Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested a ceasefire deal could be struck if Ukrainian territory he controls could be taken “under the NATO umbrella” – allowing him to negotiate the return of the rest later “in a diplomatic way”.
In an interview with Sky News’s chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay, the Ukrainian president was asked to respond to media reports saying one of US president-elect Donald Trump’s plans to end the war might be for Kyiv to cede the land Moscow has taken to Russia in exchange for Ukraine joining NATO.
Mr Zelenskyy said NATO membership would have to be offered to unoccupied parts of the country in order to end the “hot phase of the war”, as long as the NATO invitation itself recognises Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.
He appeared to accept occupied eastern parts of the country would fall outside of such a deal for the time being.
“If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” he said.
“We need to do it fast. And then on the [occupied] territory of Ukraine, Ukraine can get them back in a diplomatic way.”
Mr Zelenskyy said a ceasefire was needed to “guarantee that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin will not come back” to take more Ukrainian territory.
He said NATO should “immediately” cover the part of Ukraine that remains under Kyiv’s control, something he said Ukraine needs “very much otherwise he will come back”.
In his first interview with British media since Mr Trump’s election win, Mr Zelenskyy was asked what he thought of the president-elect and said “we have to work with the new president” in order to “have the biggest supporter”.
“I want to work with him directly because there are different voices from people around him. And that’s why we need not to [allow] anybody around to destroy our communication,” he said.
“It will be not helpful and will be destructive. We have to try to find the new model. I want to share with him ideas and I want to hear from him.”
Asked if he had spoken to Mr Trump, Mr Zelenskyy said the pair had spoken in September when he was in New York, adding: “We had a conversation. It was very warm, good, constructive… It was a very good meeting and it was an important first step – now we have to prepare some meetings.”
The interview is the first time Mr Zelenskyy has hinted at a ceasefire deal that would include Russian control of Ukrainian territory.
Throughout the conflict, Mr Zelenskyy has never said he would cede any occupied Ukrainian territory to Russia – including Crimea, which Russia occupied in February 2014 and formally annexed the following month.
He said such a move is not allowed under the Ukrainian constitution and the only way it would be possible is if people in those areas agree to secede.
The furthest he has gone previously was during an interview with Le Monde in July this year, when he suggested the territories could join Russia if they voted to in a free and fair referendum.
But he said Kyiv would have to have the territory back under its control in order to hold such a vote.
Around a fifth of Ukrainian territory remains under Russian control.
In September 2022, Russia unilaterally declared its annexation of areas in and around the Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia following referendums that were not internationally recognised.
Mr Zelenskyy’s long-held position is that the territory remains Ukrainian, that Russia’s occupation of the land is unlawful and that Kyiv will not cede any of its territory in order to strike a peace deal.
Earlier this year he presented a “victory plan” to the Ukrainian parliament which included a refusal to cede Ukrainian territory and sovereignty.
However, Moscow has suggested it will not give up any of the land its forces occupy in any peace deal and argued Kyiv ceding its territory is a precursor for it to come to the negotiating table.
Despite Ukraine’s staunch defence of its territory and attempted counter-attacks since the war began more than 1,000 days ago, Kyiv’s forces have been on the back foot in recent months and Russia has slowly made gains in the east of the country.
:: You can watch our full interview with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sky News this evening. The Ukrainian president’s discussion with chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay will be shown on The World from 9pm.
Russia’s ability to outmatch Ukraine with artillery barrages on the battlefield has significantly reduced to just 1.5 Russian rounds for every Ukrainian shell fired back, Western officials have said.
This compares with Russian forces launching at least five times as many artillery rounds as Ukraine could in the war previously – with the ratio at times much higher even than that.
The Western officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, put the levelling out down to a “wide variety of factors”.
These factors include limitations in Russia’sdefence production lines, difficulties with transporting more rounds to the frontline by rail, and strikes by Ukrainian drones against strategic stockpiles of Russian and North Korean ammunition supplies inside Russia.
In addition, they said Western supplies of ammunition were helping to bolster Ukraine’s armoury.
However, vast quantities of Russian glide bombs appear to be compensating for the reduction in the country’s advantage on the artillery front, the Western officials signalled.
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Army could be ‘worn out in a year’
One official said there had been a “massive increase in Russian glide bomb use on the frontline to devastating effect”.
They said Russian forces were still gaining ground in Ukraine but at a terrible cost.
The Western officials repeated earlier Ukrainian claims that Russia lost more than 2,000 troops, killed or injured, in a single day last month fighting against Ukraine – the highest casualty rate of the war.
Moscow has consistently dismissed Russian casualty estimates by Ukraine and its allies.
The Kremlin does not publish up-to-date figures. Ukraine is also secretive about its losses.
One of the Western officials said the figures “speak to the brutality of the frontline – very Somme-esque”.
The Battle of the Somme in France was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the First World War.
The Western official said Russian forces suffered 2,030 casualties on 28 November – “a new war high” and the first time the rate of dead and wounded had breached the 2,000-mark.
The official said the average daily rate of Russian dead and injured in Ukraine for the whole of November had topped 1,500 for a third straight month, putting the average at 1,523 personnel.
