There is a split in the Trump administration on how to deal with Vladimir Putin and approach a potential peace deal in Ukraine, according to reports. It comes as the Kremlin says initial talks with Washington on the matter are “intensifying”. Follow the latest on the Ukraine war.
Wednesday 5 February 2025 15:50, UK
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Ukraine’s military will create robotic vehicle units to deploy at the frontline, the country’s defence minister has said.
The ministry released an image of a robotic vehicle with a gun mounted on it as it made the announcement.
Moscow and Kyiv have been vying to achieve the technological upper hand since Russia’s 2022 invasion, and unmanned vehicles – in particular aerial ones – have become an important type of weapon.
With both sides deploying tens of thousands of drones each month in the air, a race is now on to replace as many soldiers on the ground as possible with Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs), officials say, with Ukrainian manpower reserves running short.
“The ministry of defence is launching a project that will scale up the use of unmanned ground systems in the military,” a statement from defence minister Rustem Umerov said.
Units on both sides of the war have already been using UGVs, usually controlled remotely by a pilot through a camera feed.
A report has suggested there are divisions between members of Donald Trump’s administration as to how to approach dealing with Vladimir Putin.
According to our partner network NBC News, Trump’s advisers and cabinet members are split over how much pressure to bring to bear.
Former US and Ukrainian officials along with a source close to the Kyiv government say national security adviser Mike Waltz and Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg want to use American leverage to force Putin to back down.
Others, however, are said to prefer reducing the billions of dollars in assistance the US gave to Ukraine in the Biden administration as a way of forcing a swift end to the conflict. Critics of that approach say it would disarm Ukraine and effectively prompt a capitulation to Russia.
Before becoming vice president, JD Vance vehemently opposed the funding given to Ukraine by the Biden administration.
“Why are spending $130bn on Ukraine when we can’t even pay our own bills at home?” Vance said in one speech.
As reported in our 13.00 post, there was an explosion near a military conscription office in Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi region, killing one person and injuring four others.
The blast was the latest in a spate of violent incidents aimed at draft and conscription offices in recent days, including a fatal shooting and two explosions.
Ukraine’s national police chief Ivan Vyhivskyi has now said Russia’s spy agencies were responsible for the series of explosions.
“We clearly understand, together with the security service of Ukraine, that this is a specific attack by the special services of the Russian Federation to… destabilise the situation,” he was quoted as saying by Interfax-Ukraine.
Polish authorities do not intend to send troops to Ukraine, the country’s defence minister has said.
Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told Politico: “Poland has clearly said from the beginning that it is not considering a scenario of sending troops to Ukraine.”
He said support for Ukraine would be a focus at the upcoming NATO summit to be held in The Hague in June. However, he expressed doubts as to whether Kyiv would be invited to join the alliance, something Ukraine has repeatedly requested.
His comments come after French President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea of sending Western troops to Ukraine.
In December, he and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk discussed the possibility of stationing peacekeepers there in the event of a ceasefire.
Russia and Ukraine have swapped 150 prisoners of war each in a deal mediated by the United Arab Emirates.
“Today is a good day for all of us,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram.
The post has since been deleted. It is unclear why.
He thanked everyone working to secure the release of Ukrainian prisoners held by Russia – “in particular the UAE” – but not specify what Moscow received in exchange.
Shortly afterward, Russia then confirmed the release was part of a swap deal that saw 150 of its own PoWs freed.
“Currently, all [the freed] Russian servicemen are in the territory of the Republic of Belarus, where they are provided with the necessary psychological and medical assistance, as well as the opportunity to contact their relatives,” a statement said.
One person has reportedly been killed and four others hurt in an explosion near a military conscription office in Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi region today.
The attack, reported by the Suspilne national broadcaster, was the latest in a spate of violent incidents aimed at draft and conscription offices in recent days, including a fatal shooting and two explosions.
Ukraine’s national police gave no additional details and did not mention casualties.
It was not immediately clear what had caused the blast.
On Monday, Ukraine’s army chief condemned a spate of violent attacks on draft officers, which have piled pressure on an already troubled national campaign to draft civilians grappling with faltering enthusiasm for military service.
Andrei Kartapolov, Russian State Duma defence committee chairperson, claimed yesterday that Russia does not need to conduct another partial involuntary reserve call up because Russia currently has the battlefield “advantage.”
It was the latest example of a Kremlin official seeking to justify the decision not to order another reserve call up.
