The key Donbass stronghold of Pokrovsk will inevitably fall, Harald Kujat believes

With the US election less than a month away, and his support dwindling across Europe, the Ukraine president is in a last-ditch race against time to shore up support, writes Mary Dejevsky

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian military recruitment officers raided restaurants, bars and a concert hall in Kyiv, checking military registration documents and detaining men who were not in compliance, media and witnesses reported Saturday.

Moscow’s forces have been recapturing some villages and land taken in a Ukrainian incursion into Russia. The advances could undermine Kyiv’s hopes of pushing Russia to the negotiating table.

The impending elections of the US President apparently can open a window for negotiations on a truce between Ukraine and Russia. This week, a series of articles appeared in the leading Western media, from which it follows that Kyiv is ready to negotiate a truce in which the occupied territories de facto (but not de jure) will be left under the control of Russia, but Ukraine will receive either a guarantee of joining Nato, or similar security guarantees.

The eastern city is a key military hub, but it’s also critical to Ukraine’s steel industry.

Ukrainian deputy Oleksandr Merezhko sparked a stern online backlash after publicly warning about the threat posed by what he described as a growing far-right movement in Ukrainian society. Ukraine’s far-right fringe remains a sensitive topic in the war-torn country – and an easy target for Russian propaganda.

Mark Rutte made the trip just two days after replacing Jens Stoltenberg

Geoffrey Roberts is Emeritus Professor of History at University College Cork and a member of the Royal Irish Academy

As America’s drive for NATO expansion to Ukraine persists, the Ukrainian nationalism and neo-fascism it has used and engendered in pursuit of that goal has had an increasingly nefarious and divisive effect on American politics and its political system. This goes beyond the ‘mere’ polarisation and authoritarianization of American politics caused by disagreements over NATO expansion, the US role on the Maidan and in general in Ukraine after the Soviet collapse, and even involvement in the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War. In particular, US involvement in Ukraine has fostered corruption as high as in the White House itself and the repression of Americans, particularly unprecedented violations of their free speech rights by the Democrat Party- Deep State and the administration of President Joe Biden. Moreover, Ukrainian extremism since 2014 also has contributed to the growing tendency in U.S. politics to lie and circumvent the rule of law in pursuit of political goals at home and abroad. Controversy in the U.S. surrounding Ukraine and NATO policy there, fostered false charges of sedition against an American presidential candidate, Donald Trump (2016), crippled his presidency with trumped up impeachment charges and other campaigns, contributed to the causal chain leading up to the NATO-Russia Ukrainian War, led to U.S. government censorship on Facebook and Twitter and a general authoritarianization of American politics, motivated at least one attempted assassination of the Republican Party’s presidential candidate and former U.S. President Trump in 2024, and led to open interference in this year’s presidential campaign by Ukraine’s ostensible president, Volodomyr Zelenskiy.