Ukraine-Russia latest: Trump threatens Putin with ending war ‘the hard way’ unless he makes a peace deal

Ukrainians are using recordings of cat noises to lure Vladimir Putin’s forces into explosive-rigged traps, a Russian soldier has claimed.

With the grit and ingenuity of the Ukrainian army frequently evidenced in its success in defending against Russia’s vast invading force, it has now been claimed that they are turning to an unusual tactic in appealing to the Russians’ reported fondness for cats.

A North Korean soldier captured by Ukraine has said he did not know who he would be fighting against or where he would fight.

In the recording of the interview, posted by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on X, the soldier says he arrived with Russia along with 100 fellow North Koreans on a ship, before being later transported by train.

The soldier, who had joined the army aged 17 as a conscript, said some of his compatriots were trained on heavy Russian military equipment – but that he did not go through this training.

“I didn’t know before coming to Russia that I would be fighting here, in Russia and I didn’t even know who we were fighting against,” the soldier told Ukrainian investigators.

“There were a lot of casualties when I was there alone, starting from the battle on Jan. 3. Overall, it’s hard to answer about such large-scale numbers.”

When asked what he knew about the world outside of North Korea, he said: “Not much.” Asked what he knows about South Korea, he said: “I only know that South Korea has fewer mountains than North Korea.”

Donald Trump urged Russian president Vladimir Putin to “settle now and stop this ridiculous war” in a post to his Truth Social site yesterday.

He said he had no desire to hurt Russia — which he noted had played a major role in securing victory for the Allies against Nazi Germany in the Second World War — and has a good relationship with Mr Putin, but warned of penalties if the war isn’t stopped soon.

“If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries,” Mr Trump said.

Mr Trump has been sceptical of the billions of dollars the Biden administration provided Ukraine in weapons and other materiel to defend itself. He has often spoken of his desire to end the war and said on the campaign trail that he could end the conflict within 24 hours of taking office. That has not happened.

A pro-Russian candidate currently leads the Romanian polls four months before a crucial election in May.

Calin Georgescu, the far-right candidate who opposes Romanian support for Ukraine in its defense against Putin’s invasion, is the voters’ top choice ahead of a re-run of a presidential election.

The European Union state’s top court annulled the initial presidential election two days before the second round of voting, due to allegations of Russian interference.

The election of Georgescu would be a critical blow for Ukraine, which has relied on Romania to export millions of tons of Ukrainian grain through its Black Sea port of Constanta, trained Ukrainian fighter pilots and donated a Patriot air defence battery to Kyiv.

Georgescu is critical of NATO and has praised Romania’s fascist leaders of the 1930s. The EU court said he had benefited from a social media campaign likely orchestrated by Russia – Moscow denied the accusations.

But the latest polls for the first round show Georgescu set to gain 38 percent of the vote, with Crin Antonescu, leader of the pro-European governing coalition, sitting at just 25 percent.

British troops are looking after each other on a “massive road trip” to Romania as part of a major Nato training exercise.

More than 2,500 British personnel are moving across Europe by land, air and sea to take part in Steadfast Dart, Nato’s largest planned exercise of the year.

The exercise is intended to showcase the alliance’s readiness, capability and commitment to defend Nato territories.

It comes ahead of the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday, with much of the exercise taking place in Romania, which borders Ukraine.

North Korea has suffered nearly 40 per cent casualties among its forces fighting alongside Russia in the western Kursk region, Western officials told the BBC.

Out of the estimated 11,000 troops sent from North Korea, 4,000 were battle casualties in just three months of fighting – including those killed, wounded, missing or captured – the officials said on condition of anonymity.

Of these 4,000 losses, nearly 1,000 are believed to have been killed by mid-January.

Ukrainian officials are yet to release their own tally. North Korea has not issued any comment on the presence of its troops inside Russia.

Ukraine will not agree to Russian demands that it drastically reduces the size of its military in a future peace agreement, president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mr Zelensky warned that Russian president Vladimir Putin would demand that Ukraine reduce its military five-fold.

“This is what he wants. We will not allow this to happen,” Mr Zelensky said.

Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said Moscow will have to see what Donald Trump thinks a “deal” to end the war in Ukraine means.

“It’s not merely the question of ending the war,” Mr Polyanskiy told Reuters. “It’s first and foremost the question of addressing root causes of Ukrainian crisis.”

Mr Trump said he would add new tariffs to his sanctions threat against Russia if the country does not make a deal to end its war in Ukraine, and added that these could also be applied to “other participating countries”.

In the runup to his election victory, Mr Trump declared dozens of times that he would have a deal in place between Ukraine and Russia on his first day in office, if not before.

But the US president’s aides have conceded a deal to end the war could take months or longer. Earlier this month, the US Treasury hit Russia’s energy revenues with its hardest sanctions yet, targeting oil and gas producers Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, as well as 183 vessels that are part of the so-called dark fleet of tankers aimed at evading other Western trade curbs.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said European nations need to work together to defend their continent, and not wait for the Trump administration, at a time when it is under attack by Russia.

“Europe must establish itself as a strong, global player, as an indispensable player,” the Ukrainian president said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“Let’s not forget there is no ocean separating European countries from Russia. European leaders should remember these battles involving North Korean soldiers are now happening in places geographically closer to Davos than Pyongyang,” Mr Zelensky said.

“Does anyone in the United States worry that Europe might abandon them someday – might stop being their ally? The answer is no,” Mr Zelensky said.

The war-time president said that Europeans needed to devise a united security and defence policy and alluded to a pre-inauguration remark by Mr Trump, who proposed a massive hike in defence spending for Nato members to 5 per cent of GDP.

“If it takes 5 per cent of GDP to cover defence, then so be it, 5 per cent it is. And there is no need to play with people’s emotions that defence should be compensated at the expense of medicine or pensions – that’s not fair,” Mr Zelensky said.

Russia-installed officials in Ukraine’s partly-occupied Zaporizhzhia region said Ukrainian drones attacked Enerhodar, a city serving the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

“This is a terrorist act,” Russia-installed acting mayor Maksim Pukha told Russia’s RIA news agency, saying civil infrastructure and residential areas had been targeted. “Peaceful residents should in no way be targets of such an attack.”

Each side has accused the other of risking a nuclear catastrophe by attacking the station. Monitors from the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, are permanently stationed at the plant.

Russian media quoted the city’s authorities as saying at least four drones had attacked Enerhodar. It said there were no casualties and no details on damage were provided.

The governor of the part of Zaporizhzhia region held by Ukraine, Ivan Fedorov, said five drones had attacked the city of Zaporizhzhia, located about 60km (35 miles) northwest of the plant, across a large reservoir on the Dnipro River.

He posted a picture on Telegram of a large fire he said had been triggered by the attack.

Vladimir Rogov, a senior Russia-appointed official in Zaporizhzhia region, said the attack had disrupted power and water supplies in the city.