Ukraine

Recent weeks have seen a steep increase in civilian casualties in Ukraine following an intensification of Russian attacks, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country, HRMMU, said in a new report issued on Tuesday. 

Major aerial attacks causing widespread death and destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure have rained down on Ukraine in the first days of 2024 due to an intense new Russian offensive.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow is upgrading its nuclear arsenal and keeping its strategic forces at the highest level of readiness as the West wages a “hybrid war” against it. Moscow would continue what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, and all attempts to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia had crumbled, Putin told a conference of senior defence officials on Tuesday.

The United Nations human rights chief has said there had been an “extensive failure” by Russia to take adequate measures to protect civilians in Ukraine and that there were indications that Russian forces had committed war crimes.

European leaders have decided to open EU membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova and to grant candidate status to Georgia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday there will be peace in Ukraine when his country achieves its goals, and that those aims remain unchanged.

President Biden urged Congress to "do the right thing" and support Ukraine with a new aid package. Ukraine's Zelenskyy told G7 leaders Russia was hoping for Western support to collapse.

If urgent steps are not taken to end the ongoing war and its dire humanitarian consequences in Ukraine, 2024 may be even more unpredictable and destructive, a senior UN official warned on Wednesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said cease-fire negotiations with Moscow can only begin once the Russian military completely pulls out of his country.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that there was "no sense of fatigue" among NATO allies when it came to helping Ukraine. "We must and we will continue to support Ukraine," he said after a NATO-Ukraine meeting in Brussels, adding that NATO allies were unanimous on this position and that he was also hearing continued support for Ukraine in both chambers of the U.S. Congress.