Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 03-23-2025

Fredo Arias-King told Kyiv Post that increasing pressure on Putin could unintentionally satisfy his psychological need for punishment, feeding a deeper motivation instead of stopping his aggression.

Moscow not indicating any readiness to back down before latest round of ‘peace talks’ organized by the US.

The Kremlin on Sunday downplayed expectations of a rapid resolution to the Russian-Ukrainian war, saying talks were just beginning and that “difficult negotiations” lay ahead.

Delegations from Russia and Ukraine are to hold separate talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia over the next 48 hours as President Donald Trump pushes for a rapid end to more than three years of fighting.

Starmer expressed his views on Europe’s security amidst the ongoing war in Ukraine, highlighting the importance of NATO unity and Britain’s role in ensuring peace.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has expressed a lack of trust in Russian President Vladimir Putin, fearing that Moscow could attempt to leave Ukraine defenseless after a peace deal.

In an interview with the New York Times (NYT), Starmer revealed that Europe’s vulnerability became clear when Russian tanks crossed Ukraine’s border over three years ago.

More going through the motions, or will there be some substance in the next round of US-Ukrainian talks on how to approach a peace settlement.

US and Ukrainian officials will meet in Saudi Arabia on Sunday evening as part of Washington’s efforts to end the three-year war between Kyiv and Moscow, a member of the Ukrainian delegation told AFP.

“The meeting with the Americans is planned to take place tonight” in Riyadh, a Ukrainian source told reporters, including AFP.

A Bloomberg report reveals that the White House is aiming to broker a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine by Easter, April 20.

US President Donald Trump has said he is the only one who can stop Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In an interview with Clay Travis, the founder of the Outkick sports outlet, Trump, who claims to have a close relationship with Putin, was asked about the ongoing war in Ukraine and his ability to influence the situation.

Will the US reclaim its role as a defender of human rights, or will it continue down a path of complicity and retreat?

Betrayal of Humanity: The US administration’s alarming policy shifts

In recent months, the actions and policy decisions of the current US administration have raised significant concerns regarding its commitment to global justice, human rights, and the rule of law. While the United States has historically positioned itself as a defender of democracy and international norms, recent shifts suggest a troubling pattern of appeasement, strategic ambiguity, and outright retreat from moral obligations. These developments have not only weakened America’s credibility but also emboldened authoritarian regimes worldwide.

The Russo-Ukraine War narrative: Rewriting history?

Perhaps the most glaring sign of this shift is the growing tendency to question Russia’s responsibility for the war in Ukraine. Despite overwhelming evidence that Vladimir Putin ordered an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, certain US officials and political figures have begun entertaining narratives that suggest Ukraine bears some responsibility for the war. Such rhetoric dangerously aligns with Kremlin propaganda and risks undermining global support for Ukraine’s resistance against an existential threat.

The world in focus, as seen by Canadian leading global affairs analyst Michael Bociurkiw in a quick review of the biggest news in international media today.

A Turkish court on Sunday jailed the mayor of Istanbul pending trial on corruption charges, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency, sidelining a potential contender in Turkey’s next presidential election and the top rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, was arrested at his home on Wednesday, four days before he was set to be named the presidential candidate of Turkey’s political opposition. He has denied the accusations against him, which Mr. Erdogan’s opponents have called a ploy to prevent a popular politician from running for president. The court ordered that Mr. Imamoglu be jailed on accusations of corruption pending a trial, the state-run news media said. State prosecutors have accused him of leading a criminal organization and overseeing bribery, bid rigging and other financial misdeeds at City Hall. Prosecutors also accused him of supporting terrorism through his political coordination with a pro-Kurdish group during local elections last year. The court has not yet ruled on whether he will be jailed for those accusations as well - NYT

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plan for an international force to support a ceasefire in Ukraine has been dismissed as “a posture and a pose” by Donald Trump’s special envoy. Steve Witkoff said the idea was based on a “simplistic” notion of the UK prime minister and other European leaders thinking “we have all got to be like Winston Churchill”. In an interview with pro-Trump journalist Tucker Carlson, Witkoff praised Vladimir Putin, saying he “liked” the Russian president. “I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy,” he said. “He’s super smart.” Witkoff, who met Putin 10 days ago, said the Russian president had been “gracious” and “straight up” with him. Putin told him, he added, that he had prayed for Trump after an assassination attempt against him last year. He also said Putin had commissioned a portrait of the US president as a gift and Trump was “clearly touched by it”. During the interview, Witkoff repeated various Russian arguments, including that Ukraine was “a false country” and asked when the world would recognise occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian. Witkoff is leading the US ceasefire negotiations with both Russia and Ukraine but he was unable to name the five regions of Ukraine either annexed or partially occupied by Russian forces - BBC

A Moroccan citizen living and studying in Ukraine decided to fight against Russian invaders. He was taken prison, released, and returned to Morocco. Only now Morocco is holding him captive.

In 2019, Brahim Saadoun left Morocco for Ukraine to study aerospace engineering. Seeking military experience, he enlisted in the Ukrainian military in November 2021 under a three-year contract. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, he found himself serving with the Ukrainian Marines in the besieged city of Mariupol.

Captured by Russian forces, he was sentenced to death in a show trial by the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), accused of being a mercenary.

After Russia’s overnight attack with nearly 150 drones, Zelensky urges tougher sanctions and air defense support to stop daily strikes and end the war.

Russia launched nearly 150 strike drones against Ukraine overnight, prompting President Volodymyr Zelensky to call for increased pressure on Moscow to stop such attacks and end the war.

