The last year of war in Ukraine, a conflict about to enter its fourth year, has been marked by billions in aid, Ukraine seizing Russian territory and Moscow using a new hypersonic missile. US President Donald Trump sidelined Kyiv and its European backers when he called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on 12 February to talk about starting discussions to end the conflict. Meanwhile, the future of US military support for Ukraine remains uncertain, as Kyiv fears being forced into an unfavourable agreement. Washington has called Ukraine's ambition to join NATO and to return to its pre-2014 borders unrealistic. Three years on from the Russian invasion in February 2022, where does Ukraine stand?
02:41Ukraine is struggling against better-equipped Russian troops, now thought to be reinforced by North Korean soldiers.
02:47Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Pyongyang of deploying 11,000 soldiers to help Moscow.
03:09Away from the front, signs of war fatigue are spreading amongst the population.
03:14Moscow's bombing campaigns against Ukrainian energy infrastructure regularly plunge civilians into cold and darkness.
03:39Donald Trump's return to the White House has shaken up the war.
03:42Vladimir Putin has agreed to negotiations with the U.S. president, but so far has refused to do so with Zelenskyy.
04:02Over the past three years, the U.S. and its allies have insisted that no decisions on the war can take place without Ukraine.
04:10But Trump has announced plans to hold peace talks with Putin in Saudi Arabia.
04:14We had a great call and it lasted for a long time, over an hour this morning.
04:21I also had with President Zelenskyy a very good call after that.
04:26And I think we're on the way to getting peace.
04:29I think President Putin wants peace and President Zelenskyy wants peace, and I want peace.
04:35I just want to see people stop getting killed.
04:37Concerns are now mounting in Kiev and amongst European allies that the war will be settled without them.
04:43We shouldn't take anything off the table before the negotiations have even started, because it plays to Russia's court.
04:50And it is what they want. Why are we giving them everything that they want even before the negotiations have even started?
04:58It's appeasement. It has never worked.
05:00Putin appears completely unwilling to compromise on his war aims, and let's be quite clear what his war aims are.
05:07Regime change in Ukraine, Ukraine largely disarmed, Ukraine politically unable to move towards the EU, NATO or the Western world, effectively a satellite state of Russia.
05:20It also means Russia controlling the Crimea and those four eastern and southern oblasts.
05:30On the ground, soldiers also remain sceptical.
05:37They will stay where they are at the moment.
05:40There will be some kind of demarcation line, but in time, forces and missiles will regroup and strike again.
05:51They won't leave their plan.
05:53They have a task to destroy Ukraine and the Ukrainian nation.
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