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Zelensky defends Olympic athlete’s banned helmet
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has defended a Winter Olympian’s right to wear a helmet featuring athletes killed during the war with Russia, after skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych said the IOC had banned it at the Games.
“I thank the flag bearer of our national team at the Winter Olympics, Vladyslav Heraskevych, for reminding the world of the price of our struggle,” Zelensky said on X.
“This truth cannot be inconvenient, inappropriate, or called a ‘political demonstration at a sporting event.’ It is a reminder to the entire world of what modern Russia is,” the president added.
Marco Rubio to visit Hungary next week
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel next week to Hungary, the State Department said Monday, after President Donald Trump endorsed its right-wing leader Viktor Orban, who is trailing in polls ahead of April elections.
In Budapest on Sunday and Monday, Rubio “will meet with key Hungarian officials to bolster our shared bilateral and regional interests, including our commitment to peace processes to resolve global conflicts and to the US-Hungary energy partnership,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said.
Orban is the rare European Union leader to enjoy warm relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has often resisted EU initiatives to support Ukraine.
Russia says peace deal with Ukraine must include security guarantees
An agreement to settle the nearly four-year-old conflict between Russia and Ukraine must also take into consideration security guarantees for Russia, a senior Russian diplomat was quoted as saying early on Tuesday.
“We recognise that a peace settlement in Ukraine must take account of Ukraine’s security interests, but a key factor, of course, is Russia’s security interests,” Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told the “Izvestia” media outlet.
“If you look carefully and study the statements made by the leaders of the European Union, no one talks about security guarantees for Russia. This is a key element of a peace accord. Without it, an agreement is impossible.”
Ukraine’s Heraskevych says banned by IOC from wearing helmet showing athletes killed in war
Ukrainian skeleton competitor Vladyslav Heraskevych said he had been told by an IOC representative that he was banned from wearing a helmet at the Milano Cortina Games showing images of the country’s athletes killed during the war in Ukraine.
He said Toshio Tsurunaga, IOC representative in charge of communications between athletes, national Olympic committees and the IOC, had gone to the Athletes’ Village to tell him.
”He said it’s because of rule 50,” said Heraskevych.
Rule 50.2 of the Olympic Charter states: “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”
EU proposes sanctions on Georgian, Indonesian ports for handling Russian oil
The EU has proposed extending its sanctions against Russia to include ports in Georgia and Indonesia that handle Russian oil, the first time it would target ports in third countries, a proposal document showed.
The sanctions package, which would be the 20th imposed by the EU over Russia’s actions in Ukraine, was jointly proposed by the EU’s diplomatic arm, known as the EEAS, and the bloc’s executive, the European Commission.
The package also includes new import bans on metals including nickel bars, iron ores and concentrates, unrefined and processed copper as well as various scrap metals such as aluminium. The package also bans imports of salt, ammonia, pebbles, silicon and furskins.
Ukrainian sports minister decries signs IOC may soften restrictions on Russian athletes
Ukraine’s sports minister decried actions by the International Olympic Committee that his government says indicate the body may soon ease restrictions against Russian athletes, allowing them to once again represent their country in future Olympic Games.
At the Milan Cortina Olympics, 13 Russians are competing as “Individual Neutral Athletes”, meaning they cannot wear any Russian symbols and won’t hear the Russian national anthem if they win a gold medal. Athletes from Russian ally Belarus face the same limits.
The IOC took a step toward relaxing policy on Russia in December when it advised sports bodies to allow Russian youth athletes to participate with their flag and anthem ahead of the IOC’s own Youth Olympics later this year. Russia has consistently pushed for a full lifting of restrictions.
Ukraine opens up arms exports, seeking to cash in on wartime technology
Ukraine is opening up exports of its domestically produced weapons, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, a way for Kyiv to cash in on a wartime technological arms race against Russia to generate badly needed funds.
The four-year war has fuelled a boom in the defence sector, with industry associations estimating Ukraine has more than a thousand arms and military equipment manufacturers, most of them small, privately owned companies founded after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
As companies scrambled to produce new weapon systems and ways to counter them, the defence sector has grown quicker than the government’s ability to buy its products, leading Kyiv to seek money from its allies to help fund domestic purchases.
Ukraine, France move to launch joint arms production
Ukraine and France signed a letter of intent paving the way for “large-scale joint projects in the defence-industrial sector”, Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov wrote on Telegram after meeting his French counterpart Catherine Vautrin in Kyiv.
He did not specify what arms would be produced with France or when manufacturing would be launched.
“We are moving from supplies to joint production and long-term solutions that systematically strengthen our defence,” Fedorov wrote.
Ukraine’s Heraskevych displays images of athletes killed in war on his helmet at Winter Olympics
Ukrainian skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych raced on Monday at the Milano Cortina Games wearing a helmet bearing images of people killed in the war in Ukraine, delivering on a promise to use the Olympic stage to keep global attention on the conflict.
“Some of them were my friends,” Heraskevych, also his country’s flag bearer, said of the portraits displayed on his helmet.
He named Dmytro Sharpar, a figure skater who was killed during the war two years ago, as well as biathlete Yevhen Malyshev, who died in the war in March 2022, among others.
Ukraine’s skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych during training. © Athit Perawongmetha, Reuters.
