The Japan Times - Trump flags Zelensky meeting as Russia claims key Ukraine town

Zelensky said Washington and Kyiv were planning "talks", but did not confirm a meeting between the two leaders.

Russia has been steadily grinding into east Ukraine for over a year, claiming dozens of mostly abandoned towns and villages despite heavy losses.

Toretsk is the biggest settlement Russia claims to have captured since Avdiivka in February 2024.

Kyiv denied Russia had full control of the industrial hub.

The capture of Toretsk, which lies on elevated ground, would allow Moscow to further obstruct Ukrainian supply routes, paving the way for it to punch deeper into the northern part of the Donetsk region, according to military analysts.

Once a bustling coal mining centre, Toretsk had about 30,000 people before Russia's 2022 invasion, but by July last year the number of residents had fallen by 90 percent, according to the local administration.

Former resident Galyna Poroshyna told AFP that there was "nothing" to go back to, and that everyone had left.

"Everything is destroyed there. Everything," she said.

A press officer for Ukraine's 28th brigade, which has been fighting for control of Toretsk, told AFP Ukrainian forces were holding their positions on the town's outskirts.

- Trump 'not going there' -

European foreign ministers are to meet in Paris next Wednesday to discuss the conflict and the Politico website said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio could attend the meeting.

Trump has put pressure on both sides to end the conflict, which will mark its three-year anniversary this month.

He said he would "probably" meet Zelensky "next week" in comments to reporters at the White House.

Asked if such a meeting would be in Washington, Trump replied it "could be Washington -- well, I'm not going there" to Kyiv.

Zelensky responded by saying he appreciated working with Trump.

"We're also planning meetings and talks at the teams' level. Right now Ukrainian and American teams are working out the details," he wrote on X.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made capturing the Donbas region a "priority" since declaring it Russian territory in 2022.

Toretsk and the embattled town of Chasiv Yar less than 20 kilometres (12 miles) further north are two of the last remaining urban areas blocking Russia from advancing further into the region, according to Russian military bloggers.

The Russian army is likely to use Toretsk to advance quickly into open fields west of the town, the Institute for the Study of War said in a report last month.

- 'It's just ruins' -

AFP reporters visited Toretsk last July.

Only a few elderly or people unable or unwilling to leave remained, despite the daily bombardment and electricity and water being cut off.

The doors of houses were smashed in, windows shattered, trees charred and electricity poles bent by blasts.

Video footage recently published by Ukrainian journalists shot over Toretsk shows the skeletal ruins of a small town subjected to eight months of systematic Russian shelling.

Shortly before Russia's announcement, Ukraine's foreign ministry posted an image of destroyed buildings on social media platform X.

"This was once someone's home," it said. "A place where people lived, laughed, and built their future. Now, it's just ruins."

- North Koreans back -

Zelensky said Friday that North Korean troops were back on the front line in Russia's Kursk region, after reports Moscow had withdrawn them after suffering heavy losses.

Western, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence agencies say Pyongyang deployed more than 10,000 troops to support Russia in its western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a cross-border offensive in August.

A Ukraine military spokesman told AFP in January that soldiers had been "withdrawn" and South Korea's spy agency told AFP this week that the soldiers appeared not to have been engaged in combat since mid-January.

"There have been new assaults in the Kursk operation areas... the Russian army and North Korean soldiers have been brought in again," Zelensky said in his evening address.

Kursk residents have grown increasingly frustrated with the authorities about the fate of hundreds of Russians trapped by the fighting.

Kyiv said Thursday it was ready to open a humanitarian corridor to let Russian citizens in the border area leave, if Moscow requested one.

H.Nakamura--JT