Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 03-24-2025

In a world where war and diplomacy are tools for achieving goals, one question remains at the heart of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine: What does victory truly look like?

Victory is more than just a matter of military strategy – it’s about defining a clear and coherent goal for the future. Kyiv Post discusses what victory can mean with Dr. Daniel Szeligowski from the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM), a Polish state advisory and analytical institution.

The latest package will include units of the German-made Iris-T air-defense systems that would be built and delivered over the next two years.

Germany on Friday approved €3 billion ($3.25 billion) in new military aid for Ukraine.

The money is earmarked for defense equipment for the country fighting Russian forces, including munitions, drones, armored vehicles and air-defense systems.

Ukraine will create a Specialized District Administrative Court to handle cases against central government bodies.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed into law a bill establishing a new specialized high court to handle administrative cases against central government bodies, as per the website of the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.

Currently, Ukraine has two specialized high courts – The Anti-Corruption High Court and The High Court for Intellectual Property.

The next round of negotiations between American and Russian officials has begun in Saudi Arabia, just hours after US representatives concluded talks with their Ukrainian counterparts.

Delegations from the US and Russia began a new round of talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday, just a day after American officials met with Ukrainian representatives to continue discussing a ceasefire and other plans for ending the war in Ukraine. 

But no major developments are expected in today’s discussions, which are reportedly focused on continuing the so-called shuttle diplomacy of bilateral peace negotiations between the US delegation and, separately, the Ukrainian and Russian delegations. 

Top Baltic diplomats in US to urge support for NATO and Ukraine

The top diplomats of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania are visiting Washington DC on Monday and Tuesday to meet high-level US officials to discuss increasing Russian hybrid attacks in the Baltics and across Europe, and the need to maintain allied support for Ukraine and NATO, Kyiv Post’s Washington correspondent reports.

The visit comes amid US efforts to shuttle between Ukrainian and Russian delegations in Saudi Arabia to broker a limited ceasefire, one that officials from US President Donald Trump’s administration have said would be the first step toward lasting peace in Ukraine.

There are unconfirmed reports that a high-ranking Russian general was killed in battles in Russia’s western Belgorod Oblast, but that could be Ukrainian information warfare.

Ukrainian tank and armored infantry units invading Russia’s western Belgorod Oblast have held a modest but sensitive chunk of Russian Federation territory against Kremlin counterattacks for the past 96 hours, official and independent news sources said on Monday.

The attack led initially by light infantry units advancing on foot through woods and farm fields has broken into the village of Demidovka some 5 kilometers (3 miles) inside Russia and held it against quick response forces sent to that sector, reports said.

New TROLL AI spy platform with hyperspectral sensors is the first of a satellite “constellation” under a Prague-Kyiv defense agreement, soon to be joined by the Ukrainian military DRAK microsatellite.

The Ukrainian military issues website Militarnyi reported on Sunday that the first satellite of a planned joint Czechia-Ukraine constellation of orbiting surveillance platforms had successfully entered orbit in January.

The project resulted from the October 2022 agreement between Prague and Kyiv to develop mutually desirable defense programs in the face of Russian aggresion.

German official spokesperson reveals what is on the agenda.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is set to participate in the “Coalition of the Willing” meeting in Paris on Thursday, where concrete decisions may be reached.

According to an Ukrinform correspondent, government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit confirmed this at a briefing, announcing that the chancellor will attend the summit of Ukraine’s supporters.

The first round of US-Ukraine talks ended late on Sunday night, and within hours, Washington’s delegation began discussions with Russia’s representatives.

The US and Ukraine will hold another round of talks in Saudi Arabia on Monday, after US and Russian delegations conclude their meeting, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

The first round of US-Ukraine talks ended late at night, and within hours, the US delegation began a round of discussions with its Russian counterparts.

Hungarian railway employees reportedly fined Ukrainians on international routes despite Ukrzaliznysia informing them about the cyberattack.

Hackers struck Ukraine’s State Railways Company, Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ), blocking online train ticket purchases and online cargo shipment documentation across the country. 