Committee member Viktor Sobolev added that 740,000 people had signed Russian military service contracts, insisting that mobilisation would “only make things worse” because it would send people without any previous military experience or specialised skills to the frontline.
Deputy chairperson Andrei Krasov also claimed mobilisation was unnecessary because Russian military registration and enlistment officers were successfully recruiting new personnel.
However, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank said the comments were probably an effort to assuage fears among the Russian public of a widely unpopular potential new partial involuntary reserve call up.
“The Russian military may be struggling to recruit enough new military personnel,” the analysts said.
They also noted reports “that select Russian federal subjects are failing to meet their monthly recruitment quotas as citizens are less willing to volunteer to fight”.
ISW pointed out that the Russian MoD proposed a draft amendment this week to reclassify some illnesses, diseases, and disorders for conscripts and those signing military service contracts, meaning fewer will be disqualified from joining.
As we reported in our 10.31 post, UK Foreign Minister David Lammy is visiting Ukraine today to announce a further £55m in financial support.
During a news conference in Kyiv, he discussed recent Kremlin comments that indicated Moscow was ready to engage in peace talks.
“We do not see Russia serious about negotiations and serious about peace and the conditions that were set out by Putin last year were not any basis on which you could seriously expect a sovereign country to begin negotiations,” Lammy said.
“We in the United Kingdom have been at the forefront of supplying Ukraine with the military capability that they need.
” I have no doubt that when we get to a peace – and we will one day get to that peace – you would expect to see the UK of course playing its full part to ensure that Putin does not come back once again.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has postponed the rotation of its mission to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant due to a lack of security guarantees from Russia, Ukraine’s foreign ministry has said.
A senior Russian diplomat rejected Ukraine’s assertion.
“This is not the first time the Kremlin has used blackmail as a tool to intimidate international experts and undermine their independence,” a Ukrainian ministry spokesman said.
“We will not allow Russia to undermine the agency’s independence and impartiality in order to achieve its criminal goals.”
Russia captured Europe’s largest nuclear power plant shortly after the February 2022 invasion. The IAEA has deployed staff to the plant since September 2022.
Mikhail Ulyanov, a Vienna-based Russian diplomat said Moscow provided “all assurances” to the agency, while Ukraine was trying to introduce new demands.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said he would visit Russia later this week to discuss the situation in Ukraine and at the Zaporizhzhia plant.
Grossie has recently warned that attacks on Ukraine’s power grid could pose a risk of a nuclear accident by disrupting supply.
Moscow has regularly attacked Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, including substations, although it has avoided direct strikes on Ukraine’s nuclear plants which produce more than half of the country’s electricity.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has been carrying out his daily briefing with reporters.
Sky News correspondents listened in, and here are the key lines:
On contacts with the Trump administration:
“I can say the following here: contacts between individual departments do exist. They have intensified recently. I cannot give any other details”
On Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s stated readiness to meet with Putin:
“Readiness must be based on something. Readiness and desire. It cannot be based on a legislative ban on such negotiations for Zelensky. For now, it is impossible to perceive this as anything other than empty words.”
On Zelenskyy’s calls to give nuclear weapons to Ukraine:
“In general, such statements border on madness. There is a regime of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and so on and so forth. I’d like to think that in a situation where the palification of the current generation of politicians in Europe leaves much to be desired, that, nevertheless, some sober understanding of the absurdity and potential danger of discussing such a topic does exist in Europe.”
On Zelenskyy’s statement that Putin is his personal enemy and whether Putin considers Zelenskyy an enemy:
“There can and should be no place for emotions here. There should be a place for legal analysis. And absolute pragmatism. We need to be fully aware of what is happening. Our analysis suggests that Mr Zelenskyy has major problems de jure, in terms of his legitimacy in his country. Even despite this, the Russian side has remained open to negotiations. And the dynamics of developments on the ground, the dynamics of the special military operation very clearly indicate that, first of all, openness and interest in such negotiations should be demonstrated from Kyiv.”
On Trump’s proposal to resettle Gaza residents and create a resort there:
“Our position on the Middle East settlement is well known. The settlement can only take place on a two-state basis. This is the thesis that is enshrined in the UN and supported by most countries involved in this problem. We proceed from it. And we believe that this is the only possible option. As for the topic of resettlement, yes, we heard Trump’s statements. And we also heard and saw statements from Oman, the capital of Jordan, Cairo, the capital of Egypt, where they spoke of rejection of such an idea.”
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