Russia Ukraine war latest: Kremlin declares state of emergency in border city

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday he would travel to Ukraine in February to finalise a bilateral security guarantee deal and Paris would deliver more sophisticated weaponry in the coming weeks.

He said Russia could not be allowed to defeat Ukraine otherwise the security of Europe would be put at risk.

Macron made the announcement at a wide-ranging news conference Tuesday evening.

He said he will travel to Ukraine next month and that a Russian victory in Ukraine would undermine the international order.

Dmytro Kuleba made the remarks in an hour-long informal interview with a Ukrainian video blogger published on Monday.

“The most difficult talks are those in which you feel simply that you want to go and punch your opposite number in the nose, but you really can’t do that,” the minister said.

More than 60 heads of state and government and hundreds of business leaders are gathering in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss the biggest global challenges during the annual event.

Mr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, will aim to keep his country’s long and largely stalemated defence against Russia on the minds of political leaders, as Israel’s war with Hamas has garnered much of the world’s attention.

President Zelensky met with Polish president Andrzej Duda on Tuesday. He hinted that the meeting had been productive as the pair “coordinated” their positions ahead of the Nato summit in Washington.

“I met with @AndrzejDuda to discuss our bilateral relations, including our cooperation on Ukraine’s path to EU membership.

“We discussed the battlefield situation and further defense assistance for Ukraine. We also coordinated our positions ahead of the NATO summit in Washington.”

It’s a potential boon to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who last month derailed EU efforts to approve the funding for the war-ravaged country.

Following bilateral talks in Budapest, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said he agrees with Orbán’s position that the EU should not finance a planned 50 billion euro ($54 billion) aid package to Kyiv from the bloc’s common budget, and echoed Orbán’s assertions that the war in Ukraine cannot be resolved through military means.

Poland’s infrastructure minister said earlier on Tuesday that truckers who have blockaded Ukraine crossings since November would suspend their protest until March 1 after signing an agreement with the government.

“Today, Polish strikers unblocked the Korczowa-Krakowiets checkpoint. As of this hour, about 300 trucks are queuing to enter Ukraine from the Polish side,” the customs service said on the Telegram messaging app.

Synehubov said residences had been damaged in the attack. Emergency crews were at the scene.

“These strikes were in the city centre,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram. “Precisely where there is no military infastrcture and precisely where there are in fact residences.”

The United Nations appealed on Monday for $4.2 billion (£3.3bn) to help people in Ukraine and displaced outside the country this year, saying that people on the front lines have “exhausted their meager resources” and many refugees also are vulnerable.

About three-quarters of the total, $3.1 billion, is meant to support some 8.5 million people inside Ukraine. The remaining $1.1 billion is sought for refugees and host communities outside Ukraine.

A recent wave of attacks “underscores the devastating civilian cost of the war” and a bitter winter is increasing the need for humanitarian aid, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN refugee agency said in a statement from Geneva.

Russia‘s top diplomat on Tuesday hosted his North Korean counterpart for talks on expanding ties between the two countries amid international concerns over an alleged arms cooperation deal between Pyongyang and Moscow.

At the start of the meeting, Sergei Lavrov said he and North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui would discuss “active work” on implementing the agreements reached by the countries’ leaders.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to Russia in September to meet President Vladimir Putin and visit several military sites, sparking international concerns about an arms alliance that would help Moscow replenish its arsenals amid the fighting in Ukraine.