“We can now officially confirm that Ukrzaliznytsia’s servers and IT resources have been subjected to an unprecedented cyberattack – targeted, complex, and multi-layered,” Chairman of the Board Oleksandr Pertsovskyi wrote in his Facebook post. 

Kyiv’s security services said the woman had been tasked to pinpoint the locations of the marines, border guards, and police officers in southern Ukraine.

Ukrainian security officials have detained a local woman from Odesa accused of aiding Russian forces by providing coordinates for airstrikes on military targets, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Office of the Prosecutor General reported.

According to the SBU, the 39-year-old suspect volunteered her services to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). She allegedly gathered and transmitted coordinates for potential missile and drone strikes in Odesa after which she planned to flee to Russia to evade prosecution.

Discussions on forming an international peacekeeping force have been complicated by the fact that “no one knows what the mission is,” The Telegraph reports.

Some “senior military sources” in the British military reportedly rejected UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s proposal to send a peacekeeping contingent to Ukraine as part of a “coalition of the willing,” calling the plan “political theater,”

“Starmer got ahead of himself with talk of boots on the ground before he knew what he was talking about,” one senior Army source told The Telegraph Sunday evening.. “Which is why we hear less about it now and more about jets and vessels which are easier to do and don’t need basing in Ukraine.”

If Donald Trump genuinely believed that he could persuade Vladimir Putin to sign up to a comprehensive ceasefire in Ukraine, he is learning the hard way this may not be the case.

The meagre results of last Tuesday’s 90-minute phone call speak volumes. The 30-day ceasefire on energy infrastructure is an old initiative that was under discussion between Russia and Ukraine before last summer’s incursion by Ukrainian forces into Russia’s Kursk Region. 

By giving little ground, Putin has signaled that he is ready to dance a long, slow tango with Trump while the Russian army continues its battlefield advances. 

The self-proclaimed architect of “Putinism” and the “Novorossiya project” told L’Express that he sees no limits to the expansion of Russian influence in all directions.

In his first major interview since he was sacked by the Kremlin in 2020 and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vladislav Surkov, the “backroom ideologist” credited with many of President Vladimir Putin’s political ideas and the concept of “Novorossiya,” gave his take on Moscow’s war against Ukraine to the French media outlet L’Express.

Surkov said Russia’s strategic objectives remain unchanged. It seeks the “military… and diplomatic crushing of Ukraine” and the “division of this artificial quasi-state into its natural fragments.

A source close to the administration said that Trump “will get frustrated if they [Ukraine and Russia] keep bombing infrastructure, infrastructure, and energy,” despite “agreeing” to stop.

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin seemed to clash over peace talks on Sunday night, as delegations met to prepare for a potential ceasefire agreement to halt the Russo-Ukrainian war.

According to The Telegraph, sources close to Trump revealed that the US leader expressed a willingness to wait for the right deal, but “he was growing angry at the continued missile and drone attacks” despite promises from both sides to accept a temporary truce.

The protests began in Istanbul after Imamoglu’s arrest on Wednesday and have since spread to more than 55 of Turkey’s provinces, sparking clashes with police in the country’s worst street protests.

Istanbul’s embattled Ekrem Imamoglu spent his first night in jail Monday a day after his suspension as mayor, as 10 journalists were detained for covering the mass demonstrations that his detention sparked across Turkey.

The protests began in Istanbul after Imamoglu’s arrest on Wednesday and have since spread to more than 55 of Turkey’s 81 provinces, sparking clashes with riot police in the country’s worst street protests in more than a decade.

Reconfirming the Trump administration’s pattern of trying to strong-arm weaker allies into exploitative mineral deals, US Vice-President JD Vance criticized Denmark and Europe.

Greenland, which is a self-governing entity within the Danish Kingdom, has become a hot topic in international politics since Donald Trump showed interest in adding it to the United States. The huge and sparsely populated island in the Arctic region is rich in resources.

