KYIV: Russia’s battlefield gains in Ukraine last year were the highest since 2022, an AFP analysis showed, as Kyiv was set to host security advisers from allied states on Saturday despite Moscow’s unrelenting strikes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said around 15 countries would attend the talks, along with representatives from the European Union and NATO, with a US delegation joining the meeting via video link.
The talks – and a subsequent summit of leaders from the so-called coalition of the willing planned for next week in France – are the latest in a flurry of efforts to end the nearly four-year war.
Zelenskyy said in a New Year’s Eve address that a US-brokered peace deal was “90 per cent” ready, though the important issue of territory remains unresolved.
The diplomatic push comes as Russia presses its advantage against outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian troops on the battlefield.
The Russian army captured more than 5,600 square kilometres, or nearly one per cent, of Ukrainian territory in 2025, according to an analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which works with the Critical Threats Project.
This includes areas that Kyiv and military analysts say are controlled by Russia, as well as those claimed by Moscow’s army.
The land captured is more than in the previous two years combined, though far short of the more than 60,000 square kilometres Russia took in 2022, the first year of its all-out invasion.