Trump: Zelenskyy is Impediment to Peace; Polish Official says ‘Not so!’

Before the end of 2025 I wrote that President Trump is the greatest impediment to ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Today, Trump wrote that in his mind Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is standing in the way of peace while the Russian führer Putin is ready to reach peace.

Fortunately for Ukraine, Poland’s Prime Minster Donald Tusk countered by stating that the Kremlin is actually standing in the way.

The American president told Reuters on January 14 that Putin is ready to reach a deal to end Russia’s full-scale war but Ukraine is not.

“I think (Putin's) ready to make a deal. I think Ukraine is less ready to make a ‍deal,” Trump claimed, saying that Zelenskyy is holding up the effort. “We have to get President Zelenskyy to go along ‌with it," he said.

When asked if the US is open to providing security guarantees to Ukraine, Trump did not rule out the assurance. “If we can get something done, we’d help. They’re losing 30,000 soldiers a month between them and Russia. Now, Europe is going to help us with that,” he said.

Trump continues to be glib and inexact with his statements about the war. He should know by now that security guarantees for Ukraine are among the top promises that Kyiv demands. It’s not a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of must before the deal is sealed. Yes, troops on both sides, the victim and aggressor, are being killed with Russians suffering more. However, Ukrainian civilians are being killed by Russians in far greater numbers than Russians.

Zelenskyy is continuing to demand security assurances that would guarantee Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty in case Russia invades Ukraine again – a realistic likelihood taking into account Moscow’s long history of attacking Ukraine. The Ukrainian president said he would not entertain discussions about ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia.

As for Donald Tusk’s observation on X (Twitter), as reported by European Pravda, the Polish official’s comment came in response to Trump’s belief that Zelenskyy, rather than Putin, is slowing down a potential peace deal.

“It is Russia who rejected the peace plan prepared by the US, not Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” Tusk said.

He added that Russia’s only response to US peace efforts has been further missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, which haven’t abated since the New Year regardless of the severe winter weather.

“This is why the only solution is to strengthen pressure on Russia. And you all know it,” he said.

Indeed, pressure in the form of a united front against Russia and increased sanctions to the level of national pain could hopefully force Russia to end the war and evacuate from Ukraine.

Russia’s Bombing of Lviv & Other Ukrainian Cities Means Peace Isn’t on Moscow’s Mind

Russia’s unending bombardment of Ukrainian cities, especially the ballistic attack on Lviv last week, demonstrate Russia’s determination to continue its war against Ukraine and to demonstrate that there are no limits to its criminal intentions even in the face of international condemnations, according to Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the UN Andrii Melnyk.

“This new, horrific wave of terror, which also engulfed many other Ukrainian cities early last week, including Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, and Odesa, demonstrates Putin’s determination to slap the American proxies in the face and continue his barbaric war,” Melnyk said Monday, January 11, during an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council amid Russia's recent attacks on Ukraine.

The Ukrainian diplomat noted that by launching the nuclear-capable MIRV Oreshnik strike on the night of January 9, Russia had moved to a new level of escalation. Furthermore, there's nothing new in Russia's attempt to justify the strike by citing a fabricated attack on Putin’s residence. Melnyk noted that this is reminiscent of the Gliwice provocation of August 31, 1939, when Adolf Hitler staged a fake attack on a radio station to justify his invasion of Poland.

"The insidious logic is identical. The aggressor state fabricates a pretext for war that doesn’t exist. Let me be clear. This so-called attack on Putin’s residence is an absolute lie," he emphasized. This statement has been corroborated by the US’s Central Intelligence Agency.

Melnyk pointed out that Russia repeatedly finds ways to prove that there are no limits to its criminal intentions. He said the enemy deliberately waited until January and then began attacking Ukraine’s infrastructure to leave millions of people facing terrifying freezing conditions.

“Russia deliberately waited until the beginning of January, when temperatures in Ukraine dropped to minus 15 degrees Celsius (5 degrees F), to carry out a series of the most destructive drone and missile strikes on our energy infrastructure, as a result of which millions of citizens found themselves in conditions of severe frost,” Melnyk said.

He added that every time the international community believes Russia has reached the “limit of lies and barbarism,” Moscow once again surpasses itself.

“It finds a way to sink even lower, proving that there are no limits to its criminal intentions," Melnyk said.