On Sunday March 23, Vice President JD Vance was interviewed by Fox News. During the interview, JD Vance raised doubts about Denmark’s stewardship over the island and suggested it was not a good ally: “Denmark, which controls Greenland, is not doing its job and is not being a good ally.”

US President Donald Trump is pushing for a rapid end to the three-year war and hopes talks in Riyadh could pave the way for a breakthrough.

Representatives from the US and Russia began a new round of talks on Monday, March 24, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The meeting is closed to journalists.

US and Russian officials meet in Saudi Arabia on Monday for talks on a partial ceasefire in the Ukraine war, a day after delegates from Washington and Kyiv had their own discussions.

Estonia will stop accepting non-biometric passports issued by Russia from March 31, saying they lack data which makes it difficult to verify the documents.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said non-biometric foreign passports issued by Russia “entail various security risks” and make it hard to tell where or who it was issued by.  

This is a problem when it comes to “non-recognised regions’ such as occupied areas of Ukraine.  

The latest drone strikes on Kyiv have killed at least three people and wounded 10 since Saturday night, authorities said.

Two people were injured in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia after a nighttime attack by Russian drones, local officials said Monday, March 24.

A 37-year-old man was wounded in the Fastiv district of Kyiv, according to Mykola Kalashnyk, head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration. The man suffered shrapnel wounds and was taken to the hospital. The attack damaged two private homes and started a fire at a trading company, which was later put out, Kalashnyk said.

Ukrainian special forces targeted a hidden Russian helicopter position in Belgorod, destroying four aircraft with precision HIMARS strikes.

Ukrainian special forces used American HIMARS systems to destroy four Russian attack helicopters in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast in a single strike.

The Special Operations Forces (SSO) announced on Telegram on Monday, March 24:

The Kremlin’s rhetoric about NATO encroachment that “triggered” the invasion of Ukraine is deliberate disinformation. NATO should welcome Ukraine to counter Russian aggression.

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s leader since 1999, has consistently acted as an aggressor and authoritarian ruler, and is now charged as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Under his leadership, Russia has repeatedly attacked democratic neighbors, most recently Ukraine, with devastating consequences. Putin’s demands should hold no sway over NATO’s decisions—especially regarding Ukraine’s membership.

Since 1998, NATO has expanded from 16 members to 32 democracies without Russian consent, demonstrating clearly that Russia neither deserves nor receives veto power over NATO admissions. It was Czechia, Hungary and Poland (1999) Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia (2004); Albania and Croatia (2009); Montenegro (2017); North Macedonia (2020); Finland (2023); and Sweden (2024).

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• US and Ukrainian officials are meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on the evening of March 23 to discuss the contours of the temporary moratorium on long-range strikes and a possible temporary maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea.
• Unconfirmed reports suggest that there is tension between Russian Central Bank Chairperson Elvira Nabiullina and the Kremlin over Russia’s high interest rate and wartime monetary policies.
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Borova, and Russian forces recently advanced near Toretsk and Pokrovsk.

Russia’s fake news sites seek to make false information appear more credible and believable by exploiting public trust in legitimate media, “piggybacking on credibility”.

A fake news website falsely claimed that Ukraine’s president is paying Western reporters to tarnish US President Donald Trump, part of a series of deceptive reports spread by Russian-linked portals mimicking media outlets.

The disinformation tactic, amid heightened international efforts to halt the three-year war with Russia, seeks to undermine both Ukraine and public trust in mainstream media, researchers say.

Umerov says the latest round of peace talks, led by Kyiv’s defense minister and Trump envoy Witkoff, was “productive” and largely energy-focused, but the Kremlin still has the ball in its court.

Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that talks between Ukraine and the US in Saudi Arabia, which wrapped up on Sunday night, were “productive and focused.” Still, President Volodymyr Zelensky stressed that Moscow needed to end the war.

Umerov said discussions between his team and that of US envoy Steve Witkoff focused largely on energy. The future of the Russian-occupied nuclear power plant near Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest, has been prominently featured in US President Donald Trump’s remarks about the negotiations to bring Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine to an end.