kyiv regime will no longer be able to significantly change the situation on the battlefield,” Rudskoi said.
“The enemy has largely lost the ability to produce the necessary weapons, equipment and ammunition. Mobilisation is usually forced.”
Rudskoi said the future of the conflict no longer depended on Ukraine but on whether or not the West would agree to craft a new European security architecture which took into account Russia’s interests.
19/02/2025: Russian attack on Odesa injures four, leaves residents in freezing cold
Russia launched a barrage of drones on Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa, hitting energy infrastructure and leaving at least 160,000 people without heating in sub-zero temperatures, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday.
The drone attack injured four people, including a child, and caused widespread power cuts, interrupting heating supplies to about 500 apartment buildings, 13 schools, a kindergarten, and several hospitals, officials said.
The temperature in the Black Sea port is currently about -6degC.
“Rescue operations are underway in Odesa after another Russian attack on the energy infrastructure,” Zelensky said.
“It is civilian energy facilities against which the Russian army has not spared neither missiles nor attack drones for almost three years.”
The Ukrainian military said that Russia launched 167 drones during overnight attacks on the southern Odesa region and other regions across the country. Air defence units and mobile drone hunting groups shot down 106 of them, the military said.
18/02/2025: Russia claims control of Yampolivka
Russian forces took control of the settlement of Yampolivka in eastern Ukraine, the RIA state news agency reported on Tuesday, citing the Defence Ministry.
Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield report.
18/03/2025: Large Russian drone attack injures civilians in central Ukraine, official says
A Russian overnight drone attack on the city of Dolynska in central Ukraine injured a mother and her two children and forced the evacuation of people from 38 flats after their apartment building was damaged, a regional official said on Tuesday.
“A difficult night for the Kirovohrad region,” Andriy Raikovych, governor of the Kirovohrad region said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “An enemy drone hit a high-rise building in Dolynska.”
The mother and one of the children were hospitalised, Raikovych added.
He posted photos of flames bursting out of windows of a high-storey apartment building.
Dolynska map:
Reuters could not independently verify the report. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
Both Moscow and Kyiv deny targeting civilians in their attacks in the war, that Russia started with its full-scale invasion on Ukraine nearly three years ago. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
The attack took place as top Russian and U.S. officials are meeting in the Saudi Arabia for talks – without the participation of Kyiv or its European allies – on how to end the war in Ukraine.
