Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday he was willing to give up his position if it meant peace in Ukraine, quipping that he could exchange his departure for Ukraine’s entry into Nato.
Zelensky said on Sunday that Russia launched more than 200 drones in an overnight attack, the largest of the war, as he condemned Russia’s “aerial terror” and called for unity among Ukraine’s allies.
President Vladimir Putin on Sunday appointed the chief of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, as a special envoy on international economic and investment cooperation, according to a decree quoted by Russian news agencies.
Zelensky ‘willing to give up presidency if it means peace’
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday he was willing to give up his position if it meant peace in Ukraine, quipping that he could exchange his departure for Ukraine’s entry into Nato.
“If [it means] peace for Ukraine, if you really need me to leave my post, I am ready,” an irritated-looking Zelenskiy said when asked during a press conference whether he was ready to leave his post if it meant securing peace.
“I can exchange this for Nato [membership], if that condition is there, immediately,” added the president.
US President Donald Trump has pushed for elections to take place in Ukraine, having branded Zelensky a "dictator", an apparent reference to the Ukrainian leader’s official five-year term running out in 2024.
Trump’s criticism of Zelenskiy came as relations between the two leaders deteriorated sharply in recent weeks.
Zelensky has opposed the idea of elections during a full-scale war, a position supported by his major domestic political opponents.
The Ukrainian president also said he wanted to see Trump as a partner to Ukraine and more than simply a mediator between Kyiv and Moscow.
“I really want it to be more than just mediation ... that’s not enough,” he told a press conference in Kyiv.
Russia launches war’s largest drone attack on Ukraine
Zelensky said on Sunday that Russia launched more than 200 drones in an overnight attack, the largest of the war, as he condemned Russia’s “aerial terror” and called for unity among Ukraine’s allies.
“Every day, our people stand against aerial terror,” he wrote on X.
“On the eve of the third anniversary of the full-scale war, Russia launched 267 attack drones against Ukraine — the largest attack since Iranian drones began striking Ukrainian cities and villages.”
Ukraine’s air force said that 138 of the drones were downed and another 119 disappeared from radars after being jammed by electronic warfare, adding that Russia also launched three ballistic missiles. Damage was reported in five regions of Ukraine.
Moscow has launched near-nightly massed drone attacks at Ukraine for months, seeking to exhaust air defences.
Zelensky said that in total, nearly 1,150 attack drones, more than 1,400 guided aerial bombs and 35 missiles of various types, were launched by Russia at Ukraine in the past week.
The president thanked those operating Ukraine’s air defences and called on the country’s foreign allies to stand united to secure a “just and lasting peace.
“This is achievable through the unity of all partners — we need the strength of all of Europe, the strength of America, the strength of everyone who seeks lasting peace.”
Putin appoints sovereign wealth fund chief as special envoy
President Vladimir Putin on Sunday appointed the chief of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, as a special envoy on international economic and investment cooperation, according to a decree quoted by Russian news agencies.
The appointment of Dmitriev, considered the most US-savvy member of Russia’s elite, comes after the highest-level US-Russia talks since Russia sent its forces into Ukraine in 2022.
EU leaders to meet for extraordinary summit
European Union leaders would meet for an extraordinary summit on 6 Marc to discuss Ukraine and European defence, said the chairperson of EU summits, Antonio Costa, on Sunday.
“I have decided to convene a special European Council on 6 March,” said Costa on X.
“We are living in a defining moment for Ukraine and European security. In my consultations with European leaders, I’ve heard a shared commitment to meet those challenges at EU level: strengthening European Defence and contributing decisively to peace on our continent and long-term security of Ukraine.”
Ukraine can fight until end-2025 with European support, says Poland
Ukraine could keep fighting Russia for the rest of the year with European support, said Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, on Sunday.
“Ukraine can fight on its own with our European support for the rest of this year, and I think Putin has to take this into account,” Sikorski told CNN in an interview.
Asked if his impression after talking to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was that Ukraine would be offered security guarantees by Washington, Sikorski said the best guarantee for Ukraine was its almost million-man army, resisting Russian aggression.
“If you’d asked me three years ago where Ukraine and Russia would be in this war in three years’ time, I don’t think either of us would have guessed that Russia would only capture 20% of Ukraine’s territory,” said Sikorski.
“But if we are to have a durable peace, it has to be one that both sides can live with, above all, the victim of aggression.”
North Korea providing 50% of Russia’s ammunition, says Ukraine
North Korea was providing 50% of Russia’s ammunition needs at the front in its war against Ukraine, said Kyiv’s military spy chief, Kyrylo Budanov, on Sunday.
North Korea has deployed thousands of troops to support Russian forces, according to Ukrainian, US and South Korean assessments, Pyongyang’s first major involvement in a war since the 1950s.
Budanov told a press conference that North Korea had also begun large-scale supplies of 170mm self-propelled howitzers and 240mm multiple rocket launch systems to Russia.
North Korea has already supplied Russia with ballistic missiles as well, and in 2025 it plans to send 148, he added.
In 2025, Russia planned to produce more than seven million artillery and mortar shells, added Ukraine’s foreign intelligence chief, Oleh Ivashchenko.
“Russia ... understands that in general it produces way more than all European countries,” he said.
As for long-range missiles, Ivashchenko said Russia was expected to produce around 3,000 this year.
US expects mineral deal with Ukraine to be signed this week
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday they expected that an agreement would be signed this week on US access to Ukraine’s critical mineral deposits.
