Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky warns Putin has started WW III and must be stopped ahead of four-year anniversary

The Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region was facing an electricity outage after a major Ukrainian attack on energy infrastructure, a Russian-installed official said yesterday.

Yevgeny Balitsky, Moscow-installed governor of the Russian-controlled parts of Zaporizhzhia region, said a second power outage occurred this morning. Maintenance services had earlier managed to resume electricity supply to around 50 per cent of the region.

"Socially significant facilities are connected to backup power sources. Generators are running, providing water and supporting critical infrastructure," Balitsky said on his Telegram.

In Russian-controlled Luhansk a fuel reservoir caught fire after a Ukrainian drone attack on an oil depot, Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-installed leader, said.

The Russian defence ministry said air defence systems had intercepted and destroyed 86 Ukrainian drones over Russian region and the Crimean Peninsula overnight.

Hungary has threatened to block a new package of European Union sanctions against Russia and stall efforts to help Ukraine, demanding the immediate resumption of Russian oil deliveries.

This ultimatum precedes a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday to discuss the bloc's 20th round of sanctions, hoping for approval by the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced his intention to block the sanctions in a social media video on Sunday, accusing Ukraine of deliberately withholding Russian oil shipments via the Druzhba pipeline.

He stated: "We will not consent to the adoption of the 20th package of sanctions, because we have previously made it clear that until the Ukrainians resume oil shipments to Hungary, we will not allow decisions that are important to them to be approved."

Russian oil shipments to Hungary and Slovakia have been interrupted since 27 January.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine is prepared for "real compromises" to end the war, but not at the expense of its independence or sovereignty.

He expressed willingness to discuss compromises with the United States, while rejecting repeated "ultimatums" from Russia.

Zelensky reiterated that Ukraine would consider peace based on current battlelines, accusing Russia of "terrorism" through its demands.

"Stay where we stay – this is a big compromise," Zelensky said, confirming reports that Ukraine is agreeing to freeze the current lines of conflict as part of any deal.

"They took almost 20 per cent of our territory and we are ready to speak about peace at this moment, on the basis of 'stay where we stay'.

"This is a big compromise. What does Russia offer us as a compromise? What are they ready to do?

"We are ready for real compromises. But not compromises at the cost of our independence and sovereignty. We are ready to speak about compromises with the United States. But not to get ultimatums from the Russians again and again. They are the aggressor. Everybody has recognised it,” he said.

"They said, 'We are ready not to occupy your other regions'. But it is terrorism. Even that language, it is terrorism. 'I'm ready not to kill you – give us everything',” the Ukrainian leader said, calling it an “ultimatum” and “not a compromise.

“That's why I said: We are ready for compromises that respect Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, our army, our people, and our children. But we are not ready for ultimatums,” he said.

South Korea has asked the Russian embassy in Seoul to take down a large banner reading "Victory will be ours", its foreign ministry said, just ahead of this week's fourth anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine.

The ministry said in a statement on Sunday that it had conveyed its concerns to the embassy without clarifying whether it had received a response.

The roughly 15-metre (49.21 ft) banner, in the colours of the Russian flag and written in Russian, was hung on the embassy's outer wall in central Seoul ahead of the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday.

The banner remained in place on Monday.

In its statement, the ministry reiterated South Korea's position that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is illegal.

The ministry also said that military cooperation between Russia and North Korea should stop, describing it as a grave threat to South Korea's security and a violation of the UN Charter and UN Security Council resolutions.

Earlier this month, Russian ambassador to South Korea Georgy Zinoviev praised what he described as North Korean troops' role in fighting in Russia's Kursk region, according to media reports.

One police officer was killed and 24 people were wounded after several explosive devices detonated at midnight in Lviv, in western Ukraine, the National Police said on Sunday, in an attack president Volodymyr Zelensky blamed on Russia.

"It has been preliminarily established that homemade explosive devices detonated," the police officials said.

Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi described the incident as a terrorist act and said a 23-year-old policewoman had died. Twelve people remained in hospital, two in serious condition, he said.

Interior minister Ihor Klymenko said a woman had been detained in connection with the investigation.

The police said that the first explosion occurred after a patrol crew arrived at the suspected scene of a shop break-in, while the second explosion occurred a little later.

Emergency crews have restored power to most areas hit by cuts after a major Ukrainian attack on energy infrastructure, the Russia-installed governor of the part of Zaporizhzhia region controlled by Moscow said.

Yevgeny Balitsky said power supplies had been restored to all but 12,000 households in a single district. Emergency crews were working to complete the job, he said.

Balitsky had earlier said two power outages had occurred in the region in southeastern Ukraine. Workers had already restored power to 50 per cent of the region and generators were supporting critical infrastructure.

In Russian-controlled Luhansk in Ukraine's northeast, a fuel reservoir caught fire after a Ukrainian drone attack on an oil depot, Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-installed leader, said.

Pope Leo made an impassioned appeal on Sunday for peace in Ukraine, saying an end to the four-year-old conflict "cannot be postponed" as the United States tries to broker an elusive accord between Moscow and Kyiv.

Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour on February 24, 2022, used drones and ballistic and cruise missiles in its latest attacks overnight, the Ukrainian military and local officials said on Sunday.

"My heart goes out again to the dramatic situation that everyone can see," the pope said during his weekly address to pilgrims in St. Peter's Square after a Sunday prayer.

"So many victims, so many broken lives and families, so much destruction, so much unspeakable suffering."

The US has been seeking to mediate between the two sides, but progress has been halting, with Russia demanding Ukraine withdraw from parts of the eastern Donbas region it still controls, an idea Kyiv has rejected.

"Peace cannot be postponed," the pope said. "It is an urgent necessity that must find space in hearts and be translated into responsible decisions."

He said war was a "wound inflicted on the entire human family", which leaves behind "death, devastation, and a trail of pain that marks generations."

A massive Ukrainian missile attack inflicted serious damage on energy infrastructure and disrupted supplies of power, heat and water in Russia's Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, the region’s governor said.

"There has been, as a result, serious damage to energy infrastructure," governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram on Monday.

"In residences, there are interruptions in supplies of electricity, water and heat."

Gladkov said the attack affected both the city of Belgorod, 40km (25 miles) from the border, and the surrouding area. He said the extent of damage would be assessed at first light.

Belgorod has frequently come under attack from Ukrainian forces in the conflict whose fourth anniversary will be marked this week.

When Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine surpassed 1,418 days last month, it officially exceeded a historic milestone — the same span of time it took Moscow to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II.

And unlike the Red Army that pushed all the way to Berlin eight decades ago in what it called the Great Patriotic War, Russia's 4-year-old, all-out invasion of its neighbor is still struggling to fully capture Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland.

After Moscow failed to seize the capital of Kyiv and install a puppet government in February 2022, the conflict turned into trench warfare with tremendous cost. By some estimates, nearly 2 million soldiers are dead, wounded or missing on both sides in Europe’s most devastating conflict since World War II.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson has called for troops from the UK and Europe to be deployed immediately to Ukraine.

Mr Johnson said non-combat forces should be stationed in peaceful regions to send a firm message to Russian president Vladimir Putin otherwise the Russian leader would “keep going” with the conflict.

Speaking ahead of the four-year anniversary of the invasion, the former politician told BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that Ukraine’s allies had been “too slow” to respond.

“We've always delayed needlessly,” he said. “We've then ended up giving the Ukrainians what they have been asking for, and actually it's always served to their advantage and to the disadvantage of Putin. I mean, the one person who suffers from escalation is Putin.”