Inside the town of Vuhledar on Ukraine’s frontline where ‘everything is bombed’
The scarred and battered mining town of Vuhledar sits perched on a hill in the Donetsk region.
It comes into view as we make our way along boggy farm tracks.
It’s a desolate place of burned out buildings, another casualty of this gruesome war.
It’s held by Ukraine but is being attacked continuously by Russian forces.
‘Unexplained’ explosions in Russian-occupied city – Ukraine war latest updates
We entered with a military escort as it came under fire again.
The soldiers taking us forward towards frontline positions warn us to space out and not hang around.
There’s the constant threat of an artillery strike.
We have to move fast over open ground and it’s a gut-churning zig-zag through the broken landscape.
The sound of a shell whining overhead sees us running for cover, which we find by the side of an apartment block.
The sound of the impact is deafening.
While there, there are moments of quiet before another shell tears through the sky.
The town in the Donetsk region in the fiercely-contested east of Ukraine has been absolutely devastated by the fighting.
Every apartment building has had its windows blown out and the sides of many of them have just been ripped apart.
There are shell craters all around us and unexploded rockets stick in the ground.
About 15,000 people lived here until it was smashed by war. Only a handful remain.
There are no services and the civilians still here collect rainwater from drainpipes to survive, always staying close to cover.
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Yemilia, 67-year-old resident of Vuhledar, venturing out for water
Yemilia, one of the residents, tells me she’s terrified all the time but has nowhere else to go.
“It’s really scary. We just go out (to get water) but mostly, we’re sitting in the basement all the time – because if you wait outside, everything is bombed here. It’s difficult, very difficult.”
Perhaps nothing sums up the insanity of this war more than what’s happening here – the wholesale destruction of people’s lives and possessions.
Ukrainian fighter ‘Sailor’ points out Russian positions near Vuhledar
Vuhledar, we’re told by the troops defending it, is strategically important as Ukrainian forces can target Russian supply lines from these positions.
The fighting over the last few weeks has been ferocious with Russia attacking at a frenetic pace.
“Sailor”, one of the soldiers, says it doesn’t matter how many men are killed, more keep coming.
“They go and go. They are not stopping. They are just advancing over their own dead bodies, their dead brothers, and more are just dying and dying. They’re not stopping.”
Sky News’ Alex Rossi reporting from Vuhledar
Ukrainian soldiers say they can defend their positions in the town
Inside a bunker hidden in the bowels of the town, one of the commanders, known as “Raven”, has just coordinated a counter attack.
He shows us a panorama of the town and the body of a dead Russian commando on a livestream beamed from a drone.
“As I understood from intercepting Russian radio, it was their commander. There are a lot of them storming us. But we are coping for now. Unfortunately, they have a lot of long-range mortars, artillery and tanks which we can’t see.”
We were taken to another position near the town, this time with a different brigade.
As we drive, a message comes over the radio that Russian troops are on the move.
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From 26 February: Russian forces hit by Ukrainian artillery near Vuhledar in Donetsk
Since the start of the Kremlin’s new offensive they’ve been very active along the line of contact.
The soldiers in the trenches respond by laying down an arc of fire.
The razor wire in front of them is a last defence against Russia’s human wave assaults.
The soldiers here say they can defend their positions. They’re inured to the hell of this war.
But Russia is a powerful enemy and doesn’t seem to care how many men it pushes forwards until it get what it wants.
World
Trump criticises Putin after potentially ‘historic’ meeting with Zelenskyy before Pope’s funeral
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Follow live updates: 200,000 mourn at Vatican
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.
Meanwhile, the Polish armed forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening.
“The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is testing the readiness of our air defence systems,” they said in a post on X.
On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
Leaning forward hands together in their laps, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy stare at each other in one photo.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.
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