Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 02-26-2025

The European Commission said it would ‘react firmly’ to any unjustified tariffs brought on by the US.

US President Donald Trump lashed out at Europe on Wednesday, announcing new tariffs against the European Union and claiming that the group of nations was created to counter American power.

“I love the countries of Europe,” Trump said during his first cabinet meeting in the White House. “Look, let’s be honest. The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States.” 

US President Donald Trump also said he’s open to European troops serving as “so-called peacekeepers” in Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump ruled out offering US security guarantees for Ukraine in upcoming peace settlements. 

During his first Cabinet meeting in his second term, Trump said he would have Europe offer security guarantees to Ukraine instead when asked by a reporter about “what type of security guarantees” he was willing to make. 

In his latest comments, Trump said Putin had “no intention” of stopping the war and that Ukraine would have to make concessions in the pending peace deal.

US President Donald Trump claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin “wanted” the war in Ukraine and would not be open to ending the invasion if the American president had not begun pushing for negotiations earlier this month. 

“That war would have never started if I were president,” Trump said during his first cabinet meeting on Wednesday, repeating the claim he’d made for months on the campaign trail. 

The settlement was strategically important, as its capture would have allowed Russian troops to advance toward the Pokrovsk-Dnipro highway.

Ukrainian paratroopers have recaptured the village of Kotlyne near Pokrovsk, eliminating and wounding hundreds of Russian soldiers in a decisive assault operation according to a report by the Airborne Assault Forces.

In a Wednesday Telegram post, the Airborne Assault Forces, stated that the settlement was strategically important, as its capture would have allowed Russian troops to advance toward the Pokrovsk-Dnipro highway. Recognizing this, Moscow once deployed significant forces to seize the village.

Trump said that the agreement could help offset US military aid to Ukraine and generate significant future revenue for Washington.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump have confirmed that the Ukrainian leader is set to visit Washington on Feb. 28 to sign a deal on developing Ukraine’s mineral resources.

Speaking during a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 26, Trump announced that he and Zelensky would sign “a very big agreement” on Friday.

Heavy – possibly the most concentrated to date – NATO air surveillance patrols preceded the long-range drone swarms, but there is no confirmation of coordination with the Ukrainian strike.

Ukraine on Wednesday launched mass kamikaze drone attacks at oil refineries, port facilities, and air defense installations in the occupied Crimea Peninsula and inside the Russian mainland, scoring hits and setting fires at several locations.

A surge of NATO reconnaissance sorties monitoring Crimea and the Black Sea preceded the strikes by Kyiv, but it was not possible to confirm a direct link between the remarkably high Atlantic Alliance air activity over Romania and waters nearby, and the Ukrainian drone raids further east.

Rubio cast Trump’s cajoling of European allies to spend more on defense as consistent with long-standing calls from the United States across administrations.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Europeans should not fear for NATO’s future after alarm over President Donald Trump prompted Germany’s election winner Friedrich Merz to urge independence from Washington.

“My reaction is, NATO is not in jeopardy,” Rubio said in an interview broadcast Wednesday on Fox News when asked about Merz’s comments.

Many of the protesters held signs that condemned Russia as an enemy of the US and questioned why the US had turned its back on Ukraine.

The attack on Wednesday morning targeted airfields and oil refineries in Russia’s Krasnodar region and occupied Crimea, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) said in a statement.

Ukraine struck multiple airfields and oil refineries in Russia’s Krasnodar region and occupied Crimea in the early hours of Wednesday, Feb. 26.

The operation, undertaken by “units of the Unmanned Systems Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine [AFU], the Main Intelligence Directorate [HUR], in cooperation with other components of the Defense Forces,” targeted “strategic facilities of the Russian invaders in the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation and in the temporarily occupied territory of Ukrainian Crimea,” an AFU statement on Wednesday afternoon says.

Ukraine and the US reportedly agreed on a minerals deal draft where the US receives 50% of future income from newly developed resources but should reinvest in and seek “lasting peace” for Ukraine.

[UPDATES] As of 8 p.m. Kyiv time on Feb. 26, Ukraine’s government approved the signing of the mineral deal between the US and Ukraine, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal reported. 

The agreement will include six main points:

Ukraine’s Prime Minister says that the deal should establish an investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction, jointly managed and funded by Ukraine and the US.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal stated that Kyiv will not sign a rare earth elements agreement with the US unless it is tied to security guarantees – a condition already included in the draft deal.

According to Ukrainska Pravda, the agreement also aligns with Ukraine’s existing commitments with the EU in this sector.

Television footage showed far-right politician Calin Georgescu entering the general prosecutor’s office flanked by police.