South Korea’s president needs to be removed from power after his shock decision to impose martial law this week, the country’s ruling party leader has said.
People Power Party leader Han Dong-hoon had said they are against impeachment, but he suggested that may change in light of “credible evidence” the president planned to arrest political leaders.
“I believe that President Yoon Suk Yeol’s immediate suspension of office is necessary to protect the Republic of Korea and its people in light of the newly revealed facts,” he said.
He did not explicitly call for impeachment, but claimed the president had ordered the arrest of prominent politicians on the grounds they were among “anti-state forces”.
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The presidential office later denied any such order had been given, according to the Yonhap news agency, while the government said it was not preparing another martial law declaration.
Fearing another attempt to declare martial law, opposition politicians were rotating through parliament’s hall to block any attempt, a Democratic Party official said.
It’s unclear if the president was meant to arrive at the National Assembly, where protesters have gathered to call for his impeachment.
For an impeachment to pass, the bill would need support from two-thirds of the 300-member assembly.
As the president’s party has 108 politicians, eight would need to side with the opposition for the bill to succeed.
If the president is impeached, he would be suspended until a trial can be held at the Constitutional Court, while the prime minister would serve as acting leader.
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The South Koreans who fought martial law
Meanwhile, the national police is investigating the president and Kim Yong-hyun, the defence minister who resigned after allegedly encouraging martial law.
Broadcaster YTN reported government and military prosecutors are also carrying out a joint investigation, while South Korea’s defence ministry said on Friday it has suspended three commanders.
The country’s special warfare commander, Kwak Jong-geun, claimed he defied an order from the former defence minister to drag politicians out of parliament. Instead, he said, he ordered troops not to enter.
“I knew it would be disobedience, but I did not order that mission,” he told an opposition politician’s YouTube channel, adding he ordered against carrying live ammunition.
A Syrian rebel who took part in the capture of the city of Hama has told Sky News they will continue to push on.
In the latest blow to President Bashar al Assad, rebels in the Middle Eastern country took control of the central city on Thursday.
Speaking to Sky News, one rebel said: “Just as we liberated Aleppo and now Hama, we will proceed to Homs, and Damascus, and Deir el Zor.”
He also claimed to have received support from the people in Hama.
Abu Omar, a resident in the city, said they had been waiting “45 years… for this moment”.
When asked if he was afraid of the rebel attack, he said: “On the contrary, we’ve been waiting for this moment. Our children, our family, they’ve all come back to us.
“Everyone was a million times more scared before, praise God, we’ve been liberated. No more oppression and tyranny.”
Mr Omar added: “What’s happened to us here, has happened in Idlib and Aleppo… and the regime has completely failed.”
Rebels seize Hama
The Syrian army said it had withdrawn and taken up positions outside the city to protect civilians, hours after opposition fighters said they were marching towards its centre.
The insurgents said they had entered Syria’s fourth-largest city on Thursday after days of intense fighting with government forces on its outskirts.
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Air strikes hit Hama as rebels advance
The fall of Hama follows a lightning offensive by the jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) and Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army.
The surprise assault saw militants capture much of Syria’s largest city Aleppo last week and reignited the country’s civil war, where the frontlines have largely been frozen in place over the last few years.
The battle for Hama saw fierce battles inside the city, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“If Hama falls, it means that the beginning of the regime’s fall has started,” the monitor’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, said before the city was captured.
The rebels have another key city in their sights
Hama is infamous in modern Syrian history.
In February 1982, government forces led by Rifaat al-Assad, the younger brother of then-President Hafez al-Assad, and uncle of the current President Bashar al-Assad, surrounded the city to quash an anti-Baathist uprising.
Thousands were massacred as the rebellion was crushed. It is still considered one of the largest assaults by an Arab leader on his own people in recent times and is taboo in official Syrian circles to this day.
The capture of Hama by rebels is therefore both a deeply symbolic and hugely strategic blow to the regime.
After taking the country’s second biggest city Aleppo over the weekend, they have made fast progress around 100 miles south while seemingly encountering little resistance.
Syrian and Russian attempts to repel them, mainly using airstrikes, have failed.
Rebel forces are now barely 50 miles from Homs, another key city that sits on a major junction of highways in the country. That will be next in their sights.
The more territory they take, the more stretched their forces will become attempting to hold ground.
President Assad will need to fight back – Damascus is still a comfortable distance away, but the Syrian leader is weakened and won’t rest easy after this latest humiliation.
Hama is one of the few cities that remained under Mr Assad’s control during Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011 following a popular uprising.
The central city of Homs, Syria’s third-largest, is around 40km (25 miles) away and is likely to be the rebels’ next target.
It sits on a major crossroads in Syria, linking the capital Damascus to the north and the coast to the west.
Jihad Yazigi, editor of the Syria Report newsletter, said: “Assad now cannot afford to lose anything else.
“The big battle is the one coming against Homs. If Homs falls, we are talking of a potential change of regime.”
Mr Assad has been able to stay in power largely thanks to the help of his allies, Russia and Iran, but both countries – as well as the Iran-backed Hezbollah group – have been distracted by their own wars.
Russia has been preoccupied with its invasion of Ukraine since 2022 and Hezbollah in Lebanon has suffered heavy losses in its war with Israel.