Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed hope that President-elect Donald Trump’s “unpredictability” may help end the war with Russia. Trump, who takes office on January 20, has said he will end the three-year-old conflict in nearly “24 hours” once in power, a claim that has drawn skepticism from Kyiv, which fears he will be forced to give ground on peace. . “He is very strong and unpredictable, and I really like to see President Trump apply his vagaries to Russia. I believe he really wants to end the war,” Zelensky said in an interview on Thursday with Ukrainian TV.
The Ukrainian leader could seek to build bridges with Trump and his team with the November elections amid Republican fears that vital military aid could be slowed or stopped altogether.. Zelenskyy said Trump could be “decisive” in the war. “You can stop Putin or, to be more precise, help us stop Putin,” he said, “you can do this. Zelenskyy said that for Ukraine, achieving a just peace means receiving solid security guarantees from its partners, joining the EU and an invitation to join Nato, an idea rejected by Moscow.
The Ukrainian military said it would pursue a Russian military base in Maryino, in the Kursk region, on Thursday.where Ukrainian forces hold chunks of territory after a major invasion. Ukrainian forces remain in the Kursk region after five months of troops being sent across the border, although the Russian military has recovered much of the lost territory. “This disrupts the ability of the Russian Federation to conduct terrorism against innocent Ukrainian civilians,” the Ukrainian military said in a statement via the Telegram news app. The Russian military said its air defense had shot down four missiles in the Ukrainian region, and a regional commander said the strikes damaged a high-rise building and other buildings in an adjacent street.
Ukraine has opened a criminal probe into desertion and “abuse of government” after hundreds of soldiers reportedly fled an army unit trained in France. investigators said Thursday. The 155th Mechanized Brigade, called “Anna Kyiv”, was one of several military companies formed last year as Ukraine sought preparations to boost Russia’s new offensive. The unit was to be composed of 4,500 soldiers, with France providing nearly half of their equipment. But his program has been beset by difficulties in what one lawmaker described as poor management.
Gas supplies in Europe were stable except for Moldova, which the EU said on Thursday, after a day of Russian gas transit through Ukraine. The delivery of Russian gas to Europe through Ukraine pipelines stopped on Wednesday, after Kyiv refused to renew the decade-long pipeline, which has cost both provinces billions of dollars. Although Russia’s gas imports are estimated to be less than 10 percent of the European Union’s gas in 2023 — down from more than 40 percent before Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022 — some members of the eastern bloc still rely more heavily on Russian imports. “The situation is stable with all Member States using a mixture of regular winter storage and imports from third countries that supply their stable consumers,” said Poland, which has just assumed the rotating EU presidency.
To cut off Russian gas supplies Moldavia in the Transnistrian region breakawayhowever, it forced the closure of all industrial companies except food producers. Mainly speaking, the Russian territory of about 450,000 people, which Moldova split with the Soviet Union in the 1990s, suffered an immediate and painful blow from Wednesday’s cutoff of Russian gas to central and eastern Europe through Ukraine. “All industrial efforts are idle, except for those engaged in food production – that is, directly ensuring the food security of Transnistria,” Sergei Obolonik, the region’s first deputy prime minister, told a local news channel. “The proposal is so broad that, if it is not resolved for a long time, we will already have irreversible changes – that is, businesses will lose their ability to rise.”