Romanian prosecutors were questioning Wednesday far-right politician Calin Georgescu, who topped the first round of last year’s presidential elections but later saw the results annulled in a shock move that has shaken the country.

The country’s constitutional court in December annulled the elections following allegations of Russian interference and claims of “massive” social media promotion of Georgescu, who shot to prominence virtually overnight.

Putin hints at recognition for Zelensky but eyes pro-Kremlin leadership, tying rare earth deals to a Russia-friendly peace, and claiming openness for talks – without making concessions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin implicitly recognized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Ukraine’s legitimate leader and a future negotiating partner for Russia in his latest interview but made it clear he is angling for the installation of a new leadership in Kyiv favorable to Kremlin interests.

Putin concedes Zelensky’s legitimacy while eyeing a pro-Kremlin leadership

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the trip was not finalized while addressing reports that he was set to visit Washington on Friday to sign the mineral agreement with the US.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said his purported trip to Washington to finalize a mineral agreement with the US had not been certain.

Speaking to reporters at a Wednesday press conference, Zelensky said the details of the visit are not confirmed when asked about recent reports of his planned visit.

The world in focus, as seen by Canadian leading global affairs analyst Michael Bociurkiw in a quick review of the biggest news in international media today.

Donald Trump says he expects Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington on Friday to sign a minerals deal after a senior Ukrainian official says an agreement has been reached. Media reports say a revised version of the document appears to have dropped a US demand to get $500bn (£395bn) in potential revenue from accessing Ukrainian natural resources. However it reportedly does not give firm security guarantees to war-torn Ukraine - a key Ukrainian demand. Against a hostile backdrop where Washington has aligned with Moscow, it is hoped this agreement will pave the way for more co-operation between Kyiv and its once biggest ally. The US president has been pushing for access to Ukraine’s minerals in return for previous military and other aid to the country since Russia launched a full-scale invasion three years ago - BBC

When Mr. Trump was asked about the deal and what Ukraine would receive in it, he said: “$350 billion and lots of equipment, military equipment, and the right to fight on. “We’ve pretty much negotiated our deal on rare earth and various other things,” Trump told reporters, adding that “we’ll be looking to” future security for Ukraine “later on.” He added: ““I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Trump said. “I spoke with Russia about it. They didn’t seem to have a problem with it. So I think they understand … once we do this, they’re not going back in.” - CNN

Some optimists think Trump’s litany of insults against Zelensky is intended to shock Europe into action, but more likely his attitude has resulted from being stuck in Russia’s propaganda bubble.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Donald Trump of repeating Kremlin-inspired disinformation, after the US president falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia.

Zelensky also said claims that only 4% of Ukrainians trust him, also came from Russia. While he declined to comment directly on the poll, he pointed to a recent survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, which found that 57% of Ukrainians trust him.

The drone attack also injured two other people and caused serious damage to homes in Kryukivshchyna and Bucha, with eight additional houses affected by the blast wave.

A deadly drone attack, which struck a residential building in the Kyiv region overnight, killed Ukrinform journalist Tetiana Kulyk and her husband, Professor Pavlo Ivanchev, head of the Surgery Department at Bogomolets National Medical University, Ukrinform reported on Wednesday, Feb. 26. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hinted that Moscow would not stop at the currently occupied territories in Ukraine as part of peace settlements.

Moscow would not stop at the current contact lines in Ukraine and sought to capture the entirety of four Ukrainian regions it claimed to have annexed via illegal referendums, according to a Wednesday statement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“Some say: ‘Okay, let’s leave the line of contact. This is Russian, and this is Ukrainian.’ This will not happen. We have a Constitution based on the will of the people,” Lavrov said at a press conference, referring to Moscow’s illegal referendums in Ukraine.

US President Donald Trump had demanded Ukraine give access to its strategic minerals to compensate for the billions of dollars of military and other aid it received under Joe Biden.

The Kremlin said Wednesday that it was still waiting for official confirmation the United States and Ukraine had agreed on the terms of a landmark minerals deal.

US President Donald Trump had demanded Ukraine give access to its strategic minerals to compensate for the billions of dollars of military and other aid it received under Joe Biden.

Out of $65.9 billion in military aid the US claimed to have sent to Ukraine, only $18.3 billion materialized according to a new study. Weapons were overvalued, not delivered.

The actual aid from the US to Ukraine is three times lower than official claims from Washington, economists from a Ukrainian think tank found. 

“The US government has valued its military aid to Ukraine at $65.9 billion, whereas our estimate places it at $18.3 billion,” their research finds.

According to Lombard, European troops would be deployed only after a ceasefire is reached to ensure its implementation.

