Russia-Ukraine War: Ukraine Anxious, Europe Nervous; Is US Changing Its Peace Plan Strategy? | WION

0:00 now Russia is hammering across all fronts from carrying out devastating strikes across key Ukrainian cities on a daily basis to mounting pressure on the front lines with no end to the war in sight and stalled ceasefire talks the United States hoping for a breakthrough appears to be indicating a change in its strategy take a look at the report ukraine is under siege in a major escalation in the ongoing war Russia unleashes a massive aerial assault on Kev and several other Ukrainian cities these are the images of an intense firefight over the night sky in Kev traces from air defenses shoot

0:47 into the sky as orange flames illuminate the smoke plumes over the capital city ukraine claims its air defenses shot down 56 of the 88 shade drones that Russia launched across the country the Russian drone strike caused a massive fire in Kev gutting multiple residential and commercial buildings firefighters battled for hours to control the devastating blaze as fears of renewed Russian offensive grows Ukraine is pushing its youth to handle firearms on the front lines women are being trained in shooting and providing first aid in the times of crisis very cool i didn't even think I could hit the target i thought it was too high there's even a nine mark I hit i am very

1:34 pleased i wish it was an alive then I would shoot even better you know it is very interesting here and I want to feel more what is happening right now that is how we are closer to our boys our soldiers we help them and we want to feel it more on ourselves what soldiers are going through president Zalinski says Russia is amassing over 70,000 troops to launch a new offensive in North the Ukrainian military chief warns there is almost a doubling of the offensives in all major areas the long dragged truce negotiations is frustrating President Trump his special envoy Steve Witkoff who held talks with Putin on Friday has pitched a new strategy to broker peace

2:19 wito is learned to have proposed to give Russia ownership of four eastern Ukrainian regions it attempted to annex illegally in 2022 these include Donetsk Luhansk Zaparijia and Kersonen with Keev and Washington haggling over a deal for resource rights President Trump is making tougher demands washington wants to claim all profit from minerals until Kev repays the equivalent of the US aid received during the war plus 4% annual interest ukraine is treading very carefully it hasn't rejected the new American demands outright it is mindful how past refusals had strained US Ukraine relations from framing potential territorial concessions to a tougher minerals deal

3:06 US appears to be indicating a change in its strategy to push ceasefire but for its allies Trump lacks a clear plan to end the war even after 3 months of taking office bureau report on world is one all right now to give us more perspective in terms of what is happening in the Russia Ukraine war we're joined by Mr fred Ver who's a journalist and also a political commentator is joining us live from Moscow uh Mr ver considering that the negotiations are going back and forth one would hope that the ceasefire must be close by but on the ground though what we're witnessing is that the intensity of the war is actually getting more worse russia is mobilizing soldiers

3:53 and is bracing for attacks in places such as Sunumi and KV and apart from this what we are also beginning to hear is that the American proposal effectively indicates that Ukraine should seed land to Russia is this how a ceasefire will come about well hopefully and hopefully soon uh because this is the advent of springtime which is fighting season down there uh as soon as the ground hardens uh the Russians do plan by most accounts to launch a massive offensive uh and uh it would be good if that could be prevented i mean a massive escalation in the war is not what anybody wants to

4:39 see but it's what the Russians have in mind and uh I think that the latest proposal this idea that those four regions that Russia has already annexed under its own laws uh should be seeded to Russia mhm and that that would be the price that Putin might accept for accepting a ceasefire and and uh fasttrack negotiations um short of that as I said there we're we're headed for a big Russian offensive which by all you know by all that we've seen in the last year or so will not go well for Ukraine interesting now ever since Donald Trump has stepped into the office in the White

5:24 House there's been a clear indication within Ukraine that Ukraine has been building up its own indigenous capacity to manufacture the weapons to fight this war and also it is now increasingly relying on weapons from Europe do you think with the Americans pushing for the Ukrainians to seed the four territories that Russia at this moment although an ex does not even fully control and also that minerals deal that Donald Trump is trying to push through on Ukraine do you think Ukraine is willing at all to negotiate on the terms forget about Russia but on the terms that are being dictated by the Americans um I don't think that the Ukrainians are ready to accept that uh no noises out of Kiev suggest that they are even thinking about giving up territory and in fact

6:11 they are still talking about taking back Crimea um what the Americans clearly have uh realized or come to the understanding of is that that's impossible uh that in order to end this war uh you're going to have to freeze the lines somewhere along where the Russians are already present um so I think that you know that um Steve Whit spent four hours talking to Putin last night in St petersburg i'm sure this is what they were talking about what would Russia uh need in order to accept a ceasefire so um I think we can assume that that's what they're talking about since they we don't know uh but since they ended the

6:58 meeting amicably and Witco went back to Washington uh we we may assume that there's progress on this front and and and let's hope that there will be an end to this war very soon you know very quickly because we're short of time considering the fact that these Chinese soldiers or mercenaries were captured by the Ukrainians there are about 12,000 North Korean soldiers who've been fielded by Russia it does appear that probably Russia is also having some issues in getting enough manpower on the field is there a problem with Russians fielding the manpower at this moment um first of all I think the presence of North Koreans and and Chinese forces in any in any numbers is is controversial

7:43 we don't see much evidence of that but also Russia has not yet since 2022 launched a mobilization it can do so at any time it has 20 million men of military age on its reserve lists so no I don't think that Russia faces a manpower shortage all right we'll have to leave it there thank you very much indeed Mr fred Via for joining us without perspective there thank you for all the latest news download the Von app and subscribe to our YouTube channel