Mark Rutte says Ukraine not yet in the ‘position of strength’ it needs for talks with Russia; Biden says US and allies ‘can’t walk away’. What we know on day 1,056

Ukraine is not in a strong enough position for peace talks with Russia, Nato chief, Mark Rutte, said on Monday. “At this moment, clearly Ukraine is not there, because they cannot at this moment negotiate from a position of strength,” Rutte told EU lawmakers. “We have to do more to make sure by changing the trajectory of the conflict that they can get to that position of strength.”

Donald Trump will be sworn into office as US president next Monday after vowing on the campaign trail to bring a swift end to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. Rutte said: “We all want this war to end, but above all, we want peace to last. Peace will not last if Putin gets his way in Ukraine, because then he will press ahead … I am convinced that peace can only last if Ukraine comes to the table from a position of strength.”

The United States and its allies “can’t walk away” from Ukraine, the outgoing US president, Joe Biden, said on Monday as he prepares to step down next week and hand power to Donald Trump. Biden on Monday marvelled that at the start of the war Putin thought Russian forces would easily defeat Ukraine in a matter of days. It was an assessment US and European intelligence officials shared.
Instead, Biden said, his administration and its allies have “laid the foundation” for the Trump administration to help Ukraine eventually arrive at a moment where it can negotiate a just end to the nearly three year old conflict.

“Today, Ukraine is still a free and independent country with the potential for a bright future,” Biden said.Hailing US and international support for Kyiv since Moscow’s 2022 invasion, Biden said that the Russian ruler, Vladimir Putin, has “failed to achieve any of his strategic objectives” but that “there is more to do, we can’t walk away”.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy countered that the Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, can “come to Kyiv on Friday” after the latter on Monday invited Ukraine’s president to Slovakia. Fico was calling for negotiations “as soon as possible” after Ukraine decided to cut off cheap Russian gas that flows through both their countries to western Europe. It comes after Fico’s trip to Moscow before Christmas to meet Vladimir Putin angered EU countries and protests at home against Fico’s government. Thousands of Slovaks took to the streets on Friday to protest against Fico’s journey and his friendly ties with the Kremlin at a rally called “Slovakia is Europe”.

The Kremlin accused Kyiv of “energy terrorism” over what Moscow claimed was an attempted attack on infrastructure for the TurkStream gas pipeline that carries Russian gas to Europe via Turkey , Russian news agencies reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the drone strike was a “continuation of the line of energy terrorism that Kyiv has been pursuing, under the curation of its overseas friends, for a long time”, state news agencies reported.

A Ukrainian official said Russian forces were bypassing the logistics hub of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine that they have fought for months to capture and focusing instead on cutting supply lines to it. Maj Viktor Trehubov, a Ukrainian army spokesperson, told the Associated Press on Monday that Russian troops were going around Pokrovsk where Ukrainian defence has kept them at bay. He said the Russians were taking aim at a highway that leads from there to the central Ukraine city of Dnipro. That route is crucial for supplies feeding Ukrainian forces in the entire region. Cutting the highway traffic would also severely weaken Pokrovsk.

Italy will sign an agreement with Ukraine and Unesco to rebuild the city of Odesa and its cathedral which was badly damaged by a Russian attack, said Antonio Tajani, the Italian foreign minister. Ukraine said the Orthodox cathedral was damaged when it was hit during a Russian missile attack on the country’s southern port city in July last year. Russia denied responsibility. “As the G7 presidency, we continue to work for a just peace,” Tajani told lawmakers, adding that supporting Ukraine ’s energy system was also a priority for Italy, which holds the rotating presidency of the Group of Seven (G7) wealthy nations until the end of this year.