French Finance Minister Eric Lombard has said that European countries, including the UK, Germany, and France, are prepared to send troops to Ukraine to guarantee a ceasefire – with the expectation that the US will provide backup.

Speaking to Bloomberg Television from Cape Town, where he is attending a Group of 20 (G20) finance chiefs’ meeting, Lombard said there is broad European agreement on the need for such a deployment once a truce between Ukraine and Russia is in place.

America is losing sight of itself and its promise in the world.

When the non-NATO nation Ukraine responded to the triggering of NATO’s article 5 by the United States following the horrendous terrorist attacks in 2001 by offering to send her sons and daughters to the front line in Afghanistan, she was probably not expecting to be abandoned by that very ally less than half a century later.

It’s an old truth that you really get to find out about your friends in crisis. Bluff and bluster are easy. It’s when freedom is on the line that we get some truth.

This follows a previous round of talks between Russian and US officials on Feb. 18 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Russian and US delegations will meet in Istanbul on Thursday, Feb. 27 to discuss the reopening of diplomatic missions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced, as reported by Interfax.

“I think the meeting will show how quickly and effectively we can move forward,” Lavrov said. He did not specify who would attend but mentioned that “high-level diplomats” and “experts” would take part.

The visit would come after officials reach an agreement on the terms of a draft mining deal between the two countries.

US President Donald Trump said he “heard that” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is set to visit Washington on Friday, Feb. 28, to sign a resources deal.

Zelensky later said the visit had not been confirmed at a Wednesday press conference in Kyiv. 

Since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, Washington has not announced any new military aid packages for Kyiv.

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that air defenses – potentially other military aid – are not getting to Ukraine at present, but he suggested that the aid could be “sustained... maybe until” a peace deal is reached with Russia.

During Tuesday’s Oval Office press conference, Trump was asked by a reporter if “the war fighting equipment and the ammunition” from the US will be “sustained going forward for Ukraine and how long [will] it [be] sustained,” to which Trump suggested that it could go on “for a while.”

Latest from the British Defence Intelligence.

• After three years of the conflict, Russia’s land forces have been radically altered by the pressures of carrying out operations in Ukraine. Pre- invasion attempts to build a modern, professional force capable of carrying out complex operations have been reversed by substantial losses. Russia is now reliant on mass over quality to prosecute operations against Ukraine.
• Russia’s personnel casualties of over 860,000 killed and wounded have undermined Russia’s force quality. Most personnel currently serving in the Russian military have received minimal training, and Russian commanders use basic tactics to make advances, despite the associated high casualty rates.
• Russia has lost at least 3,750 main battle tanks and 8,400 armored vehicles. Large stockpiles of tanks and armoured vehicles, a legacy of the Soviet Union, have been the only means for Russia to be able to replenish these major losses.
• Despite the costs imposed on its land forces, the Russian forces have been able to impose constant pressure on Ukrainian defences. Russian territorial advances in Ukraine accelerated through 2024, although have slowed in early2025. Continued attacks have been underpinned by the Russian leadershio’s tolerance for casualties, and Russia’s land forces’ quantitative overmatch relative to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

One of Ukraine’s most acclaimed artists, known for his monumental sculptures, wows Odesa with Ukraine’s “Guernica,” a work gushing from a deep metaphysical wellspring unleashed by the war.

On Feb. 23, the eve of the third anniversary of the Russian invasion, the exhibition “Diaries of Time” by sculptor Mikhail Reva opened at Odesa’s Union Cultural Centre. Reva, a very well-known artist and beloved by the Odesans, has dedicated his production in recent years to the representation of the suffering and horrors of war with very evocative objects.

Since the Russia’s full-scale invasion began, pieces of exploded ammunition, missiles or drones, and wreckage of vehicles destroyed by the war have been collected for him from all over Ukraine. With those items he has composed dragons, crosses, pierced hearts and many other sculptures that recall very strong images, often drawing on Judeo-Christian- religious symbolism.

Kyiv has stepped up its air strikes against energy and military facilities on Russian territory in recent months, a campaign in response to Moscow’s relentless bombardment of its cities.

Russia’s defence ministry said Wednesday it had shot down 128 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russian regions and annexed Crimea, one of the largest such attacks since the start of the conflict.

Kyiv has stepped up its air strikes against energy and military facilities on Russian territory in recent months, a campaign in response to Moscow’s relentless bombardment of its cities and energy infrastructure.

With Russian strikes happening almost nightly for several consecutive months, millions of Ukrainians have been deprived of proper sleep - an overlooked consequence of the relentless attacks.

A Russian drone attack in the city of Bucha, Kyiv region, left one person dead and two others injured, Mykola Kalashnyk, head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration, reported on Wednesday, Feb. 26.

