Ukraine-Russia war latest: ‘Difficult’ peace talks end in under two hours after Zelensky slams ‘unfair’ Trump

Anti-corruption investigators in Ukraine announced Operation Midas last November as they identified a large-scale corruption scheme in the country’s energy sector.

Several high profile arrests have followed, but the country still has a long way to go to rid itself entirely of corruption, experts say.

Here’s what Midas means for Ukraine:

Russia is not only attacking the Ukrainian people, but also the American taxpayer, according to Kyiv’s foreign minister.

Andrii Sybiha wrote on social media that Russia has been “intentionally” striking US businesses in Ukraine, including the Boeing office in Kyiv, the Flex plant in Mukachevo, and the Bunge facility in Dnipro.

“Moscow claims it seeks a “business-first” relationship with the US, but attacking your ‘partner’s’ factories hardly constitutes a ‘partnership’,” he argued.

“These strikes demonstrate that the Kremlin’s seemingly lucrative proposals of economic cooperation are, in fact, nothing more than a ‘Potemkin village’ meant to buy time while dismantling American influence in Europe.”

Volodymyr Zelensky announced this morning that Ukraine had slapped Belarus’ longtime dictator with new sanctions.

He said: “Alexander Lukashenko has long been trading Belarus’s sovereignty for the continuation of his personal power, helping Russians circumvent global sanctions for this aggression, actively justifying Russia’s war, and now further increasing his own participation in scaling and prolonging the war. There will be special consequences for this.”

Zelensky said Ukraine would “significantly intensify countermeasures” against Lukashenko with help from unnamed partners to ensure a “global effect”, without specifying details.

The second day of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the US has begun in Geneva, Ukraine’s top negotiator has announced.

Russia’s minister for digital development said that foreign intelligence services can see messages sent by Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine using Telegram, Interfax reported today.

Russian authorities have imposed restrictions on the messaging app over what they say is its failure to delete extremist content amid speculation that the app will be completely blocked later this year.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff says the US-brokered talks between Ukraine and Russia in Geneva have made progress.

“President Trump’s success in bringing both sides of this war together has brought about meaningful progress, and we are proud to work under his leadership to stop the killing in this terrible conflict,” Witkoff wrote on X.

Witkoff and Jared Kushner were representing the Trump administration at the talks.

Ukraine’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov, the head of the National Security and Defence Council, said in a statement that the day’s talks had focused on “practical issues and the mechanics of possible decisions,” without providing details.

He said negotiations would resume on Wednesday for a final day.

Russian forces have been carrying out major strikes in recent months before and after the US-brokered peace talks but are still not utilising its full capacity, a US-based think tank has said.

They are likely refraining from fully maximising Russia’s strike capabilities in order to avoid upsetting US president Donald Trump, the Institute for the Study of War said.

“Russian forces have consistently launched large strike packages of roughly 400 to 700 drones and missiles in the days right before and after major negotiations in recent months, such as the August 2025 US-Russia Alaska summit, the November 2025 US-Ukraine talks in Geneva, the November 2025 US-Russian talks in Moscow, US-Ukrainian-European and US-Russian talks in December 2025, and two rounds of US-Ukrainian-Russian talks in Abu Dhabi in late January and early February 2026,” it noted.

ISW added that Russia may be “deliberately curtailing the size of these strike packages to maintain the facade that the Kremlin is interested in meaningful negotiations and to avoid Trump’s ire”.

A Ukrainian skeleton racer disqualified from the 2026 Winter Olympics has been awarded more than $200,000 to continue competing and advocating for his country.

Vladyslav Heraskevych was barred from the Olympic event last week for wearing a “helmet of memory”, featuring images of more than 20 Ukrainian athletes and coaches killed in the war with Russia.

Ukrainian businessman Rinat Akhmetov, owner of Shakhtar Donetsk football club and the Azovstal steel works, provided the funds via his charity foundation.

The amount is equivalent to the prize given to the nation’s Olympic gold medallists.

The US-mediated talks in Geneva with Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were “tense” but are set to continue on Wednesday, Russian news agencies quoted a source as saying yesterday.

“(The talks) were very tense,” the source told the agencies. “They lasted six hours. They agreed to continue tomorrow.”

The source said the talks took place in a combination of different bilateral and trilateral formats.