Russian forces pressuring Pokrovsk as ‘last battles’ rage
Russian forces are trying to press forward around the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv’s military said, hoping to conclude a months-long campaign to seize the strategic hub as Moscow seeks to capture the whole of the Donetsk region.
Ukraine has struggled to halt slow Russian advances around Pokrovsk and elsewhere along the 1,200km front line while it comes under US pressure to reach a peace deal to end the four-year war in ongoing talks.
Kyiv’s General Staff said its forces still held the northern part of Pokrovsk, a city with a pre-war population
of 60,000, and were also defending the smaller city of Myrnohrad nearby.
Pokrovsk, a railway nexus, has been the site of fierce fighting since last year. Its fall would mark Russia’s biggest battlefield victory since it seized the eastern city of Avdiivka in early 2024.
Ukraine’s Naftogaz says facilities hit by Russian strikes for second day
Russian attacks damaged production sites of Ukraine’s state-run oil and gas company Naftogaz in the Poltava and Sumy regions, the company’s CEO said.
The facilities in the Poltava region came under attack for a second day in a row, Sergii Koretskyi said on Facebook, adding it was the 20th attack on the company’s infrastructure since the start of the year.
Rubio to attend Munich Security Conference amid frayed Translantic ties
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead a sizeable US delegation to the Munich Security Conference starting on Friday, underscoring the importance of transatlantic relations despite a “crisis of trust”, the head of the forum has said.
Wolfgang Ischinger, the former diplomat who chairs the annual gathering of security experts and policymakers, said more than 50 members of the US Congress were expected, including Democratic US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Fifteen prime ministers or heads of state from the European Union will also attend the conference, which German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will open on Friday and continues until Sunday, he said.
“At the moment, transatlantic relations are, in my view, in a considerable crisis of trust and credibility,” Ischinger told a press conference on Monday in Berlin.
“That is why it is particularly gratifying that the American side is showing such strong interest in Munich.”
At last year’s conference, US Vice President JD Vance accused European leaders of censoring free speech and failing to control immigration, in the first of a series of attacks by the Trump administration that have frayed ties with European allies.
Ukraine says death toll from overnight drone strikes rise to four
A drone attack in the northern Chernihiv region of Ukraine killed a 71-year-old man and injured at least four others, its governor, Viacheslav Chaus, has said.
The fatality brings the number of people killed overnight in Russian attacks to at least four, with a dozen more injured.
A woman appears in a broken window of a building hit by a Russian drone strike in Odesa. © Nina Liashonok, Reuters
Germany indicts Ukrainian over parcel bomb allegations tied to Russia
Germany has indicted a Ukrainian national in connection with allegations of a plot linked to Russian intelligence to detonate parcel packages in Europe, German prosecutors have said.
The Russian embassy in Berlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment but Moscow has previously denied involvement.
The suspect, identified only as Yevhen B. under German privacy law, was arrested in Switzerland on May 13 of last year and extradited to Germany in December.
In March 2025, Yevhen B. and two other suspects identified as Daniil B. and Vladyslav T., sent two packages with GPS trackers from the western German city of Cologne to Ukraine on the orders of Russian intelligence intermediaries in Mariupol, prosecutors say.
The purpose was to investigate logistics routes in order to later send packages with incendiary devices that would ignite in Germany or elsewhere en route to parts of Ukraine not occupied by Russia, causing as much damage as possible, they say.
Russia’s Lavrov sees no ‘bright future’ for economic ties with US
Russia remains open for cooperation with the United States but is not hopeful about economic ties despite Washington’s ongoing efforts to end the Ukraine war, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.
Speaking to Russia-based media outlet TV BRICS, Lavrov cited what he called the United States’ declared aim of “economic dominance”.
“We also don’t see any bright future in the economic sphere,” Lavrov said.
Russian officials, including envoy Kirill Dmitriev, have previously spoken of the prospects for a major restoration of economic relations with the United States as part of any eventual Ukraine peace settlement.
But although President Donald Trump has also spoken of reviving economic cooperation with Moscow and has hosted his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on US soil since returning to the White House, he has imposed further onerous sanctions on Russia’s vital energy sector.
Russia’s FSB says Ukraine ordered attempt on Russian general’s life
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has accused the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) of ordering the attempted assassination of General Vladimir Alexeyev in Moscow last week, the Interfax news agency reports.
The FSB said that Polish intelligence had been involved in the recruitment of the shooter, without offering any evidence.
A Ukrainian-born Russian citizen has been extradited to Moscow from Dubai on suspicion of gravely injuring Alexeyev, Russian security officials said on Sunday.
Mother and 10-year-old boy killed in Kharkiv attack
In the northeastern Kharkiv region, state emergency services said they recovered the bodies of a woman and a 10-year-old boy after a Russian drone attack.
“Three more people were wounded,” the services added in a post on Telegram.
Farther south in Odesa, local officials said drone attacks killed a 35-year-old man and injured two others.
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Overnight Russian strikes on Odesa and Kharkiv killed at least three people, Ukrainian officials said early Monday.
The attacks come days after Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky said US President Donald Trump had given the warring sides until June to find a deal on ending the conflict triggered by Russia’s invasion in 2022.
Russia has continued bombarding its neighbour while engaging in US-backed talks to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.
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