Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says the fact there was no "meaningful" response from Moscow to a 30-day ceasefire proposal from the United States means Russia wants to keep fighting in Ukraine.

"Regrettably, for more than a day already, the world has yet to hear a meaningful response from Russia to the proposals made. This once again demonstrates that Russia seeks to prolong the war and postpone peace for as long as possible. We hope that US pressure will be sufficient to compel Russia to end the war," Zelenskyy said on social media on Thursday.

The US on Tuesday agreed to resume weapons supplies and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine after Kyiv said at talks in Saudi Arabia that it was ready to support a ceasefire proposal. 

[THIS WOULD BE ENOUGH TO SINK THE CEASEFIRE...]

The details of the 30-day ceasefire proposal — put forward by the US — have not been shared publicly.

Ukraine officials went into the Riyadh summit with three key demands: an end to all aerial attacks, safe transportation of shipping goods and the release of all prisoners of war and civilian detainees.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov countered on Thursday that a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia would only give a breathing space for Ukrainian forces.

Mr Ushakov said in a TV interview that he had spoken to US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz on Wednesday and set out Russia's view on the ceasefire proposal discussed this week between Ukraine and the US.

"

I have stated our position that this is nothing other than a temporary respite for the Ukrainian military, nothing more," Mr Ushakov said, adding that Russia was seeking a long-term settlement that took its interests and concerns into account.

"It seems to me that no one needs any steps that (merely) imitate peaceful actions in this situation," he said.

Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff landed in Moscow on Thursday, state-run TASS news agency said citing flights-tracking service Flightradar.

Mr Witkoff, who is officially Mr Trump's Middle East envoy, has played a growing role in efforts to bring about an end to the three-year-old war in Ukraine.

Russia's statement comes as Poland's president called on the US to transfer weapons to its territory as a deterrent against future Russian aggression, according to The Financial Times.

President Andrzej Duda told the newspaper he had discussed the proposal recently with Mr Trump's special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg.

Putin orders swift victory in Kursk

Russian President Vladimir Putin, dressed in military fatigues, ordered top commanders to defeat Ukrainian forces in the western region of Kursk as soon as possible after the United States asked him to consider a 30-day ceasefire proposal.

Ukrainian forces smashed across the Russian border on August 6, 2024, and grabbed a slice of land inside Russia in a bid to distract Moscow's forces from the front lines in eastern Ukraine and to gain a potential bargaining chip.

But a lightning Russian advance over the past few days has left Ukraine with a sliver of less than 200 square kilometres in Kursk, down from 1,300 square kilometres at the peak of the incursion last summer, according to the Russian military.

"Our task in the near future, in the shortest possible time frame, is to decisively defeat the enemy entrenched in the Kursk region," Mr Putin told generals in remarks televised late on Wednesday.

"And of course, we need to think about creating a security zone along the state border."

The Kremlin added on Thursday there was no doubt that its troops would soon complete the task of clearing out Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region of western Russia.

Chief of Russia's General Staff Valery Gerasimov told Mr Putin that Russian forces had pushed Ukrainian forces out of over 86 per cent of the territory they had once held in Kursk, the equivalent to 1,100 square kilometres of land.

Mr Gerasimov said Ukraine's plans to use Kursk as a bargaining chip in possible future negotiations with Russia had failed and its gambit that its Kursk operation would force Russia to divert troops from its advance in eastern Ukraine had also not worked.

He said Russian forces had retaken 24 settlements and 259 square kilometres of land from Ukrainian forces in the past five days, along with over 400 prisoners.

Russian forces have retaken control of Sudzha, a major town in Russia's western Kursk region, from Ukrainian troops, the Defence Ministry said on Thursday.

Moscow's troops had also recaptured two other villages, Melovoi and Podol, the ministry said. Reuters could not independently confirm those reports.

Russia's operation to eject Ukrainian forces from Kursk has entered its final stage, state news agency TASS reported on Thursday citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

Ukraine's top army commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Wednesday that Kyiv's troops will keep operating in Kursk as long as needed and that fighting continued in and around the town of Sudzha.

Overnight attacks injure three

An overnight Russian attack on Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region injured three people and targeted energy facilities of the state railways, according to local officials.

The attack on Dnipro — which injured three women who were hospitalised — also blew out over 100 windows in the city's apartment buildings, governor Serhiy Lysak wrote on Telegram.

The Ukrainian military said on Thursday that Russia launched one ballistic missile and 117 drones to attack Ukraine overnight.

The air force shot down 74 of 117 drones and another 38 drones did not reach their targets likely due to electronic warfare countermeasures, the military added.

Ukraine's state railways company announced changes to train routes after the morning attack on its energy facilities in the region.

The drone attack also damaged an administrative building near the territory of an enterprise in Kharkiv region and set around 20 garages on fire in the north-eastern region of Sumy, according to regional officials.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) has also said it prevented a series of attacks against military and civil servants, the Interfax news agency reports.