He noted that by launching the Oreshnik strike on the night of January 9, Russia had moved to a new level of escalation.

"The insidious logic is identical. The aggressor state fabricates a pretext for war that doesn't exist. Let me be clear. This so-called attack on Putin's residence is an absolute lie," he emphasized.

Melnyk elaborated for his diplomatic colleagues that Russia is more vulnerable now than at any time since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Its economy is slowing and oil revenue is down. “Russia wants to sell to this council and the whole U.N. family the impression that it is invincible, but this is another illusion,” he told the Security Council. “The carefully staged image of strength is nothing but smoke and mirrors, completely detached from reality.”

On the night of 8-9 January 8-9, Russian forces attacked Ukraine with 278 airborne weapons – 36 missiles and 242 drones of various types. Ukraine’s Air Force reported that Russia used one medium-range ballistic missile (Oreshnik) launched from the Kapustin Yar test site in Russia's Astrakhan Oblast.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the Russian air attack involving the Oreshnik missile requires a clear response from the international community, particularly the United States.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that Russia’s Oreshnik missile strike on Lviv Oblast, near the borders of the EU and NATO, poses a threat to European security and requires a strong response from partners.

“We expect the UN Security Council not only to issue yet another condemnation of Russia's war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine but also to take very concrete steps to stop Russian aggression and to compel Moscow to a just and lasting peace based on the principles of the UN Charter,” Melnyk insisted.

The United States also accused Russia during the Security Council session of a “dangerous and inexplicable escalation” of its nearly four-year war in Ukraine at a time when the Trump administration is trying to advance negotiations toward peace.

US deputy ambassador to the United Nations Tammy Bruce singled out Russia’s launch of a nuclear-capable Oreshnik ballistic missile last week close to Ukraine’s border with Poland, a NATO ally.

She told an emergency meeting of the Security Council that the United States deplores “the staggering number of casualties” in the conflict and condemns Russia’s intensifying attacks on energy and other infrastructure.

Bruce reminded Russia that nearly a year ago it voted in favor of a Security Council resolution calling for an end to the conflict in Ukraine.

“It would be nice if Russia matched their words with deeds,” she said. “In the spirit of that resolution, Russia, Ukraine and Europe must pursue peace seriously and bring this nightmare to an end.”

Moscow has given no public signal it is willing to budge from its maximalist demands on Ukraine. And Russia’s UN ambassador on Monday blamed the diplomatic impasse on Ukraine.

Europe’s leaders condemned the attack using the Oreshnik as “escalatory and unacceptable,” and U.S. envoy Bruce was equally tough.

“At a moment of tremendous potential, due only to President Trump’s unparalleled commitment to peace around the world, both sides should be seeking ways to de-escalate,” she said. “Yet Russia’s action risks expanding and intensifying the war.” 

2025 was Deadliest in Ukraine since Russian War Began 

The year 2025 was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022, rising more than 30 percent since the previous year, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) said today in its monthly update on civilian harm released January 12.

The UN confirmed that war-related civilian deaths numbered more than 2,500 last year.

Additionally, with winter temperatures in the negative teens Celsius, the UN agent said that disruptions to electricity, water and heating are placing civilians across the country at heightened risk.

HRMMU verified that conflict-related violence in Ukraine in 2025 killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142. The total number of killed and injured civilians in 2025 was 31 percent higher than in 2024 (2,088 killed; 9,138 injured) and 70 percent higher than in 2023 (1,974 killed; 6,651 injured).

The vast majority of casualties verified by HRMMU in 2025 occurred in government-controlled territory from attacks launched by Russian armed forces (97 percent; 2,395 killed and 11,751 injured).

“The 31 percent increase in civilian casualties compared with 2024 represents a marked deterioration in the protection of civilians,” Danielle Bell, head of HRMMU said. “Our monitoring shows that this rise was driven not only by intensified hostilities along the frontline, but also by the expanded use of long-range weapons, which exposed civilians across the country to heightened risk.”
 

Frontline areas

Increased efforts by Russian armed forces to capture territory in 2025 resulted in the killing and injuring of civilians, destruction of vital infrastructure, halting of essential services, and new waves of displacement in frontline areas. Sixty-three per cent (9,253) of all casualties in 2025 occurred in frontline areas. 

