Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv orders mass evacuation from frontline regions as Russian troops advance

Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that Russian forces had captured the settlement of Bondarne in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Russia’s battlefield gains in 2025 were the largest since the initial stages of the war in 2022, according to an analysis by AFP.

Relying on data from the Institute for the Study of War, the analysis found that Russia captured over 5,600sqkm or about one per cent of Ukrainian territory last year.

The gains were more than those made in the previous two years combined, though far less than the over 60,000sqkm Russia took in 2022.

Ukraine has ordered the evacuation of 3,000 children as well as their parents from frontline regions, saying the situation is no longer safe for them.

The orders were issued for 44 frontline settlements “due to the difficult security situation” in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions, according to Restoration Minister Oleksiy Kuleba.

It brings the total number of Ukrainians evacuated from the frontlines since 1 June to 150,000, Kyiv said, at a time when Russia has committed huge numbers of forces to seize more territory.

Russian athletes at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics will not be able to represent their country even if a peace deal is reached with Ukraine, International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry said in an Italian newspaper interview.

At this stage nothing would change the Committee’s decision allowing Russian athletes to take part in the February games only as individuals representing themselves, Coventry told Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Friday.

The IOC banned Russia and Belarus following the former’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and the IOC ruled in September that Russians and Belarusians competing at Milano Cortina would do so as individual athletes, without a national flag or anthem.

In other remarks, Coventry – the IOC’s first woman president – said holding the Olympics in multiple cities, as Italy is doing, would become “the new normality” and the Milano Cortina games would provide useful guidance for the future.

The IOC did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for confirmation of Coventry’s comments.

The Milano Cortina games run from 6 to 22 February.

Finnish authorities have arrested two people in connection with damage to an undersea telecommunications cable in the Gulf of Finland that occurred earlier this week between the capitals of Finland and Estonia, police said Thursday.

The damage was discovered early on Wednesday in Estonia’s exclusive economic zone.

The cable belongs to Finnish telecommunications service provider Elisa and is considered to be critical underwater infrastructure.

Helsinki police have opened an investigation into aggravated criminal damage, attempted aggravated criminal damage and aggravated interference with telecommunications.

Officials placed two other people under travel bans as a result of the ongoing investigation, Helsinki police said in a statement Thursday.

The individuals’ connections to the ship was not immediately clear and police would not release their nationalities or other details.

The ship, named the Fitburg, was flagged in St Vincent and the Grenadines. It had been travelling from Russia to Israel. The 14 crew members hail from Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan and were detained by Finnish authorities.

Finnish National Police Commissioner Ilkka Koskimïki said earlier this week that the ship was dragging its anchor for hours when it was discovered in Finland’s exclusive economic zone.

He noted investigators are not speculating on whether a state-level actor was behind the damage.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he will have a phone call with US president Donald Trump on Monday to discuss peace efforts between Ukraine and Russia, as well as issues surrounding Gaza.

Speaking to reporters in Istanbul on Friday, Erdogan also said Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan will attend a meeting of the “Coalition of the Willing”, a group of nations backing Ukraine, in Paris in the coming days.

Despite Zelensky and Trump’s optimistic talk of an ongoing ‘peace process’ Putin seems only too happy to continue waging war in Ukraine.

And if a ceasefire is achieved in 2026, Keir Giles asks: at what cost?

At least two people, including a three-year-old, were killed in a Russian strike on Kharkiv, according to the Ukrainian authorities.

At least 28 others were injured and a multi-storey residential block was completely destroyed in the missile attack, president Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“Unfortunately, this is how the Russians treat life and people – they continue killing, despite all efforts by the world, and especially by the United States, in the diplomatic process,” Zelensky wrote on X as he described the “heinous” attack.

Russia denied the reports, suggesting that the blast was caused by detonating Ukrainian ammunition.

In his first comments after the appointment was announced as Volodymyr Zelensky’s new chief of staff, General Kyrylo Budano Budanov thanked the Ukrainian president for his trust.

“I continue to serve Ukraine,” he wrote on his Telegram page. “For me, it is both an honour and a responsibility – at a historic time for Ukraine – to focus on the critically important issues of the state’s strategic security.”

Budanov served as part of the delegation that worked with the US negotiating team. He also has had contact with the Russian side on issues such as coordinating prisoner exchanges. It’s not yet clear what role, if any, he will take in the peace process in his new position.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has chosen General Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s head of military intelligence, as his new chief of staff.

Budanov has led the military intelligence agency, known by its acronym GUR, since 2020.

At 39, he is one of Ukraine’s most recognisable and popular wartime figures, known for being the architect of many successful operations targeting Russian military assets, as well as for his independent and enigmatic personality.

A career military intelligence officer, Budanov brings battlefield knowledge to his new position.

He rose through the defence establishment after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. He also took part in special operations and intelligence missions linked to the fighting with Moscow-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine and Crimea before the full-scale invasion of February 2022. He reportedly was wounded during one such operation.

Since that invasion, Budanov has become a prominent face of Kyiv’s intelligence effort, appearing regularly in interviews and briefings that mix strategic signaling with psychological pressure on Russia. He has warned frequently of Moscow’s long-term intentions toward Ukraine and the region, portraying the war as an existential struggle for the country’s statehood.

Under Budanov, the GUR expanded its footprint, coordinating intelligence, sabotage and special operations aimed at degrading Russia’s military capabilities far beyond the front lines.

Officials have credited the military intelligence service with operations targeting Russian command structures, logistics hubs, energy infrastructure and naval assets, including attacks deep inside Russian territory and occupied areas of Ukraine.

Budanov’s role and public status has made him a target. He reportedly has survived multiple assassination attempts by the Russian security services. In November 2023, his wife, Marianna, was hospitalised in Kyiv with heavy metals poisoning.