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21-07-2025
KYIV: Ukraine has proposed a new round of peace talks with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, in a move aimed at restarting negotiations that halted last month.
Senior security official Rustem Umerov has offered to meet the Russian side next week, Zelensky said in his evening address, adding that everything had to be done to get a ceasefire.
Zelenksy also repeated his readiness to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin face-to-face. “A meeting at the leadership level is needed to truly ensure peace,” he said.
The proposal came hours after Ukraine was hit with another widespread air bombardment by Russia, which killed three people.
Ten regions of Ukraine, including several cities, were hit in the night between Friday and Saturday, Zelensky said earlier on Saturday.
Ukraine’s military said more than 340 explosive and dummy drones and 35 cruise and ballistic missiles had been used but many were downed.
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump said the US would send “top-of-the-line weapons” to Ukraine via NATO countries, while also threatening Russia with severe tariffs if a deal to end the war is not reached within 50 days.
Trump also warned that the US would impose 100% secondary tariffs targeting Russia’s remaining trade partners if a peace deal with Ukraine was not reached by his deadline.
Two rounds of talks in Istanbul between Moscow and Kyiv have so far failed to result in any progress towards a ceasefire but large-scale prisoner exchanges and deals to return the bodies of killed soldiers were agreed.
After the last round, which ended in early June, Ukrainian negotiators said Russia had again rejected an “unconditional ceasefire”, a key demand by Kyiv and its allies in Europe and the US. Russia also outlined a list of demands, including calls for Ukraine to cede more territory and to reject all forms of Western military support.
At the time, Zelensky accused Moscow of “doing everything it can to ensure the next possible meeting is fruitless”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Russia currently controls about 20% of Ukraine’s territory, including the southern Crimea peninsula Moscow annexed in 2014.
The images come in every day. Thousands of them.
Men and equipment being hunted down along Ukraine’s long, contested front lines. Everything filmed, logged and counted and now put to use too, as the Ukrainian military tries to extract every advantage it can against its much more powerful opponent.
Under a scheme first trialed last year and dubbed “Army of Drones; Bonus” (also known as “e-points”), units can earn points for each Russian soldier killed or piece of equipment destroyed and like a killstreak in Call of Duty, or a 1970s TV game show, points mean prizes.
“The more strategically important and large-scale the target, the more points a unit receives,” reads a statement from the team at Brave 1, which brings together experts from government and the military.
“For example, destroying an enemy multiple rocket launch system earns up to 50 points; 40 points are awarded for a destroyed tank and 20 for a damaged one.”
Call it the gamification of war.
Each uploaded video is now carefully analyzed back in Kyiv, where points are awarded according to a constantly evolving set of military priorities. (Int’l News Desk)
