Ukrainian president says Moscow moving its troops for new operations as he attempts to shore up international support ahead of Trump-Putin summit. What we know on day 1,266

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Russia is preparing its troops for new offensives instead of getting ready to stop the war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday, ahead of talks between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday.“[Putin] is certainly not getting ready for a ceasefire and war end,” the Ukrainian president said in his nightly address. He added, without providing specifics, that Russia was moving its troops for new operations on Ukrainian soil. “There is no sign that the Russians have received signals to prepare for a postwar situation.”

Separately, Zelenskyy said he had spoken to Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday, as he seeks to rally support for Ukraine beyond Europe . Both countries have taken cautious diplomatic positions on the Russian invasion. India is a major buyer of Russian oil and Saudi Arabia has pitched itself as a mediator in the conflict. Zelenskyy said he spoke to both leaders about strengthening Ukraine’s position in any peace process. “Communication with leaders is ongoing practically around the clock – we are in constant touch,” he wrote on X. “Now is the moment when there is a real chance to achieve peace.”

Trump said he and Putin would discuss “land swapping” when they met on Friday and expressed frustration with Zelenskyy for putting conditions on such a potential agreement . During a news conference at the White House on Monday, the US president said he was frustrated with Zelenskyy’s insistence that Ukraine would need to hold a national referendum on any peace deal that stipulated recognising Russian control over territory that it has occupied during the war. “I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelenskyy was saying I have to get constitutional approval,” Trump said. “He has approval to go to war and kill everybody but he needs approval to do a land swap. Because there will be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody.”

Moscow hopes the Putin-Trump meeting will give momentum to the normalisation of relations between Russia and the US, the Tass news agency reported on Tuesday. “We hope that the upcoming high-level meeting will give an impulse to the normalization of bilateral relations,” Tass cited Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz on Monday invited Trump to join emergency virtual talks with EU leaders and Zelenskyy on Wednesday ahead of the Alaska summit . Merz’s office said in a statement that the virtual talks would focus on “further options for action to put pressure on Russia” and “preparations for possible peace negotiations and related issues of territorial claims and security”. It is not clear whether or not Trump has accepted the invitation to the call.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday that the EU would work on a 19th package of sanctions against Russia and warned against concessions to Moscow. “As far as Russia has not agreed to full and unconditional ceasefire, we should not even discuss any concessions,” Kallas said in a statement. “The sequencing of the steps is important. First an unconditional ceasefire with a strong monitoring system and ironclad security guarantees,” she said, adding that “we will work on a 19th package of sanctions”.

The captain and two officers of a ship believed to belong to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet have been charged with sabotage for cutting five Baltic Sea cables in December, Finnish prosecutors said on Monday . The captain and first and second officers of the Cook Islands-registered oil tanker Eagle S are alleged to have dragged the ship’s anchor on the seabed for about 90km (56 miles), damaging five undersea cables in the Gulf of Finland.

A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and wounded two others in a region about 420km (260 miles) east of Moscow, a Russian official said on Monday . The governor of Nizhny Novgorod, Gleb Nikitin, said in a statement that drones targeted two “industrial zones” and caused the casualties and unspecified damage.