The victim’s body was discovered after a fire broke out in a two-story private home. Meanwhile, in Kriukivshchyna, another city on the outskirts of Kyiv, a 20-year-old woman and a 44-year-old man were injured. The attack also damaged five private houses.

The loss of 5.2 million Ukrainian refugees can cause total loss up to 7.8% of GDP annually if they won’t return home.

0.3 million more Ukrainians left the country in 2024 due to war, comprising the total number of 5.2 million refugees remaining outside Ukraine as of November 2024.

The longer the war lasts, the more Ukrainians settle down living abroad, according to the Ukrainian Centre for Economic Strategy (CES) research. 

Ukraine ranks 40th among mineral-producing countries, according to the 2024 edition of World Mining Data. It was the world’s 10th largest producer of iron in 2022.

Ukraine’s soils hold some five percent of the world’s mineral resources, which US President Donald Trump is anxious to secure, but not all of them are yet exploited -- or easily exploitable, according to experts.

Ukraine ranks 40th among mineral-producing countries, all categories combined (including coal), according to the 2024 edition of World Mining Data. It was the world’s 10th largest producer of iron in 2022.

Kyiv Post spoke with residents of Chernihiv who met the full-scale invasion close tothe Russian border.

In the early hours of Feb. 24, 2022 -  three years ago  - Russian missiles struck Ukraine’s largest cities while Russian tanks smashed through checkpoints on the borders with Russia and Belarus.

Images of Russian tanks were captured by a camera at the Chernihiv region’s border post on what was to become one of Moscow’s main axis for its march on Kyiv. The Kremlin plan called for the Ukrainian capital in three days but first the 300,000-strong historical city of Chernihiv, 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the border was expected to fall within a day.

Although neither side readily divulges information about casualties, a study estimates about 400,000 dead in total, with Russians suffering four times as many as Ukrainians.

Getting accurate figures for the numbers for losses on both sides of the Russo-Ukrainian War is difficult to get on “security grounds” combined with inaccurate record keeping – but we know the totals are horrendous.

A Moscow Times report on Monday tried to get to the bottom of how many military personnel and civilians on both sides of the war have been killed since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin implicitly acknowledged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as the legitimate president of Ukraine and Russia’s future negotiating partner while promoting a new information operation that aims to destabilize Ukrainian society and the Ukrainian military from within.
• Putin attempted to use new language to repackage the calls for regime change in Ukraine that he has demanded since 2021.
• Putin offered to make a deal with the United States on Russian rare earth minerals as part of efforts to outbid Ukraine on this matter and to push the United States to accept Russian offers of economic measures in lieu of any actual Russian concessions on Ukraine.
• Putin attempted to claim that he supports Europe’s participation in negotiations on Ukraine while continuing to show his unwillingness to make concessions and seemingly proposing Russian allies as possible future negotiating parties.
• Kremlin officials continue to exploit diplomatic engagements with Russia’s allies to reinforce Moscow’s narrative that Russia invaded Ukraine to protect Russian-speaking minorities in Ukraine.
• A delegation from North Korea’s Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) arrived in Moscow on February 25 at the invitation of Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, amid reports that North Korea may be shipping more material to Russia.
• Western officials continue to highlight the scale of European military aid to Ukraine.
• Russian forces recently advanced in Kursk Oblast and near Kupyansk, Lyman, and Velyka Novosilka, and Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk.
• Samara Oblast authorities reduced one-time payments to soldiers who sign military service contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) after temporarily increasing these payments in January 2025.
• The BBC Russian Service reported on February 25 that over 100 Russian government, military, and security officials accused and convicted of various corruption charges are fighting in Ukraine.
• The Kremlin continues efforts to use its “Time of Heroes” program, which places veterans of the war in Ukraine in government positions, to form a new Russian elite composed of loyal and ultranationalist veterans that will continue to militarize Russian society over the long term.
• Russia may be reopening a Soviet-era submarine base in occupied Crimea.

Kremlin brushes off Trump’s claim that Russia is OK with European peacekeepers, while the US think tank contends that Putin will stop at nothing short of total Ukrainian capitulation in any agreement.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials “have not abandoned their original war aims in Ukraine and continue to invoke their goals of ‘denazifying’ and ‘demilitarizing’ Ukraine and banning Ukraine’s ability to join any security blocs in the future, despite Russia’s failure to defeat Ukraine militarily over the last three years,” analysts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote this week.

Despite recent phone calls with US President Donald Trump, the Russian dictator’s recent statements appear to reject the possibility of a peace agreement with Ukraine and illustrate an appetite to protract the war.