Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv’s forces make huge gains on battlefield ahead of Geneva peace talks – UK Times

Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Russia is planning a fresh round of attacks on Ukraine’s energy targets ahead of peace negotiations beginning on Tuesday.

Zelensky said new strikes would make it more difficult to reach an agreement.

In his nightly video address, the Ukrainian president said: “Intelligence reports show that Russia is preparing further massive strikes against energy infrastructure so it is necessary to ensure that all air defence systems are properly configured.

“Russia cannot resist the temptation of the final days of winter cold and wants to strike Ukrainians painfully,” he said. “Partners must understand this. First and foremost, this concerns the United States.”

The Ukrainian delegation has departed for Geneva where the third round of US-brokered peace talks will be held.

Vladimir Putin is becoming increasingly reliant on foreign fighters to fight his war in Ukraine, defence secretary John Healey said.

Russia is facing more losses than it can replace with mobilising more troops, he said, speaking on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

The mounting losses are forcing Russia to depend more on thousands of foreign fighters, including recruits from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Cuba, Nigeria and Senegal, he said.

They are “often recruited under false pretences and press-ganged under pressure without necessarily realising that they’re destined for the Russian meat machine on the front line of Ukraine,” Healey said.

His remarks come after Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov told his European counterparts that Kyiv was able to inflict more Russian casualties than the Kremlin was able to recruit over the last two months.

Healey added that North Korean troops committed to fighting for Russia are estimated to be around 17,000.

“Putin likes to give the impression that they’re making relentless and inevitable progress but he’s weaker than he’s been and more reliant than he’s been on foreign fighters,” Healey said.

Ukraine has sanctioned at least 10 Russian athletes who have actively supported Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, president Volodymyr Zelensky said.

The sanctions will apply to sports figures who visited occupied Ukrainian territories, publicly defended Russia’s invasion and occupation, raised funds for Russian forces, or organised events for Ukrainian children forcibly abducted by Russia, the presidential office said.

“This Ukrainian sanctions package should be a signal to others around the world – a signal that one cannot simply turn a blind eye to support for aggression,” Zelensky said.

“When Ukrainians at the Olympics are forbidden to even mention the victims of Russian aggression, that is clearly a global rollback of justice. We will restore justice,” he added.

Representatives of Ukraine and Russia ⁠are set to meet in Geneva in a few hours’ time for a fresh round of US-mediated peace talks that the Kremlin ⁠says are likely to focus on land, the main sticking point.

Russia is demanding that Ukraine cede the remaining 20 per cent of the eastern region of Donetsk that Moscow has failed to capture – something Kyiv refuses to ​do.

“This time, the idea is to discuss a broader range of issues, including, ⁠in fact, the main ones. The main issues concern ⁠both the territories and everything else related to the demands we have put forward,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on ⁠Monday.

The ‌venue has switched to the Swiss lakeside city after Abu Dhabi hosted two rounds of talks that both sides described as constructive but which failed to reach any major breakthrough.

Ukrainian soldiers have been able to make dramatic battlefield gains in the war-hit country’s east after Russian troops lost access to Starlink satellite internet, a US-based think tank said.

Ukrainian forces managed to recapture 201 sq km (78 sq miles) from Russia between Wednesday and Sunday, equivalent to the Russian gains for the entire month of December, the ISW’s data showed.

This is the most land retaken by Kyiv’s forces in such a short period since a June 2023 counteroffensive. The territory secured by Ukraine is mostly to the east of Zaporizhzhia city, where Russian troops have made significant progress since mid-2025.

“These Ukrainian counterattacks are likely leveraging the recent block on Russian forces’ access to Starlink, which Russian milbloggers (military bloggers) have claimed is causing communications and command and control issues on the battlefield,” the ISW said.

Starlink internet terminals used by Russian troops in Ukraine were deactivated earlier this month, dealing what one official said was a big setback for Moscow that had disrupted assault operations.

Russian forces have made unauthorised use of thousands of satellite-based Starlink internet connections for secure communications since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kyiv says.

Donald Trump is pressuring Ukraine to reach a deal with Russia ahead of the US-brokered talks in Geneva today.

“It’s easy… Ukraine better come to the table, fast,” the US president said, speaking to the reporters onboard Air Force One while en route to Washington.

Officials in Kyiv confirmed a Ukrainian delegation was heading to Geneva on Monday for another round of talks with Russian officials, ahead of next week’s fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Trump’s remarks did not call for action from the Russian side, which has been seeking Ukraine’s territory and political concessions from Kyiv without budging from its demands.

Moscow wants Ukraine to cede the entirety of the Donbas area, including areas it has failed to capture by force.

The Kremlin has said “the main issues” regarding peace in Ukraine, including territory, would be discussed in peace talks due to be held in Geneva this week.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky, military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov, and special envoy Kirill Dmitriev would take part in the talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States.

The Kremlin has rejected accusations from five European countries that the Russian state had killed late Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny two years ago using toxin from poison dart frogs.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the claims were “not based on anything”.

Navalny, who was Vladimir Putin’s most prominent domestic critic, died in February 2024 aged 47 in a far-flung Arctic prison, a month before Putin was re-elected in a landslide vote which Western nations said was neither free nor fair.

In a joint statement on Saturday, Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said that analyses of samples from Navalny’s body had “conclusively” confirmed the presence of epibatidine, a toxin found in poison dart frogs in South America and not found naturally in Russia.

Peskov said Moscow took a very negative view of the European allegations.

Hungary and Slovakia have asked Croatia to help to deliver Russian oil, Hungary’s foreign minister said on Monday, after disruption to flows via Ukraine.

A Russian attack on the Druzhba pipeline in Ukraine on January 27 knocked out flows to Eastern Europe, Kyiv’s foreign ministry said on Thursday.

Foreign minister Andrii Sybiha posted a photo on X of firefighters and what he said was Druzhba pipeline infrastructure burning, adding that Hungary had not publicly commented on the incident because Russia was to blame.

Sybiha’s Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijarto rejected Kyiv’s assertions, saying that Ukraine had not resumed oil transit via the Druzhba pipeline for political reasons.

“We request Croatia to enable the transport of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia via the Adria pipeline, as our sanctions exemption provides the possibility to import Russian oil by sea if pipeline deliveries are disrupted,” Mr Szijarto wrote on X.

“The security of a country’s energy supply must never be an ideological issue. We therefore expect Croatia, unlike Ukraine, not to endanger the oil supply security of Hungary and Slovakia for political reasons.”