Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kremlin demands ‘radical changes’ to peace plans despite US optimism – UK Times

A deal to end the Ukraine war was “really close” and now depends on resolving just two main outstanding issues, president Donald Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy has said.

The two issues are the future of Ukraine’s Donbas region and the Zaporzhzhia nuclear power plant.

US special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, who is due to step down in January, told the Reagan National Defence Forum that efforts to resolve the conflict were in “the last 10 metres” which he said was always the hardest.

Speaking about the nuclear power plant and the future of the Donbas, he said: “If we get those two issues settled, I think the rest of the things will work out fairly well. We’re almost there. We’re really, really close”.

Russian forces have taken control of the villages of Kucherivka in Ukraine’s northern Kharkiv region and Rivne in the eastern Donetsk region, the Russian Defence Ministry has said.

Moscow carried out group strikes on Ukrainian transport infrastructure, fuel and energy facilities, military airfields and long-range drone complexes, the ministry added.

The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.

Ukraine faces a “pivotal” moment as Volodymyr Zelensky prepares to visit London for talks on peace proposals, a senior UK minister has said.

The Ukrainian president will meet Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street on Monday along with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Their meeting comes amid continued talks between Ukrainian and US officials on a Washington-backed plan to end the war.

On Sunday, Cabinet minister Pat McFadden said Ukraine’s security and self-determination would be “at the heart” of the leaders’ discussions.

He told Sky News’ Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: “The principle behind the talks will be for Ukraine to be able to decide its own future.

“This is a really pivotal moment now. Everybody wants the war to come to an end, but they want it to come to an end in a way that gives Ukraine that freedom of choice in the future.

“So, that means not just an end to the war but also security guarantees for Ukraine in the future, and not a completely toothless organisation which is unable to decide its future.”

British soldiers joined a major exercise on Nato’s snowy border with Russia as Finnish troops prepare to defend their country if their neighbour invades.

Around 50 men from the 3 Rifles, based in Edinburgh, spent six weeks training in the Arctic north of Finland, where they honed their survival skills in temperatures as low as minus 28C.

The C Company soldiers, who have previously had hot weather training in Kenya and Morocco, learned how to cope with icy immersion in water and how to avoid frostbite, and practised fighting in the snow and shooting while skiing.

They then joined the 3,000 conscripts, reservists and regulars from the Finnish Army’s Kainuu Brigade on Operation Northern Ax, in the forests of Vuosanka, around 20 miles from Russia and 400 miles north of Helsinki.

The British reconnaissance specialists carried out operations alongside the Finns on a wide-ranging and sophisticated simulated battle which lasted for five days and nights.

The operation was designed to test their defence, delaying, night combat and attack tactics, with commanders following the troops’ movement in real time to monitor their performance.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Czech president Petr Pavel says Vladimir Putin’s attempts to grab land from Ukraine echo Adolf Hitler’s actions against neighbouring countries – including Czechoslovakia – that preceded the Second World War.

Pavel says Putin’s argument that he is acting in the interests of Russian-speaking people living in eastern Ukraine is particularly alarming to those familiar with Czech history.

“For Czechoslovakia, the German minority [in the Sudetenland] was used as a pretext,” Pavel said. “The same narrative is used by Vladimir Putin.”

He said Europe and the US’s appeasement of Russia represents a failure to stand up for Western values.

“What we are doing now, I wouldn’t call it a betrayal of Ukraine,” he said. “I would call it reluctance – reluctance to protect the principles we all claim to protect.

“If we allow Russia to come out of this conflict as a victor, we have all lost.”

Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan for Ukraine has “evolved since it was first presented”, a Cabinet minister has argued.

It comes ahead of talks between Sir Keir Starmer, Volodymyr Zelensky, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz in Downing Street tomorrow.

Asked whether the prime minister would be able to tell the US president that the plan doesn’t work for Ukraine, Pat McFadden told Sky News: “I think that 28-point proposal has evolved since it was first presented. And the European leaders have played a role in that, as of course, has the Ukrainian leadership itself.

“So there are a lot of points to be discussed, but the principle will be the same, which is to let Ukraine decide its own future here, and not to reward Russian aggression, both in terms of the end state on the battlefield, but perhaps even more importantly, in terms of Russia’s ability to dictate Ukraine’s future.”

Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed the progress made at peace talks with US officials in Florida, saying the “next steps and the format” of further discussions had been agreed.

But with few new developments otherwise announced by either side, Ukraine’s ambassador to the US Olga Stefanishyna admitted that “difficult issues remain”.

Stefanishyna told CNN that “both sides continue working to shape realistic and acceptable solutions”.

“The main challenges at this stage concern questions of territory and guarantees, and we are actively seeking optimal formats for addressing them,” she said.

“More details will be provided once all information is compiled.”

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the “next steps” for talks with the US about post-war Ukraine have been agreed.

Zelensky joined his negotiators for a “very substantive and constructive” call with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during the third day of meetings in Florida.

“Ukraine is committed to continuing to work honestly with the American side to bring about real peace,” Zelensky said on Telegram.

He added that parties agreed “on the next steps and the format of the talks with America”.

Bulgarian maritime authorities have launched efforts to evacuate the crew of the oil tanker Kairos stranded off the Black Sea port of Ahtopol and believed to be part of the “ shadow fleet ” used by Russia to evade international sanctions linked to its war in Ukraine.

Last week, the Gambian-flagged 274-meter Kairos caught fire after an alleged attack with Ukrainian naval drones in the Black Sea near the Turkish coast. It was sailing empty from Egypt toward the Russian port of Novorossiysk.

The 149,000-tonne Kairos, formerly flagged as Panamanian, Greek and Liberian, was built in 2002. It was sanctioned by the EU in July this year, followed by the UK and Switzerland.