Ukraine-Russia conflict newest: Trump envoys to carry talks in Davos as Zelensky says Putin isn’t focused on peace

During a speech to mark Orthodox Christmas earlier this month, Putin called his soldiers “warriors” who were acting “as if at the Lord’s behest” and “defending the fatherland”.

Mr Williams, who served as the Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012, condemned the use of religion to justify the invasion as “disturbing” and said that Putin’s revanchism directly contradicts the message preached by Jesus Christ.

“I’d certainly say we’re talking about heresy,” he told The Independent. “We’re talking about something which undermines a really fundamental aspect of religious belief, of Christian belief, which assumes that we have to defend God by violence.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was important to outline the dire effects of the Russian strikes as they demonstrated that Russia was not interested in diplomacy.

“If the Russians were seriously interested in ending the war, they would have focused on diplomacy,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.

He said Ukrainian intelligence had determined that Russia was conducting reconnaissance on key sites in preparation for strikes, including targets linked to Ukraine’s nuclear power stations.

Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said on Saturday that there was evidence Russia was considering attacks on power substations supplying nuclear power stations.

Russia is showing no signs of interest in talks leading to a peace deal and is instead focusing on boosting arms production, including a target of 1,000 drones a day, Ukraine’s top military commander has said.

“On the contrary, we see an increase in intensity of military actions, an increase in the number of offensive enemy groupings, an increase in production of strike weapons, missiles and drones,” General Oleksandr Syrskyi told the online media outlet lb.ua in an interview.

“At the moment, the enemy produces daily 404 ‘Shaheds’ (Iranian-designed drones) of different kinds. And the plans are to increase that. The enemy plans to boost production significantly, up to 1,000 drones a day,” he said.

Volodymyr Zelensky said he held a special energy coordination meeting yesterday, noting that the situation remains most difficult in several areas.

He said Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and the surrounding regions are the worst hit due to Russian attacks.

Ukraine needs to ramp up electricity imports and acquire additional equipment from its partners, the Ukrainian president said.

Zelensky said he has ordered a separate review in Kyiv to identify buildings that are still without heating.

“Unfortunately, there are discrepancies between city-level and government-level reports even concerning the number of such buildings. The Ministry of Energy and all central government bodies must fully engage to help people,” he said.

Talks with US officials on a resolution of the nearly four-year-old war with Russia will continue at the World Economic Forum opening this week in the Swiss resort of Davos, Ukraine’s top negotiator Rustem Umerov said.

In a message on Telegram, Umerov said two days of talks in Florida with a US team including envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, president Donald Trump’s son-in-law, had focused on security guarantees and a post-war recovery plan for Ukraine.

He gave no indication whether any agreements had been achieved at the meeting.

“We agreed to continue work at the team level during the next phase of consultations in Davos,” Umerov said.

The two sides, in the latest of a series of meetings intended to work out the details of an agreement, had “discussed in depth” the two issues, “focusing on practical mechanisms and carrying out and implementing them,” Mr Umerov said.

He said his delegation had reported on Russian strikes last week which badly damaged Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and left hundreds of apartment buildings with no heating or electricity.

An intelligence assessment provided to the British military revealed a 1:27 kill ratio in the battle for Kupiansk, with 27 Russian soldiers lost for each Ukrainian.

This assessment was shared during a briefing with Ukrainian officials last week, highlighting Kyiv’s ability to reclaim territory despite Russia’s ‘meat grinder’ tactics.

During the battle for the northern city of Kupiansk in Kharkiv, up to 200 Russian soldiers were reportedly surrounded by advancing Ukrainian forces before Christmas.

Ukraine successfully regained control of Kupiansk last month.