Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine must ensure that the war with Russia ends next year through diplomacy.

Zelensky acknowledged in a radio interview on Saturday that the situation on the eastern Ukrainian front is difficult as Russia continues to make progress in key areas.

US law prevents the president from meeting with newly-elected US President Donald Trump before his inauguration in January, but Zelensky has said he will only talk to Trump himself and not an adviser.

“I, as President of Ukraine, will only take seriously a conversation with the President of the United States of America, with all due respect to any entourage, to any people.”

“For our part, we must do everything so that this war ends next year, through diplomatic means,” Zelensky said.

Russian forces have captured two villages in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russian news agencies quoted the Defense Ministry on Saturday.

The villages of Makarivka, just over 100 km west of the city of Donetsk, and Hryhorivka, located west of the city of Selydove, were captured by Russia last month, the ministry said, according to Reuters.

It comes as Russia continues to make progress in its offensive on the eastern Ukrainian front.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has criticized German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin as opening a “Pandora’s box”.

“This is exactly what Putin has wanted for a long time: it is extremely important for him to weaken his isolation, Russia’s isolation, and to conduct normal negotiations that will lead nowhere,” Zelensky said.

In the first phone call in almost two years, Scholz urged Putin to withdraw his troops and end the large-scale invasion launched in February 2022.

After months of occupying a swath of territory in Russia in the aftermath of a daring summer attack, Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Ukraine is now fighting a 50,000-strong force amassed by Vladimir Putin in the Kursk border region.

However, Moscow is now pushing to recapture the area. Following reports that thousands of North Korean troops are stationed in Kursk, the Ukrainian military has claimed that Russia has suffered record losses for two days in a row – signaling a new intensity in the fighting.

The independent has spoken to analysts about how the situation may develop in the coming weeks and months:

President Joe Biden is expected to use his latest meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping to urge him to stop North Korea from further deepening its support for Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Today’s talks on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Peru will take place just over two months before Biden leaves office and makes way for newly elected Republican President Donald Trump.

It will be the last time Biden reaches out to Xi – someone the Democrat saw as his most influential colleague on the world stage.

At the latest meeting, officials say Biden will look for Xi to step up Chinese involvement to prevent an already dangerous moment with North Korea from further escalating.

Biden, along with South Korean President Yoon Seok Yul and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, yesterday condemned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s decision to send thousands of troops to help Moscow fend off Ukrainian forces occupying territory in the Russian border area Kursk.

Biden called it “dangerous and destabilizing cooperation.”

White House officials have also expressed frustration with Beijing, which controls the vast majority of North Korea’s trade, for not doing more to rein in Pyongyang.

Embattled Chancellor Olaf Scholz has stressed that the war in Ukraine represents a financial emergency for Germany – which would open the possibility of more spending.

In an interview with the South German Zeitung In the paper, Mr. Scholz said that when the war began in February 2022, Germany had no idea how long the conflict would last or how long more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees would need protection in the country.

“The wrong assessment we made at the time does not prevent us from doing the right thing today. The Russian war is an extraordinary event that justifies a financial emergency – and therefore higher spending,” Scholz said, while also calling for a moderate change in the debt rule that currently limits government spending.

“A reform will not solve all our financial problems, but it will make our path a little easier,” he added.

Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya landed in the Ukrainian capital today for an unannounced visit in a show of unity with the war-ravaged country.

Mr Iwaya traveled by train from Poland to Kiev after visiting Peru for a regional economic meeting, the Foreign Ministry said.

The top diplomat will meet his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha and hold talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky later in the day. Mainichi reported.

An exiled Russian television chief living in London has been found dead in Serbia.

Alexei Zimin, 52, was an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea. According to Russian media, he was found dead in a hotel room in Belgrade earlier this week. He was traveling to the Serbian capital to publish his new book about Britain, entitled Anglomania.

According to Serbian authorities, there were “no suspicious circumstances” in Zimin’s death. According to BBC News, an autopsy and toxicology investigation was underway.

Zimin spent his last years in exile in Britain, hosting a cooking show on Russia’s NTV channel. But the show was axed after he posted anti-war messages on social media in the wake of Putin’s massive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazrom will cut off supplies to Austria’s OMV company today, the Austrian Chancellor said.

He added that his country’s underground gas storage was full and that the country had alternative, non-Russian supplies.

The cut follows OMV’s announcement that it would stop paying for Gazprom gas to its Austrian arm to compensate for a £192 million arbitrage award it won over an earlier cut of gas supplies to its German subsidiary.

Chancellor Karl Nehammer said yesterday that Austria has a secure supply of alternative fuel and that “no one will freeze this winter, no house will be cold.”