Russia-Ukraine updates: US votes against UN resolution condemning invasion

We’ll be closing this live page soon. Here is a recap of today’s main developments:

• Russian strikes across Ukraine have killed at least one person and wounded five more, according to local reports.
• The Ukrainian General Staff has reported 98 additional combat engagements with Russian forces over the past day, adding that heavy fighting continues across multiple fronts.
• A Russian military court has sentenced a man to 16 years in jail for providing Ukraine with data on a military site near Moscow and preparing attacks, according to authorities.
• French authorities say they have arrested two individuals following yesterday’s attack on the Russian consulate in the southern city of Marseille on the third anniversary of the Ukraine war.
• Ukraine’s presidential election will be announced after the end of the war and the establishment of a lasting peace, says a statement by the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament. The statement was adopted by the people’s deputies.
• Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal says Ukraine is discussing with the United States the possibility of establishing an investment fund to increase cooperation on critical minerals.
• The estimated cost to rebuild Ukraine’s economy corresponds to nearly three times its expected 2024 economic output, according to a new study by the World Bank, United Nations, European Commission and the Ukrainian government.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, says a day after Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said his vote in support of a European resolution on Ukraine at the UN General Assembly was “a mistake” that his apology was “heard” and “accepted” by Moscow.

“Indeed, technical errors do happen. And of course, such a prompt reaction from the head of state is very appealing to us,” he said.

Vucic said yesterday that he intended to abstain.

The UN General Assembly adopted a draft resolution on Monday calling for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, with Russia and the US voting against it. The resolution passed with 93 votes in favour, 18 against and 65 abstentions.

Proposed by Ukraine and European nations, it highlighted the global impact of Russia’s three-year war on Ukraine and raised concerns over reports of North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian ones.

It urged an immediate cessation of hostilities, reaffirmed calls for Russia’s full withdrawal and emphasised diplomatic efforts to prevent further escalation.

Belgrade is seen as Moscow’s last remaining friend in Europe, as it decided not to join the EU sanctions regime.

At least one person has been killed and another wounded as a result of Russian shelling of Kramatorsk city in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to the head of the regional military administration.

“The Russians attacked the city this afternoon. We are establishing all the circumstances of the shelling, the exact number of casualties and destruction,” Vadym Filashkin wrote in a Telegram post.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has committed to raising the United Kingdom’s defence spending to 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2027, saying it was necessary because “tyrants like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin only respond to strength”.

The UK currently spends 2.3 percent of GDP on defence, and the government had previously set a 2.5-percent target, without setting a date.

Starmer told lawmakers that the increase amounts to an additional 13.4 billion British pounds ($17bn) a year. He said the goal is for defence spending to rise to 3 percent of GDP by 2035.

To pay for it, overseas development aid will be slashed from 0.5 to 0.3 percent of national income, he said.

Starmer said that his announcement amounted to the “biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War”.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that a United Nations Security Council vote to adopt a US-drafted resolution that took a neutral position on the Ukraine conflict showed the causes of the war were being better understood.

Lavrov was speaking in Iran’s capital Tehran.

We reported earlier based on a regional governor that a woman was injured in the Kyiv region.

Since then, two more people were reported injured in the northeastern region of Sumy and one woman was hospitalised after the attack on the central region of Zhytomyr.

Russia’s embassy in London has said the UK’s new package of sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine was “illegitimate” and many of those targeted had no connection to the conflict.

Britain on Monday announced what it said was its largest package of sanctions against Russia since the early days of the war in Ukraine, including companies worldwide that supply components used by the Russian military.

The Russian embassy called the measures “futile” in a statement posted on Facebook on Tuesday.

“The moment chosen by London to whip up the sanctions hysteria is quite symbolic – at a delicate time when the foundations of the future Ukraine settlement process are being shaped in line with the Russia-US agreements,” it said.

Ukraine would be unable to use some of its most sophisticated weaponry within months if the US cuts off its military support, current and former Western officials have told The Wall Street Journal.

The US outlet said Ukraine is estimated to have enough weapons and ammunition to be able to sustain its current levels of fighting with Russia until the summer, or a bit longer if it uses them more sparingly.

The European Union has been trying to ramp up its military aid for Ukraine. Ukraine has said it is now producing $30bn a year in weaponry, a six-fold increase from a year earlier, including 1.5 million drones estimated to have been manufactured in 2024.

But some US supplies, including advanced air defence systems, surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, navigation systems and long-range rocket artillery, will be impossible to replace, at least in the short term.

“A peaceful resident” has been injured in the Russian-held city of Horlivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, and another civilian in the city of Oleshky in the Kherson region, according to local de-facto authorities.

Deputy head of the Oleshky district, Sergei Kulagin, told Russia’s Tass news agency that the Ukrainian shelling injured a 67-year-old man who was hospitalised with a concussion and burns to his hands.

The injury in Horlivka was reported by the de facto head of the city district, Ivan Prikhodko, through his Telegram channel. He did not give the age or the degree of the injury, but the victim was a female.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will visit the White House on Thursday to meet US President Donald Trump.

Washington’s opening of talks with Moscow to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, and its sidelining of Europe in the process, is expected to dominate the discussions.