Zelensky wavered “in his commitment towards that a week ago”, said Witkoff in a CNN “State of the Union” interview, referring to the Ukrainian leader’s rejection of the original US proposal. “The president sent the message to him. He’s not wavering any more.”
Zelensky realised “that we have done so much [for Ukraine] ... and I think you’ll see it [the deal] signed this week,” continued Witkoff.
Zelensky had previously rejected US demands for $500-billion in mineral wealth from Ukraine to repay Washington for wartime aid, saying the US had supplied nowhere near that sum.
“The deal will be signed,” Bessent said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday, adding he was “hopeful” it would happen in the coming week.
The Ukrainian president’s chief of staff said on Sunday that the next round of negotiations with the United States over a deal would continue.
Russia and US plan another meeting this week
Russian and US teams plan to meet this week to discuss improving relations after the war in Ukraine had pushed ties to the worst level since the depths of the Cold War, said a senior Russian start diplomat on Sunday.
With Russian forces having advanced last year at the fastest rate in Ukraine since the start of the 2022 invasion, Trump has said he wants to deliver a peace deal to end the war which he says has killed vast numbers of people.
Trump and Putin spoke on 12 February about improving relations and ending the war, and US and Russian officials met in Riyadh on 18 February to that end.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Moscow’s point man for relations with the US, said that a meeting at the level of departmental heads would take place at the end of the week.
“We are open to contacts with the American side, in particular, on irritants in bilateral relations,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by the state news agency Tass.
“We are waiting for real progress when the meeting scheduled for the end of the coming week takes place.”
Estonia in new push to get EU to seize Russian assets for Ukraine
Estonia has launched a new push to get fellow EU members to agree to seize frozen Russian assets and use them to help Ukraine, dismissing a Russian idea on how the money could be used as part of a peace deal.
The Baltic country has sent a discussion paper on the issue to European Union partners and will raise it at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday, said officials.
Some €210-billion in Russian assets are immobilised in the EU by sanctions as part of an international crackdown on Moscow for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Last year, the G7 group of nations — including the EU — agreed to use profits from frozen Russian assets to fund a $50-billion loan for Ukraine. But the assets themselves remain untouched.
“The decision to use the windfall profits was a step in the right direction. I see that the time is ripe now to take the next step,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told Reuters.
On Friday, Reuters reported that Moscow could agree to allow Russian assets frozen in Europe to be used for reconstruction in Ukraine but would insist part of the money is spent on the part of the country controlled by its forces.
Tsahkna dismissed that idea.
“Giving Russia some of the assets to use in the occupied areas means accepting Russia’s occupation of some parts of Ukraine,” he said.
The EU has insisted Ukraine’s territorial integrity must be respected in any peace deal.
Several EU countries, including Baltic states and Poland, have said they are ready to consider seizing the assets. But Germany, France, Belgium and the European Central Bank have been wary, warning of legal challenges and undermining the euro as a reserve currency.
Belgium-based clearing house Euroclear holds most of the Russian assets frozen in Europe.
US firms could do business in Russia after peace deal, says Witkoff
Steve Witkoff, US Special Envoy to the Middle East, said on Sunday that there would be an expectation that US firms may do business in Russia in the event of a peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine war.
“Obviously there would be an expectation that if we get to a peace deal, that you would be able to have American companies come back and do business there. And I think that everybody would believe that that would be a positive, good thing to happen,” Witkoff told the CBS News programme “Face the Nation”.
Ukraine must participate in talks about its future, says UK's Starmer
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Sunday that there can be no talks about the future of Ukraine without the participation of Ukraine, setting his stall out before a meeting with Trump this week.
“Nobody wants the bloodshed to continue. Nobody, least of all the Ukrainians,” he told the Scottish Labour Party conference in Glasgow.
“But after everything that they have suffered, after everything that they have fought for, there could be no discussion about Ukraine without Ukraine, and the people of Ukraine must have a long-term secure future.”
Starmer visits Washington on Thursday in the footsteps of French President Emmanuel Macron, who will meet Trump on Monday, exactly three years after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Both leaders are expected to try to convince Trump not to rush to a ceasefire deal with Putin at any cost, keep Europe involved in the process and discuss military guarantees to Ukraine.
On Friday Trump told the Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox News Audio that Starmer and Macron “haven’t done anything” to end the war in Ukraine.
US could cut Ukraine’s access to Starlink over minerals
US negotiators pressing Kyiv for access to Ukraine’s critical minerals have raised the possibility of cutting the country’s access to Elon Musk’s vital Starlink satellite internet system, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Ukraine’s continued access to SpaceX-owned Starlink was brought up in discussions between US and Ukrainian officials after Zelensky turned down an initial proposal from US Treasury Secretary Bessent, said the sources.
Starlink provides crucial internet connectivity to war-torn Ukraine and its military.
The issue was raised again on Thursday during meetings between Keith Kellogg, the US special Ukraine envoy, and Zelensky, said one of the sources, who was briefed on the talks.
During the meeting, Ukraine was told it faced imminent shutoff of the service if it did not reach a deal on critical minerals, said the source, who requested anonymity to discuss closed negotiations.
“Ukraine runs on Starlink. They consider it their North Star,” said the source. “Losing Starlink ... would be a massive blow.”
After Reuters published its story, Musk posted on X that the article was “false” and “Reuters is lying”. Contacted by Reuters for specifics, Musk did not immediately respond.
A Reuters spokesperson said the news agency stood by its reporting. DM