Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin not preparing for peace warns Zelensky after Kyiv ballistic missile attack

Ukrainian forces launched a drone assault on Wednesday on town of Enerhodar close to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant in southern Ukraine, the Moscow-installed regional governor stated.

The plant’s administration stated no security violations had been recorded.

“The radiation background on the website and within the remark space is regular,” it stated on the Telegram messaging app.

The drones hit a carpark roughly 300 metres (yards) from one of many plant’s reactors, Governor Yevgeny Balitsky wrote on Telegram.

Information company Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the report. There was no instant remark from Ukraine.

Russian forces took management of the nuclear energy plant, Europe’s largest, quickly after President Vladimir Putin despatched his troops into Ukraine in 2022. All six reactor items are in “chilly shutdown” to scale back the danger of a nuclear accident.

Russia and Ukraine usually accuse one another of shelling the plant and the encircling areas.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the Worldwide Atomic Power Company (IAEA) has stationed everlasting screens on the website and urged either side to chorus from attacking it.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi warned final week that the variety of assaults on the plant had elevated, including that it was inconceivable to find out which aspect was accountable based mostly on research of the drone fragments.

Following the pre-dawn Russian missile assault on Kyiv that killed at the least one particular person and injured 4, we’re now listening to extra from Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky.

He stated: “This Russian terror towards Ukraine won’t cease by itself. Putin isn’t making ready for peace – he continues to kill Ukrainians and destroy cities.”

The assault comes amid hopes for renewed peace negotiations to finish the warfare that Russia launched on Ukraine practically three years in the past.

Donald Trump stated that he had been in touch with Kyiv and Putin over a possible take care of the Us president below strain to convey down spending within the area.

Later immediately, UK defence secretary John Healey will chair a gathering of Ukraine’s allies on the nation’s defence towards Russia.

The Ukraine Defence Contact Group assembly, which is able to convey collectively some 50 nations, is in Brussels.

Forward of it, Ukraine’s defence minster Rustem Umerov stated well timed weapons deliveries and joint initiatives with European companions had been on the agenda.

Along with speaking about the necessity to speed up air defence, aviation and ammunition shipments, Mr Umerov stated he deliberate to debate growing the quantity of European-produced arms provides and increasing Ukrainian manufacturing.

The newly appointed US Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth, who may even take part within the assembly, stated on Tuesday that he would push European allies to spend extra on defence.

As we’ve been reporting, Volodymyr Zelensky has provided to swap land seized in Russia’s Kursk area for the return of occupied Ukrainian territory as a part of potential peace negotiations led by Donald Trump.

The thought, nonetheless, has rapidly been shot down by Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Safety Council.

Mr Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008-2012, dismissed the proposal as “nonsense”.

He stated Russia had proven that it could possibly obtain “peace via power”, together with via drone and missile strikes which hit Kyiv on Wednesday.

Russian Telegram channel Mayorsky KortiZol printed a video on 5 February wherein a Russian soldier stated he was given a donkey.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky stated “solely robust steps and strain” can cease Russia’s terror in Ukraine after a lethal assault on Kyiv.

“Putin isn’t making ready for peace – he continues to kill Ukrainians and destroy cities,” Mr Zelensky stated on the Telegram messaging app.

“Proper now we’d like the unity and help of all our companions within the battle for a simply finish to this warfare.”

A minimum of one particular person has died and 4 others, together with a 9-year-old woman, had been injured in early morning missile strikes throughout Kyiv immediately.

Emergency providers scrambled to douse fires and entry damages to buildings in at the least 4 districts of the Ukrainian capital.

A Palestinian household have been granted the suitable to dwell within the UK following an enchantment, after they utilized to enter the nation via a scheme designed for Ukrainian refugees.

The household of six – comprising a mom, father and their 4 kids who had been aged 18, 17, eight and 7 in September – had been displaced after their Gaza house was destroyed by an airstrike within the Israel-Hamas warfare.

They utilized for entry to the UK utilizing the Ukraine Household Scheme to affix the daddy’s brother, who has lived within the UK since 2007 and is a British citizen, however this was refused in Could final 12 months after the Residence Workplace concluded the necessities of the scheme weren’t met.

The household, who’ve been granted anonymity, had an enchantment towards the choice dismissed by a first-tier immigration tribunal decide in September.

An additional enchantment has been allowed by higher tribunal judges on the grounds of Article 8 of the European Conference on Human Rights, which protects the suitable to household life, after a listening to in January.

Decide Hugo Norton-Taylor stated in his judgment: “We conclude that the respondent’s (Residence Workplace’s) refusal of the collective human rights declare doesn’t, on the actual information of those instances, strike a good steadiness between the appellants’ pursuits and people of the general public.”

The decide stated the proof reveals the safety and humanitarian scenario in Gaza stays “exceptionally harmful” and “dire”.

A Residence Workplace spokesman instructed The Day by day Telegraph it had contested the declare “rigorously”, including: “The latter court docket dominated towards us on the slim information of this particular case. However, we’re clear that there isn’t a resettlement route from Gaza, and we are going to proceed to contest any future claims that don’t meet our guidelines.”

A US schoolteacher who has been held in Russia since 2021 has been launched, the White Home has stated.

White Home nationwide safety adviser Mike Waltz stated Marc Fogel had been picked up by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s chief Center East envoy, on Tuesday,

The event was described as a transfer in “the suitable route” by Waltz, and comes as Trump seeks to set the muse for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

Fogel was sentenced to 14 years in jail for drug smuggling after he was detained in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport in August 2021 with 17 grams of marijuana – which he stated he makes use of for medical causes – in his baggage.

“We’re past grateful, relieved, and overwhelmed that after greater than three years of detention, our father, husband, and son, Marc Fogel, is lastly coming house,” the Fogel household stated in a press release.

The top of Russia’s highly effective Orthodox Church claimed that “weirdos” had been attempting to unfold paganism within the fight zone in Ukraine and referred to as for efforts to counter makes an attempt to weaken the church’s affect there.

Patriarch Kirill, a detailed ally of president Vladimir Putin, who has backed Russia’s warfare in Ukraine, stated: “I want to draw the eye of monks who go to the fight zone to the emergence of neo-pagan sentiments amongst some army personnel.

“Who would have thought that within the twenty first century ‘weirdos’ would seem on the territory of Holy Rus who would revive paganism?”

Holy Rus is an archaic title for Russia.

The Kremlin calls the invasion a “particular army operation” to “denazify” Ukraine. Kirill sees it as a conflict with a Western liberal tradition he considers decadent, particularly in its acceptance of homosexuality.

The clergy, who see makes an attempt to revive paganism within the fight zone, stated, “ought to present particular initiative with a view to utterly stop the affect of neo-paganism on the consciousness of army personnel.”

“The forces opposing Russia have engineered the battle in Ukraine, intending to make use of it to weaken our nation and the affect of the Russian Orthodox Church,” Mr Kirill stated with out citing proof.

He didn’t elaborate on what type of paganism was purportedly showing on the frontlines.