Emergency crews search through rubble following a Russian missile attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, February 12, 2025

Tuesday’s Coverage: Trump — Ukraine “May Be Russian Someday”

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1809 GMT:

European leaders are reacting to the statements by Donald Trump and his TV presenter Pete Hegseth, removing the US from support of Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion.

Responding to Trump’s announcement of direct US-Russia talks, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said nothing must be decided on Ukraine without Kyiv and Europe.

Speaking in Paris at a meeting of foreign ministers from Ukraine and its allies, Albares said “we need a just peace for everyone” and a war of aggression cannot be allowed to succeed.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock echoed that there must be Ukrainian input. She said it was very important that Europe is united with regard to Ukraine and that it must be prepared for negotiations.

“We have been ready for the last three years for peace, unlike Russian President Putin,” she said.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Europe would play its role in offering security guarantees for Ukraine even if NATO membership is not immediate.

He emphasized that there will be no just peace for Ukraine without Europeans being associated with negotiations, and that it is up to Ukrainians to decide the parameters of a peace deal.

In contrast, Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz focused on US Defense Secretary Hegseth’s rejection of NATO membership in NATO.

There was no invitation until now, and it is clear after this statement that there won’t be any. If the most important country does not agree with it, there is not point getting our hopes up that this invite will somehow come anyway.

I think it’s actually good this was said….There had been no from other countries anyway…and now we have a clear answer.

The Defense Minister also said that Poland was not planning to send any troops to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force.

UPDATE 1801 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke by phone with Donald Trump for around an hour on Wednesday evening.

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Trump posted that the conversation went “very well” and Zelensky “like President Putin, wants to make peace”.

He said further talks with Ukrainian leaders will be held during the Munich Security Conference on Friday, with the US side led by Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Zelensky said earlier that he had productive and constructive discussions with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who gave him a first draft of a potential agreement on Ukraine’s natural resources.

Trump has called for Ukraine to give his Administration rare earth minerals in return for military aid.

Ukraine War, Day 1,081: Zelensky — I’m Ready for Deal with Trump on Rare Earth Minerals

Zelensky said Ukraine is studying the draft, with hopes that a deal can be reached at the Munich Security Conference this weekend.

UPDATE 1708 GMT:

Donald Trump says he had a “lengthy and highly productive phone call” with Vladimir Putin and they agreed to start peace talks on Ukraine “immediately”.

Further supporting Putin, Trump said that they both “want to stop the millions of deaths taking place” from Russia’s invasion, and he bragged that Putin referred to his US Presidential campaign motto of “common sense”.

Rejecting Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s insistence that talks must include Kyiv and Europe, he said US and Russian teams will start talks immediately. They will call Zelensky to “inform him of the conversation”.

The US team will include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, and real estate investor and envoy Steve Witkoff.

Significantly, Trump excluded his envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, who had advocated ongoing military aid for Kyiv to ensure a position of strength at the negotiating table.

UPDATE 1617 GMT:

The Kremlin says it will not withdraw from parts of Ukraine in exchange for the return of Ukrainian-occupied territory in the Kursk region in western Russia.

Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this week, “We will swap one territory for another,” in a deal to end the Russian invasion (see 0859 GMT).

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said:

This is impossible. Russia has never discussed and will not discuss the exchange of its territory.

Ukrainian units will be expelled from this territory. All who are not destroyed will be expelled.

UPDATE 1552 GMT:

TV personality Pete Hegseth, who is also US Defense Secretary, says the Trump Administration is stepping away from Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s 35 1/2-month full-scale invasion.

Speaking to defense ministers in Brussels, Hegseth said Europe “must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine”.

He added, “We must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusory goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”

Hegseth did not indicate whether this was the Trump Administration’s acceptance of short-term Russian occupation, or a longer-term implicit acceptance of Vladimir Putin’s “annexation” of four Ukrainian regions as well as Crimea.

Putin seized Crimea in 2014. In September 2022, seven months after the start of the full-scale invasion, he declared that the Luhansk and Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south were part of Russia.

Kyiv would only achieve peace through “robust security guarantees”, Hegseth declared. However, he ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine and stressed that US forces would not be among “capable European and non-European troops” securing peace.

Any European troops deployed in Ukraine would not be covered by NATO’s Article 5 guarantee, he added.

Hegseth, a former talking head on Fox TV, said he was “here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe”.

A draft of the remarks said the US is no longer “the primary guarantor of security in Europe”.

The US is shifting its military priorities to defending its homeland and deterring China, Hegseth said. He called on European NATO to fill the gap by raising defense budgets to 5% of GDP.

