Ukraine-Russia latest: Putin hails ‘courageous’ Trump after election win as Zelensky rejects ceasefire

Vladimir Putin said yesterday Ukraine should remain neutral for there to be a chance for peace, adding that the borders of Ukraine should be in accordance with the wishes of the people living in Russian-claimed territories.

“If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine the existence of any good-neighbourly relations between Russia and Ukraine,” Mr Putin said.

He said Russia had recognised Ukraine’s post-Soviet borders based on the understanding that it would be neutral. The US-led Nato military alliance has repeatedly said that Ukraine would one day join.

If Ukraine was not neutral, it would be “constantly used as a tool in the wrong hands and to the detriment of the interests of the Russian Federation,” Mr Putin said.

Russia controls about a fifth of Ukraine after more than two and a half years of war.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said yesterday that he did not want Russia to go back to the path it was on until 2022 before the Ukraine war, when he said other countries were trying to subordinate it to their interests.

The Kremlin leader was asked at the close of a marathon question-and-answer session if Russia would return to its former path once the Putin era was over.

“Russia goes its own way. I hope it will not turn away from its national interests. But of course, it needs to be integrated, we have never refused this, but I would not like Russia to return to the path it was on before 2022,” he said.

“This was a path that was associated with a hidden, veiled intervention in relation to our country, aimed at subordinating it to the interests of some other countries that believed that they had the right to do this. Russia cannot exist in such a subordinate or semi-subordinate state.”

Fragments from downed Russian drones injured at least two people and damaged several buildings in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv overnight, city officials said on Thursday.

Ten buildings were damaged by drone debris, including a medical facility and a business centre, said Serhiy Popko, head of the city’s military administration.

The attack also caused a fire in a restaurant on the 33rd storey of a building in the wealthy central Pechersk district, and three residential buildings were also damaged in other areas, Popko said.

Photos posted by the city authorities showed burnt-out vehicles in ruined garages, and shattered windows and charred walls in another location.

Popko said more than 30 drones had been brought down in and around the capital in the latest overnight attack.

“Currently, there is no air raid alert in Kyiv. But there are drones in the airspace of Ukraine that may move towards Kyiv,” he warned in a message on the Telegram app on Thursday morning.

Air raid sirens sounded again in Kyiv shortly after 9.00 a.m. (0700 GMT).

Large-scale drone attacks have become a nightly danger for Kyiv residents over the past month as Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, increased the number of drones launched against Ukraine.

Russia hit an energy facility in northern Ukraine during overnight drone strikes that injured at least three people across the country, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday.

Ukraine's power distribution company Ukrenergo said the energy facility that was hit was located in the northern Zhytomyr region but gave no further details apart from saying the attack resulted in power cuts.

Ukraine's air force said it had downed 74 of 106 drones launched by Russia across the country and another 25 were "locationally lost", indicating they did not hit their target.

Fragments from downed drones injured at least two people in the capital Kyiv and damaged 10 buildings, including a medical facility, a business centre and apartment blocs, said Serhiy Popko, head of the city's military administration.

Photos posted by the city authorities showed burnt-out vehicles in ruined garages, and shattered windows and charred walls in another location.

A man was also slightly hurt in the southern city of Odesa, where an 11-storey building, cars and a gas pipe were damaged in the Russian drone attack, regional governor Oleh Kiper said.

Large-scale drone attacks have become a nightly danger for Kyiv residents over the past month as Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, increased the number of drones launched against Ukraine.

Trump’s victory comes at a precarious moment in the conflict for Kyiv as Putin advances bolstered by some 10,000 North Korean soldiers

An approach of "peace through strength" is needed urgently as Europe confronts the danger posed by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told leaders at the European Political Community summit in Budapest on Thursday.

Zelenskiy said that concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin were unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for Europe.

Top Russian security official Sergei Shoigu has claimed that the situation in the combat zone in Ukraine is not in Kyiv’s favour and that the West should accept this and negotiate an end to the conflict, the Interfax news agency reported.

“Now, when the situation in the theater of military operations is not in the favour of the Kyiv regime, the West is faced with a choice - to continue financing it and destroying the Ukrainian population or to recognise the current realities and start negotiating,” Shoigu was cited as telling a meeting of secretaries of Commonwealth of Independent States countries’ security councils in Moscow.

His comments came as Donald Trump became president-elect in the US for a second time, only months after vowing to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. His vice-president, JD Vance, has also talked about ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia to secure a deal.

Russian forces captured the village of Kreminna Balka in Ukraine‘s eastern Donetsk region, the Tass state news agency has claimed , citing the defence ministry.

The Independent could not independently confirm the battlefield report, though DeepState, a Ukraine-based organisation that tracks developments on the frontline, and is known to have close ties to the military, has updated it’s map to include Kreminna Balka in Russian-occupied territory.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that Russia's leadership remembered Donald Trump's words about trying to resolve the Ukraine crisis even if he exaggerated the speed at which he could do it.

"If the new administration is going to look for peace, not for the continuation of the war, it will be better in comparison with the previous one," Peskov told reporters.

Asked about Kamala Harris's warning that Putin would eat Trump for lunch, Peskov said with a chuckle: "Putin does not eat people."

The Kremlin said on Thursday it did not rule out the possibility that some form of contact could take place between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President-elect Donald Trump before the latter’s inauguration in January, Interfax news agency reported

Putin has not yet commented on Trump’s election win but is due to speak and take questions at a conference later on Thursday.

The Kremlin reacted cautiously on Wednesday after Trump was elected US president, saying the US was still an unfriendly state and that only time would tell if Trump’s rhetoric on ending the Ukraine war translated into reality.