Trump says US may have ‘good news’ on Russian war on Ukraine
Donald Trump has said his administration may have “some good news” soon on its efforts to end the war in Ukraine, something the US president boasted he could do within 24 hours of returning to office for his second term in the White House.
“I think we’re doing very well with Ukraine and Russia. For the first time, I’m saying that,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “I think we’re going to, maybe, have some good news.”
As we mentioned in the opening post, Ukrainian talks with Russian and US officials are due to take place over two days from Wednesday in Abu Dhabi. A White House official said US envoy Steve Witkoff would attend the talks. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian delegation would also hold bilateral meetings with US officials during the two days.
The Kremlin has insisted that any agreement has to involve Ukraine ceding the entire eastern Donbas region, including areas still under Ukrainian control.
As my colleague Pjotr Sauer notes in this story, Kyiv has strongly rejected those terms, although Zelenskyy has said he is willing to consider alternative arrangements, including the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from parts of the east and the creation of a demilitarised zone.
The first round of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi were held on 23-24 January, with no apparent breakthrough despite positive noise being made afterwards.
Nato chief arrives in Kyiv in previously unannounced visit
Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte has arrived in Kyiv. He will address the Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, according to the Kyiv Post.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, shared a video on X of himself and Rutte paying tribute to Ukrainian soldiers killed fighting for the country.
Maidan Nezalezhnosti. The People’s Memorial of National Remembrance. A memorial honoring our heroes, warriors, our people who defended Ukraine against the enemy, fought, and made the ultimate sacrifice in this war.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 3, 2026
Together with @SecGenNATO Mark Rutte, we honored the memory of… pic.twitter.com/ugWsJChlAV
Nato did not issue an official announcement regarding Rutte’s diplomatic visit, but this is not unusual given the heightened security concerns stemming from the conflict.
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A bit more detail on the brief energy ceasefire:
The Kremlin said on Friday it had agreed to halt strikes on energy infrastructure until Sunday at the request of Donald Trump, and Kyiv said it would reciprocate.
The Kremlin said Trump had made a personal request to Vladimir Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv until Sunday (1 February).
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the truce was supposed to last for a week, starting Friday (30 January). Ukraine and Russia disagreed on the timeframe for the truce.
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Putin 'waited for temperatures to drop to continue genocidal attacks on Ukrainians', minister says as energy ceasefire ends
The latest Russian attacks on Ukraine indicate the end of a brief energy ceasefire, under which Russian President Vladimir Putin was said to have agreed to temporarily suspend strikes on Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure.
The Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said the overnight Russian attack involved 450 drones and over 60 missiles, including ballistic ones, with the main targets being energy and residential houses in Kyiv, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Sumy and Odesa, alongside other regions. In a lengthy post on X, Sybiha wrote:
Putin waited for the temperatures to drop and stockpiled drones and missiles to continue his genocidal attacks against the Ukrainian people.
Neither anticipated diplomatic efforts in Abu Dhabi this week nor his promises to the United States kept him from continuing terror against ordinary people in the harshest winter.
We are dealing with terrorists who must be forced to stop violence. The world has the tools. Strengthen Ukraine’s air defense and energy resilience. Increase pressure on Moscow.
About 1,170 residential buildings in Kyiv have been left without heating, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, wrote in a Telegram post, as temperatures fell to -20C.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said yesterday that Russia had not carried out any targeted missile or drone strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in the past 24 hours, although Russian shelling hit energy facilities near the frontline.
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Europe and US to pursue coordinated military action if Russia persistently violates future ceasefire - report
Under a proposal discussed between Ukrainian, European and American officials, Kyiv has agreed with western allies that repeated breaches of any future ceasefire agreement from Russia would lead to a coordinated US-Europe military response, sources briefed on the discussions have told the Financial Times.
A Russian ceasefire violation would be met with a response within a day, starting with a “diplomatic warning” and a response from the Ukrainian army to stop the violation, three people familiar with the plan told the FT in a report which we are yet to independently verify.
If fighting continued, there would be a second phase of intervention using forces from the ‘coalition of the willing’, made up of over 20 of Ukraine’s allies who have agreed to provide Kyiv security guarantees once a ceasefire is brokered with Russia, which has so far been sticking to its maximalist demands.
If the ceasefire violation developed into a wider attack, three days after the initial breach, then a coordinated military response by a western-backed force involving the US military would be triggered, according to the officials.
American, European and Ukrainian officials discussed the proposals on several occasions in December and January, according to the FT.
British prime minister Keir Starmer – who has been at the forefront of the ‘coalition of the willing’ initiative – said last month after talks in Paris that the UK and France would send troops to Ukraine “in the event of a peace deal” with Russia.
Russia has repeated that it would regard the deployment of any foreign military forces or infrastructure in Ukraine as unacceptable foreign intervention and treat those forces as legitimate targets, the Russian foreign ministry said on Monday, citing foreign minister Sergei Lavrov
A second round of talks between Russian, Ukrainian and US officials on a US-drafted plan to end the war will begin on Wednesday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said over the weekend.
Despite the continuing diplomatic efforts to bring Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine to an end after nearly four years, attacks on Ukrainian towns and cities remain unabetted.
Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, its second-largest city of Kharkiv and other centres early this morning, officials said, triggering fires and dealing new blows to energy infrastructure. The strikes injured at least four people, officials in the two largest cities said. Stick with us as we bring you the latest.
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