Older persons were particularly affected, as they constitute a large portion of those remaining in frontline villages. HRMMU documented that individuals aged 60 years and above accounted for over 45 percent (742 killed) of civilians killed in frontline areas in 2025, despite representing only 25 percent of the national population.

Civilian casualties caused by short-range drones increased by 120 per cent in 2025, resulting in 577 civilians killed and 3,288 injured, compared with 226 killed and 1,528 injured in 2024. For example, on 25 December, a short-range drone struck a car with volunteers conducting evacuations in Kostiantynivka, Donetsk region, killing one humanitarian worker and injuring two others. On 6 December, a short-range drone killed a woman and injured her two adult children in occupied Horlivka, Donetsk region.

“The expanded use of short-range drones has rendered many areas near the frontline effectively uninhabitable,” Bell said. “As essential services shut down and infrastructure is destroyed, it has become too dangerous in some communities even to provide emergency medical care or evacuate civilians. In 2025, many people who had endured years of hostilities were ultimately compelled to leave their homes.”
 

Urban centers across Ukraine

A massive increase in the use of long-range weapons by the Russian armed forces starting in June 2025 also caused an increase in civilian harm in urban centers across Ukraine.  Regular, hours-long, nightly attacks with hundreds of weapons killed and injured civilians, destroyed civilian property and infrastructure, and created anxiety across the country. 

Long-range weapons (missiles and loitering munitions) caused 35 per cent of civilian casualties in Ukraine in 2025 (682 killed and 4,443 injured), a 65 per cent increase in killed and injured compared with 2024 (531 killed and 2,569 injured).

In the deadliest attack in 2025, long-range weapons launched by the Russian Federation struck the western city of Ternopil on 19 November, killing at least 38 civilians, including eight children. Ten families lost at least two members each. At least 99 others, including 17 children, were injured.

Long-range weapons launched by the Russian Federation also killed 32 civilians, including five children, and injured 170, including 17 children, in Kyiv city on 31 July, the highest verified number of civilian casualties in the capital since the Russian Federation launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
 

Targeting of energy infrastructure

In October 2025, Russian armed forces resumed large-scale, coordinated strikes on energy facilities nationwide, causing emergency power outages and scheduled power cuts across the country.

The resumption of nationwide attacks on energy infrastructure occurred alongside continued region-specific attacks. For example, Odesa region was among the most affected areas in December, experiencing repeated strikes that resulted in prolonged power outages in several cities. These outages, which lasted for several days, severely affected residents, particularly people in vulnerable situations, by disrupting access to electricity, water and heating, as well as limiting the ability to preserve and prepare food and to use elevators in multi-storey buildings.

Attacks on energy infrastructure persisted and caused prolonged power outages as temperatures dropped in January 2026.

“The sharp increase in long-range attacks and the targeting of Ukraine’s national energy infrastructure mean that the consequences of the war are now felt by civilians far beyond the frontline,” Bell said. “With temperatures now down to minus 15 degrees Celsius, disruptions to electricity, water and heating are placing civilians across the country at heightened risk.”

Russian authorities have reported that in 2025 attacks by Ukrainian armed forces killed 253 civilians and injured 1,872 in the Russian Federation. Due to lack of access to the Russian Federation and limited publicly available information, HRMMU has not been able to verify these numbers.

January 12 – Ukrainian Political Prisoner Day: Names of Russian Regimes may Change but not Their Methods

Today, January 12, is recognized as Ukrainian Political Prisoner Day in memory of Ukrainian human, national and religious rights activists, the so-called dissidents of a previous generation, who demanded their universal right to be Ukrainian in a captive nation and fought for the independence of Ukraine from Moscow.

The Day was established by the late dissident and later Ukrainian presidential candidate Vyacheslav Chornovil in 1975 to protest Soviet Russian repression, particularly the mass arrests of Ukrainian intellectuals in January 1972. Originally it was marked in the camps and prisons but ultimately it made its way out into the free world. It was regularly commemorated by the Ukrainian diaspora around the world. In the United States it was the subject of numerous congressional resolutions, mobilized by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (UCCA).

