02.02.2025

Euromaidan Press: Sergei Yefremov, commander of Russia’s Tiger unit, and other Russian officer died in Kursk Oblast after their vehicle hit a mine.

The Moscow Times: U.S. President Donald Trump's Ukraine envoy said Sunday that both Kyiv and Moscow would have to make concessions if they are to successfully negotiate a solution to the ongoing war.

The Kyiv Independent: Five people, among them two children, were injured after Russia targeted a minibus with a drone, Kherson Oblast Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported on Feb. 2.

Euromaidan Press: Ukraine has begun deploying drones in a novel way that effectively transforms them into sophisticated replacements for traditional improvised explosive devices, Forbes reports. This innovation was documented in recent social media footage from Kursk Oblast.

The Kyiv Independent: NATO Chief Mark Rutte has said he has ideas about any future peace negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow that are a "little secret" but will ensure Putin will "never try again" to conquer Ukraine.

RBC-Ukraine: The Pokrovsk sector remains one of the most intense battlefields on the front line. In the first month of 2025, Ukrainian forces neutralized 15,000 Russian troops there, according to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyi.

WSJ: The U.S. isn’t sure what to do with $2 billion that Russia has stuck at JPMorgan. The money was frozen after Justice Department investigators found Russia and Turkey had used a nuclear plant to sidestep U.S. sanctions (archive).

Reuters: Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said on Sunday that he was leaving for India for a series of 'important' talks.

FT: A Prague-led international effort to buy ammunition for Ukraine has come under threat by the opposition party of Andrej Babiš, who is slated to make a political comeback in elections later this year (archive).

ISW: A recent Russian drone strike on a Ukrainian naval drone suggests that Russian forces have developed a new method to offset Ukrainian capabilities in the Black Sea.

01.02.2025

AFP: Ukraine accused Russia on Saturday of killing four people in a strike on a boarding school sheltering civilians in the Kursk region town of Sudzha, which Kyiv has occupied for over five months.

Reuters: The United States wants Ukraine to hold elections, potentially by the end of the year, especially if Kyiv can agree a truce with Russia in the coming months, President Donald Trump's top Ukraine official told Reuters.

The Guardian: A fire onboard a Russian spy ship off the coast of Syria has underlined the poor state of the Russian navy as its toehold in the Mediterranean hangs in the balance, analysts and western security services say.

Reuters: Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine on Saturday, killing 15 people and damaging dozens of residential buildings as well as energy infrastructure across the country, Ukrainian officials said.

ISW: Russian forces are expanding their salient north of Kupyansk as part of long-term operational efforts to push Ukrainian forces from the east (left) bank of the Oskil River. Russian forces are also intensifying their efforts to close the remaining Ukrainian pocket west of Kurakhove.

Politico: The United States has already had "very serious" talks with Moscow about ending its war in Ukraine, U.S. President Donald Trump said late Friday, adding that discussions with Putin could yield "significant" action soon.

The Kyiv Independent: Russian forces launched missile strikes on Odesa’s historic center on the evening of Jan. 31, injuring at least seven people, according to regional authorities.

31.01.2025

Reuters: Germany's foreign ministry on Friday said it "strongly discouraged" citizens from travelling to Russia because of an increase in drone attacks on parts of the country in recent weeks and months, including the Moscow metropolitan area.

The Moscow Times: Russia’s military is offering recruits in the southern Samara region a record 4 million rubles ($40,600) to join high-risk assault squads in Ukraine, the independent investigative news website Vyorstka reported Friday.

The Kyiv Independent: Slovakia has banned Georgian Legion commander Mamuka Mamulashvili from entering the country after the government linked his unit to an alleged coup plot, Denník N reported on Jan. 31.

Politico: EU sanctions against Russia are bad, but it's all good when Donald Trump threatens to impose them, according to Hungarian PM Orbán.

Yle: President Alexander Stubb has approved another military aid shipment to Ukraine, Finland's 27th since the Russian attack began nearly three years ago. The latest package is worth almost 200 million euros. It brings the total value of the defence equipment delivered by Finland to Ukraine to 2.5 billion euros.

BBC News: Ukrainians can again bring their children to join them in the UK, after the government reversed changes to visa rules.

Reuters: Putin has authorised Armenian investment fund Balchug Capital's purchase of Goldman Sachs' unit in Russia, a government decree published on Friday showed, potentially paving the way for the U.S. bank to fully withdraw from Russia.

The Kyiv Independent: North Korean troops have not been seen for roughly three weeks in the areas of Kursk Oblast where Ukraine's Special Operations Forces are fighting, the unit's spokesperson, Colonel Oleksandr Kindratenko, told KI on Jan. 31.

Reuters: Ukrainian military said on Friday its missile and artillery forces had hit a Russian army command post in the Kursk region as a part of its effort to disrupt Moscow's troops operations and logistics.

The Kyiv Independent: The European Union is rejecting any connection between the possibility of resuming Russian pipeline gas purchases and peace talks on ending the Russia-Ukraine war, European Commission Chief Spokesperson Paula Pinho said on Jan. 30.

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