L to R: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky; UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer; French President Emmanuel Macron; and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in front of 10 Downing Street, London, December 8, 2025 (Kin Cheung/AP)

Thursday’s Coverage: Zelensky — Outcome of Talks “Not Sufficient” to End Russia’s Invasion

UPDATE 1332 GMT:

Drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials and insiders in multiple countries, Shaun Walker of The Guardian details how the US and the UK uncovered Vladimir Putin’s plans to invade Ukraine — and why Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed the warnings.

At the end of October 2021, the CIA and Britain’s MI6 sent memoranda to Kyiv outlining new intelligence assessments. The next week, after CIA Director Burns returned from Moscow with concerns from a meeting with Vladimir Putin, two US officials in the delegation briefed two senior Ukrainian officials in Kyiv.

“We basically said: ‘We will follow up. You’ll see the intel. This is not a normal warning, this is really serious. Trust us,’” said Eric Green, one of the US officials.

In mid-November, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace told Zelensky in Kyiv that London believedthe Russian invasion was a matter of “when”, not “if”. He urged Zelensky to start preparing the country for war: “You can’t fatten up a pig on market day.”

But Zelensky feared Putin’s scheme was to stir up panic about the possible invasion, leading to economic and political crisis. So in November, he dispatched one of his most senior security officials to a European capital with the message: the invasion scare is fake, and is all about the US trying to leverage pressure on Russia.

A European intelligence official said, “The message [from Kyiv] was: ‘Nothing is going to happen, it’s all sabre-rattling.’ They thought the absolute maximum possible was a skirmish in the Donbas [the Donetsk and Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine].”

UPDATE 1315 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that around 12,000 North Korean soldiers, deployed in Russia, are being trained in modern hybrid warfare.

In an interview with the Japanese outlet Kyodo News, Zelensky said the development was “extremely dangerous”:

They are learning on the territory of Russia now, because we are responding to Russia’s attacks….What will they do with this knowledge? At the very least, they will bring this knowledge and experience home to North Korea.

Pyongyang sent the troop to bolster Russian forces after Ukraine’s cross-border incursion into the Kursk region in western Russia in August 2024.

UPDATE 1306 GMT:

Ten suspects have been arrested in Ukraine and Moldova on suspicion of planning to assassinate senior Ukrainian political figures.

The men operated on Russia’s orders, with payouts of up to $100,000, according to Ukrainian authorities.

“As part of the work of a joint investigative team of Ukrainian and Moldovan law enforcement officers, an organised group has been exposed that was preparing contract killings of well-known Ukrainian citizens and foreigners,” said Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko.

Officers carried out 20 searches across Ukraine and confiscated money, weapons, explosives, and communications with Russian handlers.

Authorities only named one of the targeted Ukrainian officials — Andriy Yusov, who works on strategic communications for the Ukrainian military and coordinates prisoner exchanges with Russia.

UPDATE 0717 GMT:

A Russian general has boasted about the torture and killing of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Roman Demurchiev, 49, was promoted to major general by Vladimir Putin in 2023. He was the deputy commander of Russia’s 20th Combined Arms Army until at least December 2024.

In an archive of his messages, videos, and photographs, obtained by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, he told fellow officers and his wife of the war crimes against Ukrainian troops.

Demurchiev repeatedly mentions the severed ears of Ukrainian POWs. As proof of his claims, he shared graphic photographs.

The general sent his wife a photo of several ears and said he would “string them into a garland and give them as a gift”.

His wife replied, “Like pig ears to go with beer.”

UPDATE 0611 GMT:

More than 1,000 Kenyans have been lured to fight for Russia in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

An intelligence report for the Kenyan Parliament set out the scale of the operation, promising work for men but then forcing them into the military once they reached Russia.

The majority leader of Kenya’s national assembly, Kimani Ichung’wah, said “rogue recruitment agencies and individuals in Kenya” were continuing to send Kenyan nationals to fight in the conflict.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says Europe’s security must be part of any settlement to end Russia’s 4-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Commenting on this week’s third set of Ukraine-Russia-US talks, Zelensky said in his nightly address to the nation that he will meet with Ukraine’s negotiators on Friday over “our next steps and decisions”.

We will also define the further framework of our dialogue with the American side, with the Europeans, and with the Russian side.

It is important that the Europeans were present in Switzerland. This is exactly how we intend to work going forward – to ensure that Europe’s positions are taken into account.

Zelensky said on Wednesday night that the “military group” in the talks had made progress on the technical aspects and capabilities of a monitoring mission for a ceasefire. The Americans “will play a leading role”.

However, the Russians were blocking any progress in the “political group”, instead subjecting negotiators to lengthy diatribes about Moscow’s historical claim to all of Ukraine.

Costa: Talks on Ukraine’s EU Membership “As Soon As Possible”

European Council president António Costa said on Thursday that the European Union is eager to begin Ukraine’s membership talks “as soon as possible”.

However, Costa did not set a target date for accession: “I cannot say if it’s in 2027 or even in 2026 or later, but what is important is we cannot lose the momentum,” he said during a visit to Norway’s capital Oslo.

Zelensky has said that he wants confirmation of Kyiv’s membership in 2027. But some EU members have pushed back, saying that timeframe is not possible.

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