On Telegram, Zelensky shared a nearly two-minute video showing the aftermath of Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian cities and regions this week.

Both operations took place on March 21, dealing a significant blow to Russian forces across three frontline sectors.

The Ukrainian Air Force carried out two successful strikes on Russian military targets on Friday, March 21—one on an enemy base in occupied Toretsk, the Donetsk region, and another on a command post in Russia’s Belgorod region.

According to the General Staff of Ukraine, which reported the strike on March 23 via Telegram, the Air Force targeted a concentration of Russian troops in Toretsk.

A total of three square kilometers of Russian-held territory have been liberated.

The soldiers of Ukraine’s Third Assault Brigade have successfully liberated the Nadiya [Hope] settlement in the Luhansk region.

The announcement on Telegram came with a video showing the brigade’s assault group approaching on armored vehicles, clearing an enemy fire support point, and providing fire support for the landing operation. 

In an attempt to gain control of Odesa, Russia is leveraging its agents and exploiting pro-Russian factions within the city.

In Part One of this two-part analysis, Kyiv Post focused on Odesa’s importance to Russia and examined the escalating threats the city faces from missile and drone attacks to assassination.

In this article, Kyiv Post focuses on the 2014 Odesa clashes, and how Russia uses propaganda and political manipulation in an attempt to dominate the city.

For many years she has shunned the media and made few public appearances. This chosen role as a recluse has only added to the enigma and reverence surrounding this brilliant and defiant Ukrainian.

Lina Kostenko is considered the uncompromising conscience and pride of Ukraine. The queen of contemporary Ukrainian poetry, Lina Kostenko has always been a staunch defender of her people and its culture and the embodiment of its defiant spirit.

This is a huge achievement for a poet who was effectively banned during the Soviet era for her artistic nonconformism and courageous civic and patriotic position, as well as a mother of two children and the devoted wife of a disabled person.

One protester was handed a summons with fines totaling 45,000 lari (approximately $16,000) for briefly blocking traffic on Tbilisi’s central avenue.

Nadim Khmaladze has been joining thousands of fellow Georgians on the streets every evening since November, when Tbilisi’s increasingly repressive government shelved EU membership talks.

The 60-year-old rights activist said he was “ready to face police violence” when he first joined the anti-government rallies in Tbilisi, but he never imagined that standing on the street for a few hours could cost him more than 22 months’ salary.

A massive Russian drone strike on Kyiv left at least three people dead, including a young child, and dozens injured, with damage reported across the city.

Russian forces have launched a massive drone strike on Kyiv, causing damage in many parts of the city and killing three people, including a 5-year-old child, officials say.

From the evening of March 22 into the night of March 23, a series of explosions echoed across Kyiv as Russian drones targeted the capital, as witnessed by Kyiv Post correspondents in the different city districts.

Yarysh revealed that some VOA employees from authoritarian countries are facing criminal charges for their work.

Voice of America (VOA) employees from its Ukrainian service, working in the US on work visas, have been given 30 days to leave the country, according to former VOA journalist Ostap Yarysh.

In an interview with Bihus.Info published on March 20, Yarysh revealed that some VOA employees from authoritarian countries are facing criminal charges for their work, making it unsafe for them to return home.

While Israel’s defense system covers a small area, the Trump administration is working to deploy a Golden Dome that could protect the entire US territory from ballistic and hypersonic missile strikes.

The Pentagon is rushing to develop the Golden Dome defense system, a project that could shield the US from long-range missile threats, with the Trump administration pushing full speed ahead.

According to CNN sources, the White House is sparing no expense to make this one of the Pentagon’s top priorities.

Lord Ashcroft visits a top-secret drone facility where Ukraine’s state-of-the-art weapons that can strike increasingly deeper into Russian territory are on display.

As we crisscrossed the snow-covered roads for nearly an hour in an anonymous white VW van, I had no idea where we were heading. All I knew – as the daytime temperatures dipped to minus-4 centigrade – was that, because of my unstinting support for Ukraine’s war effort, I was being taken to a highly secretive destination to see the cutting-edge work of the world’s leading drone manufacturer. We arrived at a gray, nondescript building and, just minutes later, I was entering a vast, pristine showroom, in which five hi-tech drones were displayed. I felt like James Bond being shown his latest deadly gadgets by Q, the head of the British Secret Service research and development division.

Yet whereas that was fiction, the weaponry in front of me was very real, as was my host for the afternoon, a shadowy figure with the call-sign “Borets,” the chief of the 9th, a special forces department within Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence agency. Borets, quietly spoken, calm and authoritative, and “Serhiy,” the astute chairman of Ukraine’s leading drone-manufacturing company, then proceeded to give me a guided tour of the aerial weapons that have been able to strike deep – at times 1,000 miles – into Russian territory over the past three years of the all-out war that began with the Russian full-scale invasion of February 2022. Only last week, a reported 337 drones attacked Moscow – the biggest such strike yet of the brutal conflict.

According to Welt’s sources, Beijing is asking its European partners if they support its involvement in such an initiative.

China is considering joining a future peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, the German newspaper Welt reported citing sources in Brussels.

Earlier this month, UK Prime Minister proposed forming a “coalition of the willing” of EU and NATO members to send troops to Ukraine to enforce a ceasefire between Kyiv and Moscow.

He said that if a strong group of European states provided security guarantees to Ukraine, Czechia should be among them, calling such involvement crucial for the country.

The Czech Republic is prepared to participate in a foreign peacekeeping mission that would send troops to Ukraine if a potential peace agreement is reached.

Czech President Petr Pavel said this in an interview with the European Pravda news outlet, according to Ukrinform.