Ukraine-Russia conflict newest: Putin ‘open to nuclear tests’ as Zelensky discusses ending ‘hot phase of war’

There is no reason to think Russia is going to run out of steam any time soon in its attacks on Ukraine, an analyst has warned.

Warning that a ceasefire in the conflict is “a terrible idea” which would hand Vladimir Putin time to regroup for another attack, Keir Giles of the Chatham House think-tank told The Independent that Russia’s heavy assaults in Ukraine’s east are “probably” sustainable, at least in the short term.

“Especially if there is not a Western response which dissuades Russia from expanding that North Korean group into something which is militarily significant and actually brings increased pressure to bear on the Ukrainians,” said Mr Giles, author of the recently published book Who Will Defend Europe?

“And especially if they can keep up their campaign of pressure both militarily and against Ukraine functioning as a state through these attacks on critical infrastructure.

“There’s no reason to think Russia is going to run out of steam any time soon. Eventually of course, they’ll find it is not sustainable. But that’s in the medium-term, and we have to survive the short-term in the meantime.”

Fifteen of Ukraine’s civilian airports have been damaged since Russia invaded in February 2022, Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal has said.

Ukraine, which the state aviation service says has 20 civilian airports, has been exploring avenues to partially open its airspace for the first time since the full-scale war began.

“We conducted a risk assessment and determined the needs of the air defence forces to partially open the airspace,” local news agency Ukrinform quoted Shmyhal as saying at a transportation conference. “Security issues and the military situation remain key to this decision.”

Mr Shmyhal added that Russia had attacked Ukraine’s port infrastructure nearly 60 times in the last three months, damaging or destroying nearly 300 facilities and 22 civilian vessels.

A senior partner at insurance broker Marsh McLennan told Reuters earlier this month that Ukraine could reopen the airport in the western city of Lviv in 2025 if regulators deem it safe and a political decision is made.

In this analysis piece for Independent Voices, historian Mark Almond writes:

After Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, Western leaders repeated constantly that they would stand behind Kyiv “as long as it takes”, first as Ukraine struck back, then as Russia counter-attacked.

But the costly bloodletting and Europe’s inability to sustain Ukraine’s munitions and monetary needs was skinning those proud commitments to the bone even before the spectre of Donald Trump’s return to the White House became a nightmarish reality. But Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky wasn’t a tap dancer for nothing. His footwork is far more deft than his European partners’. The Russians have already found that to their cost.

Zelensky’s warm words about Donald Trump are not just positioning for the new president. Trump’s talk of “peace through strength” offers the Ukrainian president a chance to profile himself as the pilot who steered Ukraine, or most of it, to safety under an American umbrella.

Getting in well with Trump could buy Ukraine, and Zelensky himself, time to reconstruct its economy while hoping for things to go wrong for Putin at home or abroad.

Volodymyr Zelensky’s suggestion that Ukraine could temporarily cede territory to Russia in exchange for joining Nato would mark a “major concession” to Vladimir Putin, the UK’s former ambassador to Russia has said.

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James Nixey of the Chatham House think-tank has warned that any part of Ukraine being in Nato would be unacceptable to Vladimir Putin.

“After all, it is, for him, an abhorance. Putin doesn’t want a pause anyway – he believes he’s on the brink of an historic and strategic victory, kindly deal-sealed by Donald Trump,” Mr Nixey told The Independent.

Volodymyr Zelensky’s proposals for ending the war in part likely reflect “the unfolding political and military realities, as the Russians continue to advance and Donald Trump’s shadow looms over everything”, according to historian Mark Galeotti, author of Forged in War: A Military History of Russia.

“But I think it may also be Zelensky’s attempt to, in effect, call the West’s bluff,” Dr Galeotti told The Independent.

“Actually getting all Nato’s 32 members to agree to a quick membership would be very difficult, but in effect he is asking, ‘if not the Article 5 security guarantee, what else could be offered?’”