Starmer’s visit comes hot on the heels of French President Emmanuel Macron, who said after talks with Trump in Washington yesterday that he believed “there is a path forward”.

French authorities say they have arrested two individuals following yesterday’s attack on the Russian consulate in the southern city of Marseille on the third anniversary of the Ukraine war.

Prosecutors said three plastic bottles filled with flammable liquid were thrown at the gardens of the consulate, two of which exploded but did not injure anyone.

Moscow said the incident “has all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack”, and the French government denounced “any infringement of the security of diplomatic compounds”.

The presidential election of Ukraine will be announced after the end of the war and the establishment of a lasting peace, says the statement of the Verkhovna Rada, which was adopted by the people’s deputies.

“The Verkhovna Rada … states that the martial law in Ukraine introduced in the conditions of a full-scale invasion by the Russian Federation does not allow for holding elections in accordance with the Constitution … At the same time, the Ukrainian people are united in the fact that such elections should be held after the end of the war,” the parliament-approved statement said.

The statement emphasised that Zelenskyy was elected in free, transparent, democratic elections, and his mandate is not questioned by the Ukrainian people and the Verkhovna Rada.

“The Parliament … emphasises the need to comply with the principle of institutional continuity of power stipulated by the laws of Ukraine, especially under the legal regime of martial law, and emphasizes that President … Volodymyr Zelenskyy must exercise his powers until assuming the post of the newly-elected President of Ukraine in accordance with Part One of Article 108 of the Constitution of Ukraine,” the statement notes.

The development comes days after US President Trump referred to Zelenskyy as “a dictator” who “refuses to have elections”.

Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal says Ukraine is discussing with the US the possibility of establishing an investment fund to increase cooperation on critical minerals.

He said Kyiv would pour future revenues from the extraction of minerals into the fund, and Washington would contribute money to various areas, such as economic development and reconstruction in Ukraine, according to the Interfax news agency. Ukraine believes the two sides’ contributions to the fund will be roughly equal.

“We offer the same conditions for European partners, for G7 partners, for everyone who participated in supporting Ukraine during these three years,” Shmyhal said.

He emphasised that Ukraine will not hold any discussions on minerals without receiving security guarantees and a peace plan.

The Russian Defence Ministry says its forces’ clashes with Ukrainian troops in the border region of Kursk occurred in the villages of Viktorovka, Goncharovka, Guevo, Kazachaya Loknya, Kubatkin, Kurilovka, Lebedevka, Makhnovka, Melovoy, Nikolsky, Novaya Sorochina, Rubanshchina and Sudzha.

The ministry claimed that the repelled Ukrainian forces included “a heavy mechanised, five mechanised, motorised infantry, assault, two airborne assault brigades, two territorial defence brigades and two assault regiments”.

Chinese President Xi Jinping says his country “is pleased to see Russia and other parties concerned making positive efforts to resolve the crisis” in reference to Ukraine.

He told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a phone call last night that China and Russia “cannot be moved away” from one another and their relations “will proceed with ease” due to their long-term neighbourly outlook despite international challenges, according to Xinhua.

The Kremlin said Xi expressed support for the dialogue initiated between Russia and the US, “as well as readiness to assist in finding ways to peacefully resolve the Ukrainian conflict”.

The Ukrainian Air Force reports another significant Russian air attack overnight, with projectiles launched from Oryol, Bryansk and Kursk.

It said 213 Iranian-design drones and a variety of decoy unmanned aircraft were launched by Russian forces, along with seven cruise missiles from strategic bombers.

Six of the missiles were reported intercepted, in addition to 133 drones. The Ukrainian military said 79 drones failed to reach their targets.

The 27 member states of the European Union have been spending more money on importing Russian fossil fuels than they allocated in financial aid to Ukraine, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

The Helsinki-based organisation said in a report to mark the third anniversary of the war that the EU purchased approximately 21.9 billion euros’ ($23bn) worth of Russian fossil fuels in 2024, while allocating some 18.7bn euros ($19.5bn) in financial aid to Ukraine. The figure does not include the value of EU military or humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

The report said Russia’s global fossil fuel earnings during the third year of the war reached 242 billion euros ($253bn), which was not far behind Russian earnings before the start of its invasion.

🌐 🇷🇺 🇺🇦 NEW | THREE YEARS OF WAR

⚠️ #Russia’s global #FossilFuel earnings in third year of full-scale invasion of #Ukraine reached EUR 242 bn

❗Total global payments to Russia for fossil fuels since start of invasion in February 2022 come to well over EUR 800 bn pic.twitter.com/ZZjZ9Xx7TT

— Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (@CREACleanAir) February 24, 2025

The following are highlights from Peskov’s news conference:

• Moscow sees potential for cooperation with the US on developing Russia’s large reserves of strategically important rare earth minerals.
• Russia still needs time and “a serious journey” to trust the US and rebuild ties with the country, which has imposed heavy sanctions on its economy.
• The deployment of European peacekeepers in Ukraine would be a move that is unacceptable to Moscow.
• We see the US has taken a much more balanced position, which really helps the efforts aimed at resolving the conflict in Ukraine.
• Based on the results of contacts between Europeans and Americans, perhaps Europe will somehow gravitate towards a greater balance.