A meeting of Ukraine’s allies led by UK defence minister John Healey has been told that this year is “critical” for the conflict. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s envoy has travelled to Russia for a reported meeting with Vladimir Putin. Follow the latest on the Ukraine war.
Friday 11 April 2025 10:15, UK
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By Ivor Bennett, Moscow correspondent
The latest US-Russia prisoner swap is a further sign of the thawing relations between Moscow and Washington, but I think it’s also an indication of how slow things are moving.
Rewind two months to 11 February and you might remember there was another prisoner swap.
Out of the blue, 63-year-old American schoolteacher Marc Fogel, who had been imprisoned in Russia on drug smuggling charges, was suddenly released and on his way home to the US.
It was part of a deal that had been secured following a secret trip to Moscow by US envoy Steve Witkoff, in what marked the first sign of movement towards a peace deal in Ukraine.
Since then, there have been various face-to-face meetings between the two sides, at various levels.
There have been at least two phone calls between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. We’ve had talk of sanctions relief, business deals and the resumption of direct flights.
But despite the talk, it’s just that. Talk. There’s still nothing concrete, much to Trump’s frustration it seems.
Read Ivor’s full piece here.
The lack of an American guarantee behind any potential European reassurance force in Ukraine is still an “unresolved issue”, despite several gatherings of the “coalition of the willing”, Lithuania’s defence minister has said.
The US “backstop” is considered the main deterrent to any Russian violation of a future ceasefire, but Dovilė Šakalienė told members of the media in Brussels this morning that nothing had been agreed on the matter.
She also said it would be “a first” if Russia did not violate any ceasefire agreement.
The plan for a reassurance force is still not concrete, despite a strong push for it by Emmanuel Macron and Sir Keir Starmer, and critics are suggesting that without US support, any planning spearheaded by the UK and France is obsolete.
The Kremlin has just confirmed that Donald Trump’s top envoy is in Russia.
Reports suggest Steve Witkoff is set for his second face to face meeting with the Russian president, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirming that the American has arrived.
Flight tracking data suggests he landed in St Petersburg, rather than Moscow, however.
Peskov also stopped short of saying the Russian president would definitely meet with Witkoff, saying he would announce any meeting that Vladimir Putin held with the envoy “if time for such an encounter arose” in the Russian leader’s schedule.
Witkoff made headlines a few weeks ago when he was accused of “regurgitating Kremlin propaganda” during an interview, where he said he liked Putin and that he didn’t regard him as a “bad guy”.
John Healey, the UK’s defence secretary, is addressing members of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels.
He says that his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are both joining the meeting virtually.
“Our job as defence ministers is to get urgent military aid into the hands of Ukrainian warfighters,” Healey says.
He urges those present to re-look at what they can provide Kyiv.
“Today, we will pledge billions more [in more funding to Ukraine’s military],” he says.
He also acknowledges the £350m the UK has committed this morning – part of a wider £450m British-led package – which he says will strengthen British-Ukrainian industrial links as well as putting more weapons in Kyiv’s hands.
“2025 is the critical year for the war in Ukraine, and this is the critical moment,” he says.
“We stand with you in the fight and we stand with you in the peace,” Healey concludes.
John Healey is speaking in Brussels as defence ministers from the Ukraine Defence Contact Group meet at NATO headquarters.
Watch live in the stream at the top of the page and we’ll bring you the latest here.
Along the thin strip of beach and woodland known as the Vistula Spit which marks the northernmost demarcation between Poland and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, there is not much in the way of a border.
Just some torn wire fencing and a few rotten posts which seem to stagger drunkenly into the shallows of the Baltic Sea.
We’ve been granted access to one of the cornerstones of Polish, and European defence, which is a couple of hours drive from the Vistula spit at the Redowicze military base.
Aegis Ashore Poland, together with its sister site in Romania, are the land-based arms of NATO’s missile defence shield over Europe, which is run by the US navy.
They are symbols of the US commitment to NATO and to the protection of Europe.
Read Magnay’s full piece here.
Prince Harry has visited war victims in Ukraine as part of his work with wounded veterans, a spokesperson has said.
The Duke of Sussex was in central London this week for a Court of Appeal hearing over his security arrangements in the UK.
The visit yesterday to Lviv in western Ukraine, which has frequently been targeted with Russian missiles, was not announced until after he was out of the country.
You can read more about his trip here.
A meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels will begin in a little over half an hour’s time.
The group is an alliance of about 50 countries – all 32 NATO member states, including the US, and about 20 other nations – that has been supporting Ukraine by sending military equipment there since April 2022, a few weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
German defence minister Boris Pistorius will host the meeting the day after the UK defence secretary and his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu led 30 defence ministers from the “coalition of the willing” in Brussels yesterday.
We’ll likely get a bit more detail on the massive £450m package provided by the UK and Norway for Ukraine that we reported on in our 7.24 post.
While delegations from nearly 50 countries prepare to sit down for a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Brussels, it seems Donald Trump’s peace envoy is on his way to Moscow.
Reporting by Axios suggests that special envoy Steve Witkoff has already started his journey, citing a source familiar with the matter and FlightRadar data.
The outlet claims that Witkoff is set for his second face to face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Witkoff made headlines a few weeks ago when he was accused of “regurgitating Kremlin propaganda” during an interview, where he said he liked Putin and that he didn’t regard him as a “bad guy”.
The UK has announced a £450m “surge” of military support to Ukraine.
Some £350m will come from the UK, with further funding being provided by Norway, via the UK-led International Fund for Ukraine.
Defence Secretary John Healey and his German counterpart Boris Pistorius are set to host a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in a little over an hour – where we could get a bit more detail on the announcement.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the new military support package will be delivered by suppliers from Britain and Ukraine itself to help boost Kyiv’s armed forces.
£160m will go towards repairs to vehicles already supplied by the UK, while some £250m will provide brand new radar systems, anti-tank mines and hundreds of thousands of drones in what the MoD described as a “close fight” package.
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Ukraine war latest: 2025 is 'the critical year for Ukraine' – as Trump's envoy heads to Russia for reported Putin meeting – Sky News