Volodymyr Zelensky’s suggestion that Ukraine could temporarily cede territory to Russia in exchange for joining Nato would mark a “major concession” to Vladimir Putin, the UK’s former ambassador to Russia has said.

Praising Mr Zelensky as “playing a very sophisticated game”, Sir Tony Brenton – who served as ambassador to Russia between 2004 and 2008 – told the broadcaster: “He knows that Trump is about to descend on him and on Russia. He is already arranging to have something to offer Trump.

“What he is suggesting in many ways is bringing us much closer to the obvious target area which is a freeze in the fighting where the lines actually currently are and then an eventual negotiation about who retains which bit of territory, and then security guarantees for Ukraine in the course of that ceasefire.”

Warning that Nato membership for Ukraine is “frankly going to be very, very difficult”, he said that Mr Zelensky’s statement that he is prepared to see a ceasefire and then negotiate the return of Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine over the longer term would be viewed by Mr Putin as a concession.

“That is actually quite a major concession, because the longer term could be a very long time indeed,” he said, adding: “[Putin] will say to himself, ‘ah, they are feeling weak, I can press for more’. That is a danger if we go into this.”

Asked whether Ukraine ceding territory in a peace deal would hand a form of victory to Vladimir Putin, the UK’s former representative to Nato Sir Adam Thomson told Sky News: “The outcome that Zelensky is suggesting is agreement to disagree over who owns a chunk of Ukraine currently owned by Russia.

“Russia would claim it as its own. Zelensky is making the crucial point that this would not be internationally legally recognised – it would just be a de facto control that could change at some future stage through diplomacy.

“Putin would have seized some territory, he would have done it at extraordinary cost – billions and billions of dollars, two new Nato members already, a thousand or more Russian soldiers being killed or wounded every day at the moment.

“It’s in that sense a compromise. He’s got some territory under his control, it’s not recognised, and it’s an outcome that means he’s lost the rest of Ukraine and alienated Europe for a generation.”

Russia has raised the threat of using nuclear weapons more than 200 times since invading Ukraine, the UK’s former representative to Nato has said.

Sir Adam Thomson told Sky News: “If Ukraine were actually inside Nato it would have the US nuclear guarantee. And this has been a very nuclear conflict.

“Over 200 times Moscow has threatened its nuclear capability as a way of deterring Western countries from helping Ukraine, and it’s perfectly logical therefore that the best way of stabilising this is giving Ukraine the Nato nuclear guarantee.”

He added: “The whole Russian behaviour and use of nuclear threat is extraordinarily dangerous because Putin is actually bluffing until he isn’t, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell when that moment comes.

“But clearly at present Russia is not in a desperate situation where it would contemplate the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine and its bluff in that sense has been called by its use of British and American missiles deeper into Russian territory.”

Ukraine is entering a “potentially decisive phase” in Russia’s war which will be crucial for Britain’s future security and prosperity, the UK’s former representative to Nato has said.

Speaking to Sky News in the wake of Volodymyr Zelensky’s interview discussing how to end the “hot phase” of the war, Sir Adam Thomson said: “This is a very significant statement by President Zelensky.

“With a new US administration coming in, we’re entering a potentially decisive phase in the Ukraine war that’s going to be crucial for the UK’s security and prosperity for years to come.

“Zelensky is addressing his own domestic audience, and is preparing them for compromises, but above all in this interview he is making opening moves in what’s likely to be an extended negotiation with the incoming Trump administration about what line Washington is going to take with the Kremlin.

“He’s moving Ukraine to a much more realistic position. Still not necessarily an achievable one, but more realistic.

“About three quarters of Nato allies, I would say, privately think that if it could be done Nato membership would be the least bad outcome in the sense of being the least expensive and the most stable outcome. But it couldn’t be done without the US president being wholly behind it and persuading two thirds of the US senate and quite a number of doubting allies.”