On the day that marked the beginning of the second wave of arrests in 1972, political prisoners issued political statements of protest against repression, human rights violations and the brutality of the regime, and announced hunger strikes. The camp administration fabricated pretexts for punishing those who took part in such hunger strikes. Since 1983 the refusal to eat was treated as an infringement of the regime for which you could be punished. As a sign of solidarity Ukrainians were supported by political prisoners from other national groups.

The late Russian dissident and political prisoner Lyudmila Alexeyeva had observed that when the nascent dissident movement was growing in Russia, the Ukrainian movement was already a fully developed, dynamic political machine dedicated to freedom, human and religious rights, and Ukrainian independence.

Even in independence, the commemoration remains relevant today, remembering Soviet-era victims like Valentyn Moroz, Yuriy Shyukhevych, Vasyl Stus, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Yevhen Sverstiuk, Lev Lukianenko, Ivan Kandyba, Vasyl Stus, Vasyl Symonenko, Valentyn Moroz, Leonid Pliushch, Zinovii Antoniuk, Ivan Dziuba, Mykola Rudenko, Mykhailo Osadchyi, Ivan Hel, Stefania Shabatura, Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets, Ihor Kalynets and hundreds of others including Crimean Tatars. Today, contemporary prisoners in occupied territories are also honored.

The Honor Roll of Ukrainian Political Prisoners includes not only those who fought for Ukrainian independence in the hallowed halls of academia and on the streets in post-World War Two Ukraine but also those who began the battle during the war and ended up in Russian concentration camps.

Many succumbed to Russian torture in prison, others died in exile, while others waged the fight until 1991, when Ukraine declared its independence.

Ukrainian political prisoners also commemorated the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in defiance to Soviet Russian authorities.

Today’s Russian regime continues to follow Soviet methods of dealing with dissidents in and out of Ukraine. Since the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014, a real terror campaign unfolded against Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars in the territories temporarily occupied by Russia. Since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, Russians have continued to persecute Ukrainians in the occupied territories, committing war crimes and violating human rights and freedoms.

Kyrylo Budanov,  head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, addressed Ukrainians everywhere on the occasion of Ukrainian Political Prisoners Day, celebrated on January 12. He paid tribute to all those who were imprisoned for their love of Ukraine, for the right to think and speak freely – some died in captivity during the tsarist, Soviet, and modern Russian regimes.

As Budanov noted, repression was an instrument of suppressing freedom for the Kremlin and for keeping the prison of nations intact since the imprisonment of Taras Shevchenko by the Russian Empire to Soviet camps for the Ukrainian intelligentsia. A similar practice continues in the territories of Ukraine occupied by Russian troops.

“The names of regimes change. The method does not change – prison as an instrument of Moscow's policy. Ukrainian political prisoners are persecuted not for crimes. They are punished for their identity. For the Ukrainian language. For refusing to accept the occupation. For loyalty to their state. Alongside them are thousands of prisoners of war and civilian captives. They are held in inhumane conditions, deprived of contact with their families, abused and tortured. This is part of the same system of fear that Moscow has been using against Ukrainians for centuries. Ukrainians not only remember those behind bars, but also about their families – mothers, wives, children, who are waiting and believing.

“We remember every Ukrainian political prisoner. We fight for every prisoner of war. And we will do everything to bring them home. Because freedom cannot be imprisoned,” Budanov said.

On this day, the grateful nation also remembers Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna and others who died or were killed in Russian captivity during Moscow’s latest war against Ukraine. Roshchyna was 27 years old when she was killed after being subjected to brutal torture and abuse.  She was a freelance journalist known for her courageous reporting from Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. She disappeared in August 2023 during a reporting trip to the Zaporizhzhia region, where she was investigating the abduction and torture of civilians in Russian-run detention centers. 

As Budanov said, the name of the Russian regime may change along with its adjectives but its brutal methods against Ukrainian civilians, political prisoners and national activists on the outside remain the same. 

MIRV against Ukraine

UN to Review Russian Bombardment of Ukrainian Civilians 

UN Security Council will convene an emergency meeting on January 12 at Ukraine’s request to address Russian attacks, particularly the use of the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile.

The missile is an MIRV that is capable of carrying six independent nuclear rockets.

“Following our urgent request in the wake of Russia's recent attacks on Ukraine, which included the use of an intermediate-range ballistic missile, the UN Security Council will convene an emergency meeting on Monday 12 January,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said.