UPDATE 1323 GMT:

The Kremlin says a Russian citizen was freed in the US in exchange for Moscow’s release of the American schoolteacher Marc Fogel (see 0705 GMT).

Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the unidentified individual would return to Russia “in the coming days”, and their name would be revealed once they are on Russian soil.

UPDATE 0859 GMT:

Moscow has acknowledged discussions with Ukraine about opening a humanitarian corridor for civilians in the Kursk region in western Russia.

“We’re working closely on this issue with Ukraine [and] the International Committee of the Red Cross,” said Russia’s “Human Rights” Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova. “There’s hope for a positive solution.”

Ukraine has occupied part of the region since last August. Moscow says more than 1,500 Russian civilians are officially estimated to remain in the Ukrainian-controlled areas, but displaced residents and Ukraine’s military say the true number is closer to 3,000.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said last Thursday that it was ready to work with Moscow on opening the humanitarian corridor, but had not yet received an official request.

The Kremlin had said on Monday that it was “doing everything possible” to support civilians in Ukrainian-held Kursk without directly addressing Kyiv’s proposal.

UPDATE 0737 GMT:

One civilian has been killed and 16 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day.

Air defenses intercepted six of seven missiles targeting Kyiv and Kryvyi Rih. They downed 71 drones over 11 regions, and 40 were lost to electronic counter-measures.

In Kyiv, one person was killed and four injured, including a 9-year-old girl.

A 78-year-old woman was injured during Russian attacks against Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine. Transport enterprises, a medical facility, a shop, and a gas station were damaged.

In the Donetsk region in the east, three civilians aged between 53 and 80 were injured by a Russian airstrike against the city of Kostiantynivka which damaged at least 38 houses.

Other casualties were reported in the Kharkiv, Sumy, and Kherson regions.

UPDATE 0715 GMT:

South Korea’s Defense Ministry has repeated that North Korea has suffered 3,000 casualties among about 11,000 troops sent to Russia.

The Ministry said 300 had been killed and 2,700 wounded fighting in the Kursk region of western Russia, part of which has been held by Ukraine since last August.

The Ministry added that North Korea has sent around 200 long-range artillery guns to Russia.

“There is the possibility of [North Korea] additionally supplying troops, weapons and ammunition going forward,” the Ministry said in a briefing to the Parliamentary Defense Committee.

UPDATE 0705 GMT:

Russia has released American schoolteacher Marc Fogel after a visit to Moscow by Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff.

Fogel, 63, had worked at the Anglo-American School of Moscow since 2012. was seized in August 2021 and serving a 14-year sentence for “drug smuggling” over 17 grams of marijuana, which the teacher said was for medical use, in his luggage.

Standing alongside Fogel, Trump said, “I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that war [the Russian invason of Ukraine] and millions of people can stop being killed.”

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said, “President Trump, Steve Witkoff, and the president’s advisors negotiated an exchange that serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine.”

Waltz did not indicate who or what else in involved in the “exchange”. It was not disclosed with whom Witkoff met and whether other matters, including Ukraine, were part of discussions.

The US special envoy for hostage affairs, Adam Boehler, indicated that another American would be released on Wednesday but did not say from where.

Officials said Trump secretly empowered Witkoff weeks ago to expand his portfolio beyond the Middle East, with the aim of opening a negotiating channel with the Russians.

“People briefed on the situation” said Witkoff had direct discussions with close allies of Vladimir Putin before the visit to Moscow. The real estate investor has also discussed Ukraine with contacts in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

UPDATE 0652 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine will hand over part of the Kursk region in western Russia, in return for an end to Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory.

“We will swap one territory for another,” Zelensky told The Guardian in an hour-long interview.

Asked which occupied territory Ukraine would seek, Zelensky responded, “I don’t know, we will see. But all our territories are important, there is no priority.”

Ukraine has held part of Kursk since a cross-border incursion last August. It moved into 100 settlements and around 1,300 square km (500 square miles), but Russia has retaken about half.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: One civilian has been killed and four injured by Russia’s missile attacks on Kyiv on Wednesday morning.

The victims, including a 9-year-old girl, were in or near an office building in the Obolon district. At least two are in hospital.

The strikes around 4:30 a.m. set fires throughout the capital. In the Holosiivskyi district, a blaze engulfed a 600 square meter warehouse.

Preliminary reports indicate four Iskander ballistic missiles were launched towards Kyiv.

Presidential Chief of Staff Andrii Yermak posted, “This is how [Putin] wants the war to end.”