Pope Leo XIV has insisted Europe must have a role in any Ukraine peace deal and criticised what he said was the Trump administration’s effort to “break apart” the US-European alliance. Leo spoke after meeting with Ukraine’s visiting president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “Seeking a peace agreement without including Europe in the talks is unrealistic, given the war is in Europe,” said the pope. “Guarantees are also being sought for security today and in the future. Europe must be part of this, and unfortunately not everyone understands this, but I think there is a great opportunity for European leaders to unite and seek a solution together.”
The Trump administration has released a US national security strategy that aggressively deprecates the US-European alliance. Leo said what he had read would “make a huge change in what was for many, many years a true alliance between Europe and the United States.” Additionally, some comments by Donald Trump suggest an effort “trying to break apart what I think needs to be an alliance today and in the future”. While some people in the US may agree with that effort, “I think many others would see things in a different way”, he said.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is ready to hold a wartime election within the next three months if Ukraine’s parliament will allow it and foreign allies help, Shaun Walker writes from Kyiv. It comes after Donald Trump accused him of clinging on to power and flouting democracy. Ukraine’s constitution forbids elections during wartime, when martial law is necessarily in effect. Zelenskyy, clearly irritated by Trump’s intervention, said that “this is a question for the people of Ukraine, not people from other states, with all due respect to our partners”.
Ukraine’s president continued, however, that “since this question is raised today by the president of the United States of America, our partners, I will answer very briefly: look, I am ready for elections. Moreover, I am asking … the United States to help me, possibly together with European colleagues, to ensure security for the elections, and then in the next 60 to 90 days Ukraine will be ready to hold the elections. I personally have the will and readiness for this.”
Zelenskyy’s political opponents have shied away from the idea of holding elections in wartime. “It would only cause harm,” said Serhiy Rakhmanin, an MP from the opposition Holos party. “He’s the commander-in-chief, and the country is in a position where we don’t have that luxury, whatever issues we might have with him. It would only help the enemy.”
Zelenskyy hoped to send an updated plan to end the war with Russia to Washington on Wednesday, after it was amended following talks with European allies. “We are working today [Tuesday] and will continue tomorrow [Wednesday]. I think we will hand it over tomorrow.”
A member of the UK’s armed forces died on Tuesday morning after an accident in Ukraine, Dan Sabbagh writes from Kyiv, in what is believed to be the first time a serving member of the British military has been killed there since the invasion. “He was injured in a tragic accident whilst observing Ukrainian forces test a new defensive capability, away from the frontlines,” said the UK defence ministry. British military personnel are in Ukraine in small numbers in support of the country’s armed forces, and to guard the British embassy, though their presence has been acknowledged only in limited and careful disclosures.
Ukrainian troops have been holding parts of the city of Pokrovsk since mid-November but some units were ordered to withdraw from impractical positions outside the city in the past week, Ukraine’s top commander, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, has been quoted as saying. The situation around Pokrovsk remained difficult with Russia massing 156,000 soldiers around it. Russia’s military last week said its forces had captured Pokrovsk, but Ukrainian officials denied its complete fall.
Syrskyi, quoted by public broadcaster Suspilne, said Ukrainian forces had made gains from mid-November. “From November 15 as a result of offensive action, we secured about 13 square kilometres [five square miles]. We are continuing to hold the northern part of the city, approximately up to the rail line. In addition, to the west of Pokrovsk, we have cleared and control about 54 sq km … At the same time, I gave an order a few days ago to withdraw our troops from about 5-7 km (3-4 miles) from Pokrovsk, where they had remained,” he said. “Rotation was no longer possible and the enemy was slipping through. There was no point in keeping them there any longer.”
Ukraine faces possibly its toughest winter since Russia invaded, the head of the country’s state-run gas operator has sad, accusing Moscow of being determined to cut off heating to civilians as temperatures plunge below zero. The Naftogaz CEO Sergiy Koretsky said: “The destruction and losses of Ukrainian gas production are significant. And the restoration of this production will be lengthy.”
Ukraine’s national grid operator said on Tuesday that emergency power cuts had been introduced in most regions because of Russian attacks on the energy system. Roughly half of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv’s residents were experiencing power cuts, said the energy ministry: “The situation in Kyiv remains one of the most difficult.” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that Ukraine was ready for an energy ceasefire if Russia agreed.
An Armenian, a Ukrainian and a Russian went on trial in Frankfurt, Germany on Tuesday accused of tailing a former soldier for Ukraine on behalf of a Russian intelligence service for a possible assassination plot. Prosecutors charge that they tried to lure the Georgia-born former soldier for the Ukrainian army to a Frankfurt cafe last year, but the target became suspicious and contacted police.
A Spanish court has wound down its probe into the killing of a Russian pilot who defected with his helicopter to Ukraine and was found shot dead in a garage on Spain’s Mediterranean coast in 2024. The court said on Tuesday it could not identify any perpetrators. Maxim Kuzminov flew to Ukraine with his Mi-8 helicopter in August 2023 and was found shot dead on 13 February 2024 in an underground garage in the south-eastern Spanish town of Villajoyosa. His body was riddled with bullets and he was carrying a Ukrainian passport under a suspected fake name. The case could be reopened if new evidence emerges.
