President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed his hope: US President-elect Donald Trump's “unpredictability” could help end the war with Russia. President Trump, who will be inaugurated on January 20, has said he would end the nearly three-year-old conflict within “24 hours” when he takes power, a claim that would force him to give up land to make peace. There is skepticism from Kiev, which is concerned that the . “He's very strong and unpredictable, and I really hope that President Trump's unpredictability applies to Russia as well. I believe he really wants to end the war.” Zelenskiy said in an interview aired on Ukrainian television on Thursday.
Ukrainian leaders have been trying to build bridges with Mr. Trump and his team since the November election amid concerns that Republicans would slow or completely stop vital U.S. military aid. .. Zelenskiy said President Trump could “take the deciding role” in the war. “He can stop Putin. Or, to be more fair, he can help us stop Putin,” he said. “He can do that.” President Zelensky said that achieving a just peace for Ukraine would mean receiving solid security from allies, joining the European Union and receiving an invitation to join the NATO alliance, an idea rejected by Russia. did.
The Ukrainian military announced on Thursday that it had carried out a high-precision attack on a Russian command post in Maryino, Kursk region.the Ukrainian military holds part of the territory after a major invasion. Ukrainian troops remain in the Kursk region five months after sending troops across the border, but Russian forces say much of the territory lost has been recaptured. “These attacks disrupt the Russian Federation's ability to carry out terrorism against innocent Ukrainian civilians,” the Ukrainian military said in a statement via the messaging app Telegram. The Russian military said its air defense forces shot down four Ukrainian-made missiles in the area, and the region's governor said the airstrikes damaged high-rise apartment buildings and other buildings in an adjacent village.
Ukraine has launched a criminal investigation into desertion and “abuse of power” after hundreds of soldiers were reported to have defected from an army unit, some trained by France. Investigators said this on Thursday. The 155th Mechanized Brigade, nicknamed “Anne of Kiev,” is one of several military groups formed last year as Ukraine seeks to better prepare for a possible new Russian attack. The force would consist of 4,500 soldiers, of whom France would train and equip about half. But the development has been plagued with problems, including what one lawmaker described as sloppy management.
The European Union said on Thursday, a day after Russia's gas shipments through Ukraine were suspended, gas supplies in Europe were stable, with the exception of Moldova. Supplies of Russian gas to Europe through Ukrainian pipelines were halted on Wednesday after Kiev refused to renew a decades-old deal that has earned both countries billions of dollars. Russian gas will account for less than 10% of the European Union's gas imports in 2023, down from more than 40% before Russia sent troops to Ukraine in 2022, but it is one of the eastern EU member states. The sector remains heavily dependent on imports from Russia. Poland, which has just held the EU's rotating presidency, said: “The situation is stable as all member states are using a combination of normal winter storage and imports from third countries, providing a stable supply for consumers.'' “I am doing so,” he said.
However, the cutoff of Russian gas supplies to Moldova's independent Transnistria region has forced all industrial enterprises, except food producers, to close.. The predominantly Russian-speaking territory of around 450,000 people, which broke away from Moldova in the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union, was immediately dealt a painful blow by Wednesday's suspension of Russian gas supplies to Central and Eastern Europe via Ukraine. There is. “All industrial enterprises are dormant, except for those directly engaged in food production, that is, food security in Transdniester,” the region's first deputy prime minister Sergei Ovoronik told a local news channel. . “The problem is so widespread that if it is not resolved for a long time, it will already be irreversibly changed and businesses will lose their ability to get back on their feet.”
