Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv’s forces advance in Kursk as Trump claims Putin ‘wants dying to stop’
US president Donald Trump said he has talked to Russian president Vladimir Putin on the phone where the two leaders discussed an end to the war in Ukraine.
Mr Trump said that he had “better not say,” when asked how many times the two leaders have spoken in an interview aboard Air Force One on Friday.”He (Putin) wants to see people stop dying,” Mr Trump told the New York Post.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he could neither confirm nor deny the report.
Meanwhile on the battlefield, Ukrainian forces have advanced further along a highway inside Russia’s western region of Kursk, where they launched another attack on Friday, according to a US-based think tank.
“Geolocated footage published on 9 February indicates that Ukrainian forces recently advanced along the 38K-028 Sudzha-Oboyan highway southwest of Russkaya Konopelka,” the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment.
Next week, Mr Trump is likely to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss Ukraine’s efforts to repel the Russian invaders, and the US president’s own peace proposal. Mr Zelensky has said any peace deal must include security guarantees that ensure there can be no future Russian aggression.
