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The second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine comes as America prepares for a crucial election and while funding for a Ukrainian victory remains blocked in a divided Congress.

As our own frontline eyewitness reporting shows, Vladimir Putin has the upper hand.

Western leaders have repeatedly warned that Putin won’t stop at Ukraine given the chance. We are reminded that even on the eve of his invasion two years ago, Putin insisted he would not move into Ukraine.

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin ‘may achieve war goal’

So what might happen in the months and years ahead?

Here are two scenarios. Far-fetched? It depends if the rhetoric is accurate.

Scenario one:

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It’s March 2025 and a few weeks since Donald Trump was inaugurated as America’s 47th president.

Donald Trump
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Donald Trump

Air Force One has just touched down in Istanbul where Turkey is hosting the ‘Donbas Peace Summit’ where an agreement will be signed by Presidents Putin and Zelenskyy.

At the Topkapi Palace overlooking the Bosporus River, the stage is set for a Trump-brokered ‘peace’ treaty.

The treaty comes three months after Ukraine’s weapon supply ran completely dry following an American refusal to pass funding bills and a breakdown in European unity.

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Latvia: Conscription could help NATO

This Istanbul moment is the delivery of President Trump’s campaign pledge to ‘solve the Ukraine war in a day’.

It had taken longer than a day but Zelenskyy had been cornered through a lack of Western weapons.

Closed-door meetings between Trump administration officials and the Kremlin (the contents of which have not been revealed) sealed the deal: Ukraine agreed to cede the whole of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine to an expanded Russian Federation.

Inside the Topkapi Palace, Zelenskyy first took to the stage, stony-faced and wearing a suit rather than his army fatigues for the first time since the Russian invasion three years earlier.

He signed the document and left the room without acknowledging President Trump who was presiding over the moment.

(Pic: Reuters)
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(Pic: Reuters)

Minutes later, separately, a beaming President Putin emerged, signed the document and shook the American president’s hand.

Three years later in the spring of 2028, the Russian army which had been massing on Europe’s eastern flank invaded Latvia and Estonia.

The two European nations fell fast.

NATO, abandoned by Trump’s America a year earlier, was unable to defend them.

By the summer of 2029, Chinese President Xi Jinping launches an air and maritime invasion of Taiwan.

Read more from Sky News:
Who is Alexei Navalny’s wife Yulia?
Donald Trump breaks silence on Alexei Navalny’s death

What remains of Russian opposition?

Scenario two:

March 2025. Air Force One landed at Kyiv international airport. Joe Biden, recently re-elected as America’s President, descended the steps of the plane with a rare spring in his careful step.

President Joe Biden speaks about his meeting with Alexei Navalny's widow Yulia Navalnaya and daughter Dasha, in San Francisco, Feb. 22, 2024. The U.S. government is hitting Russia with the largest tranche of financial penalties imposed on Moscow since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. They target roughly 600 people and firms from Russia to China to the United Arab Emirates. The sanctions are timed to the second anniversary of the invasion, and in response to the death of Navalny. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
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(Pic: AP)

On the tarmac, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, in a suit, embraced him. Some observers said they could see tears in his eyes.

A week earlier, Russian President Putin had withdrawn the last of his forces from eastern Ukraine after a bitter winter battle in which an estimated 40,000 soldiers on both sides had been killed.

Putin’s army had been decimated after a massive increase of weapons from Europe and the United States.

The consequence of a war which had lasted three years was the near-total degradation of the Russian military.

It had been compounded by a surprise thaw in US-China relations and Beijing’s subsequent abandonment of Moscow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meets with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris (not pictured) during the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany February 17, 2024. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/Pool TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
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(Pic: Reuters)

A dramatic shift in the geopolitics of the Middle East also helped to seal Russia’s fate.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resignation and subsequent conviction in the 7 October Inquiry of September 2024 had paved the way for the Israeli-Saudi normalisation deal.

This isolated Iran and dented Tehran’s relations with Moscow.

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Ukraine needs ‘2.5 million shells’

Far-fetched then? Quite possibly. Donald Trump’s first presidency showed that his fickle unpredictability often cancelled out his wild rhetoric.

And a second Biden term is full of profound unknowns. Republican or Democrat, America appears far less engaged than it once was.

In a world of such discombobulating flux, and where global geopolitics is all inextricably linked, don’t rule anything out.

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Nine of Gazan doctor’s 10 children killed in Israeli strike on Khan Younis

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Nine of Gazan doctor's 10 children killed in Israeli strike on Khan Younis

Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.

Warning: This article contains details of child deaths

Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.

Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.

Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.

In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.

The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.

Rescuers removing the children's bodies from the rubble. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
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Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence

“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.

“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”

Rescuers placing the children's bodies in a van. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
Image:
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence

British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack

Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.

Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.

Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar's husband who is also a doctor, being taken into hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
Image:
Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence

The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.

Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.

Rescuers unload the children's bodies. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
Image:
Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence

‘No political or military connections’

Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.

“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”

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Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies

He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”

Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.

Read more:
Mum of emaciated baby in Gaza says ‘I don’t want to lose her’
Dad wrongly pronounced dead in Israeli bombing killed in airstrike

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Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.

Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.

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UN’s Antonio Guterres condemns ‘teaspoon’ of aid allowed into Gaza after dozens die in airstrikes

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UN's Antonio Guterres condemns 'teaspoon' of aid allowed into Gaza after dozens die in airstrikes

The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.

He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.

A woman walks amidst rubble at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip.
Pic: Reuters
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A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters

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Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’

Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.

The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.

Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.

Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.

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Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.

Palestinians carry a body at the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Jabalia, northern Gaza .
Pic: Reuters
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A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters

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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza

The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.

The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.

The leaders of the UK, France and Canada are “on the wrong side of humanity and (…) history”, he said, after they threatened “concrete action” against Israel this week if it continues its “egregious” military operations in Gaza.

Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.

Palestinians search for casualties at the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip May 23, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
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Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters

But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.

Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.

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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

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’12 people’ injured in stabbing at Hamburg train station – as woman arrested

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'12 people' injured in stabbing at Hamburg train station - as woman arrested

A woman has been arrested after 12 people were reportedly injured in a stabbing at Hamburg’s central train station in Germany.

An attacker armed with a knife targeted people on the platform between tracks 13 and 14, according to police.

They added that the suspect was a 39-year-old woman.

Police at the scene of a stabbing at Hamburg Central Station. Pic: AP
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Police at the scene. Pic: AP

Officers said they “believe she acted alone” and investigations into the stabbing are continuing.

There was no immediate information on a possible motive.

The fire service said six of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, three others were seriously hurt, and another three sustained minor injuries, news agency dpa reported.

The attack happened shortly after 6pm local time (5pm UK time) on Friday in front of a waiting train, regional public broadcaster NDR reported.

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A high-speed ICE train with its doors open could be seen at the platform after the incident.

Railway operator Deutsche Bahn said it was “deeply shocked” by what had happened.

Read more from Sky News:
Trump threatens EU with 50% tariff
Mum of emaciated Gazan baby: ‘I don’t want to lose her’

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Four tracks at the station were closed in the evening, and some long-distance trains were delayed or diverted.

Hamburg is Germany‘s second biggest city, with the train station being a hub for local, regional and long-distance trains.

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