According to the FSB, Ukrainian special services planned to send explosive devices in parcels by mail.

Russia executed captured soldiers, Ukraine claims

Kyiv on Thursday accused Russian forces of executing five captured Ukrainian soldiers.

Ukrainian rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on social media that Russian forces "continue to kill Ukrainian prisoners of war", without suggesting where the alleged killings took place.

"Another video of the alleged execution of unarmed Ukrainian soldiers captured by Russians is circulating on social media," he wrote on Telegram.

"The video shows at least five allegedly killed prisoners of war. Once again, we see a cynical disregard for international humanitarian law on the part of the Russian army."

Mr Lubinets said he had notified the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross and urged them to investigate evidence of killings of captured Ukrainian soldiers.

Reuters/AFP

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-13/putin-orders-swift-defeat-in-kursk/105049804

 

 

Russia’s envoy to the UN has debunked EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Kaja Kallas’ claim that Russian civilians “are not dying” in the Ukraine conflict.

Vassily Nebenzia denounced remarks Kallas made in February that "Russian civilians are not dying" as “immoral assertions” from an official peddling “fantasies.”  In 2024 alone, the Ukrainian military killed 809 Russian civilians, including 51 children, he noted.

Those killings constituted “real crimes”and not a “theatrical performance like Bucha that was staged by the Ukrainian authorities” to garner Western support, Nebenzia stated. Kiev has cited claims that Russian forces had committed a “massacre” in the town in 2022 to justify its decision to abandon peace talks, while Russia contends that the evidence was fabricated.

Speaking at a panel discussion during the Munich Security Conference, Kallas claimed that the two nations take radically different positions: “The difference is that Russian civilians are not dying. I mean Russian children and women are not dying, it’s soldiers on the ground” who do, she stated.

In response, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova labeled Kallas’s comments as evidence of the “degradation” of senior EU officials, asserting that the senior diplomat has reached a new low in “cynicism and immorality.”

“How can one seriously negotiate with people who have declared lies as their official position?”Zakharova questioned.

Kallas, known for her hawkish stance towards Russia, became the EU’s foreign policy and security chief last December after stepping down as Estonia’s prime minister under public pressure.

https://www.rt.com/russia/614077-nebenzia-kallas-russian-civilians/

 

 

Moscow has repelled another Ukrainian drone attack, just days after the Russian capital was targeted in a major multi-wave raid involving over 90 UAVs that killed three civilians, according to Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.

The attack on Friday morning comes just hours after US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, departed from Moscow. Witkoff reportedly met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday night to discuss the results of US-Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia and relay Moscow’s position back to Washington.

“The Russian air defense forces have repelled the attack of four drones flying toward Moscow,” Sobyanin wrote on Telegram shortly after 7am local time, adding that emergency services were working at the crash sites.

https://www.rt.com/russia/614193-moscow-ukrainian-drone-raid/

 

 

The death toll from a major multi-wave Ukrainian drone attack on civilian sites in the area of the Russian capital has risen to three, after a 43-year-old man succumbed to his injuries in the hospital, Moscow Region Governor Andrey Vorobyov reported on Tuesday.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, a total of 337 Ukrainian drones were neutralized on Tuesday night, with 91 of them intercepted over Moscow Region.

In a Telegram post, Vorobyov stated that the deceased man suffered a stomach wound, a broken shoulder, and a shin injury from shrapnel after drone debris fell into a parking lot. “Doctors fought for his life until the very end,” he wrote.

The man is survived by his wife and five-year-old son. “We will make sure the family is well taken care of,” Vorobyov said.

Like the other two victims of the drone attack, he was an employee of the Russian company Miratorg. A security guard was killed instantly, while two other men succumbed to their wounds in the hospital.

Moscow was hit by the largest-ever wave of Ukrainian kamikaze drones on Tuesday night. Russian air defenses intercepted hundreds of UAVs, according to officials.

At least one residential high-rise in the capital sustained damage from falling debris, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin confirmed. Outside the city, multiple buildings were also damaged, according to Vorobyov.

The Russian Investigative Committee has officially classified the Ukrainian operation as an act of terrorism. Moscow claims Kiev has resorted to such tactics due to setbacks on the battlefield.

First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee Aleksey Zhuravlev told RIA Novosti that the “Kiev regime is close to its death throes” and will increasingly desperately attack Russia to escalate the conflict.

READ MORE: Russia repels Kiev’s largest-ever drone raid on Moscow civilian sites: What we know so far

The attack came just hours before high-level discussions between US and Ukrainian officials are set to start in Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration has accused Vladimir Zelensky of stalling Washington’s efforts to broker a truce with Moscow by refusing to compromise.

https://www.rt.com/russia/614025-death-toll-moscow-ukrainian-attack/

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.