Ukraine-Russia war latest: US to lead talks in Saudi Arabia as Trump warns Ukraine ‘may not survive’

Russian military war bloggers are claiming that Russia’s forces are advancing further in Kursk as part of a major encirclement operation aimed at forcing thousands of Ukrainian soldiers to either flee or surrender in western Russia.

Russian forces have cleared the settlement of Ivashkovsky and are advancing on the so called “cauldron” in Kursk from at least seven directions, according to the Two Majors war blogger.

Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger, said he was having trouble keeping up with events as the Russian advance was so swift and that Ukrainian units were trapped in several pockets in Kursk.

The claims came as Russia said it had recaptured three more settlements in Kursk yesterday after special forces crept for miles through a gas pipeline near the town of Sudzha in an attempt to surprise Ukrainian forces.

Volodymyr Zelensky is headed to Saudi Arabia to meet Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman today, ahead of talks between Ukrainian and US officials amid a dramatic push from Washington to end the war by any means.

Mr Zelensky is expected to meet Mohammed bin Salman, whose Saudi Arabia has played various mediating roles since Russia’s 2022 invasion, including brokering prisoner exchanges and hosting talks between Russia and the United States last month.

The talks today between US and Ukrainian officials – the first official meeting since a disastrous Oval Office encounter between Mr Zelensky and Donald Trump – are expected to focus on a bilateral minerals deal and how to end the war.

Mr Zelensky has said he will not attend the talks with US officials and that the Ukrainian delegation will include his chief of staff, his foreign and defence ministers and a top military official in the presidential administration.

“On our side, we are fully committed to constructive dialogue, and we hope to discuss and agree on the necessary decisions and steps,” Mr Zelensky said in a post on X.

“Realistic proposals are on the table. The key is to move quickly and effectively.”

The United States, once Ukraine’s main ally, has upended its wartime policies in its stated pursuit of a rapid end to the fighting, engaging directly with Moscow while cutting off military assistance and intelligence sharing for Kyiv.

Russian firefighters are battling a large fire in a warehouse in Novokuibyshevsk in Russia’s Samara region, Ukraine authorities and media said on Monday.

“There are no injuries,” the emergency ministry said on the Telegram channel, citing preliminary details. The RIA news agency said a warehouse was on fire.

It also cited the region’s governor as saying Ukraine launched an overnight drone attack targeting enterprises in the region.

Ukrainian forces are winning small patches of land and managed to stall the Russian offensive on the eastern sector of its frontline, its soldiers and military analysts have said.

The situation has improved as Ukraine is able to find innovative ways to compensate for its shortage of troops, Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, told The New York Times.

He explained that Putin’s troops and their offensive effort in Donetsk have been stalled in recent months due to “poor weather, exhaustion among Russian forces, and effective Ukrainian adaptation to the way Russian troops have been fighting”.

Russian forces recaptured three more settlements in Russia’s western Kursk region, the defence ministry said, part of an operation to evict Ukrainian troops holding chunks of territory seven months after a cross-border incursion.

The ministry statement, posted on the Telegram app, followed reports by Russian bloggers that Russian special forces had crept for miles through a gas pipeline near the town of Sudzha in an attempt to surprise Ukrainian forces.

The three settlements now under Russian control according to the ministry – Malaya Lokhnya, Cherkasskoye Porechnoye and Kositsa — all lie north of Sudzha.

“The Russian Federation’s armed forces are continuing to rout groups of the Ukrainian army on the territory of Kursk region,” the statement said.

Ukraine has not confirmed the loss of territory in its daily update.

A statement from Ukraine’s airborne assault forces said that Russian soldiers had used the pipeline in an attempt to gain a foothold, but the Russians were promptly detected and attacked with rockets, artillery and drones.

The Ukrainian military’s General Staff in a late afternoon report said its forces repelled 15 Russian attacks in Kursk region, with six armed clashes still ongoing. It also reported 12 Russian air strikes on their positions.

One issue to be addressed in Jeddah is the fate of a minerals deal between the US and Ukraine, with Kyiv wanting to include a US security guarantee in exchange for access to certain mineral resources in Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump had been slated to sign that accord during Mr Zelensky’s Washington visit. But after the White House blowup between the two men, it was not signed.

Since then, both sides have expressed a renewed willingness to sign the deal, but no signing has yet occurred. Mr Trump yesterday said he thought Ukraine would sign it, with a caveat that he wanted Mr Zelensky’s government to show that it wanted peace.

“They will sign the minerals deal but I want them to want peace… They haven’t shown it to extent they should,” he said.

A delegation of Ukrainian and American officials are meeting in Saudi Arabia today to discuss how to bring an end to the war with Russia.

American officials will use the talks to decide whether Kyiv is interested in a “realistic” peace deal, one of them told Reuters, as well as repairing the damage to relations with the US after Donald Trump’s Oval Office clash with Volodymyr Zelensky.

The US will be represented by secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

“You can’t say ‘I want peace,’ and, ‘I refuse to compromise on anything,'” one of the US officials said of the upcoming talks.

“We want to see if the Ukrainians are interested not just in peace, but in a realistic peace,” said the other official. “If they are only interested in 2014 or 2022 borders, that tells you something.”

The Ukrainian officials will be led by Andriy Yermak, Mr Zelensky’s chief of staff.

In his nightly video address yesterday, Mr Zelensky said will travel to Saudi Arabia today to “continue to work for the sake of peace”.

Elon Musk says the “entire frontline” in Ukraine would collapse if he chose to turn off his Starlink internet system.

Starlink terminals have played a vital role in securing communications in the war in Ukraine, with most battlefield positions equipped with their own terminal.

Last year, Ukraine said around 42,000 terminals were in operation across the military, hospitals, businesses and aid organisations.

Posting on X, Musk said Starlink was the “backbone of the Ukrainian army” and the “entire front line would collapse if I turned it off”.

He said he was “sickened by… years of slaughter in a stalemate that Ukraine will inevitably lose”.

Donald Trump has declined to criticise Vladimir Putin for continuing to attack Ukraine at the time when his administration is trying to broker a peace deal.

On being asked by a Washington Post reporter if he felt Mr Putin was “disrespecting” him by attacking Ukraine while he was trying to make a peace deal, Mr Trump said: “What did he do? Is he disrespecting me? Who are you with.”

“You’ve lost a lot of credibility,” he then told the reporter with the leading daily.