• Claims Russian forces now hold full strategic initiative on battlefield.
• Says Ukrainian troops retreating “in all sectors” despite resistance.
• Kyiv disputes claims, citing gains in Donetsk and Sumy regions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russian forces had captured almost 5,000 square km (1,930 square miles) of land in Ukraine in 2025 and that Moscow retained complete strategic initiative on the battlefield.

Putin, addressing a meeting with Russian top military commanders, said Ukrainian forces were retreating in all sectors of the front. He said Kyiv was trying to strike deep into Russian territory, but it would not help to change the situation in the more than 3 1/2-year-old war.

“At this time, the Russian armed forces fully hold the strategic initiative,” Putin told the meeting in northwestern Russia, according to a Kremlin transcript.

“This year, we have liberated nearly 5,000 square km of territory – 4,900 – and 212 localities.”

Ukrainian forces, he said, “are retreating throughout the line of combat contact, despite attempts at fierce resistance.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry on Tuesday reported the capture of two more villages along the front, which Ukraine’s top commander says now extends over 1,250 km (775 miles).

Ukrainian accounts of the situation on the front line say Kyiv’s forces have made gains in the Donetsk region, particularly near the town of Dobropillia. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has also said Ukrainian forces have regained ground in the border Sumy region, where Russia has established a foothold.

Russian Army General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of Russia’s armed forces, told the meeting of top commanders that Russian forces were “advancing in practically all directions.” Ukrainian forces, he said, were focused on slowing the Russian advance.

Gerasimov, overall commander of Russia’s war effort, said Moscow’s troops were moving on the key cities of Siversk and Kostyantynivka in the main theatre of the Donetsk region.

He said they were clearing Ukrainian forces from the city of Kupiansk, under Russian attack for months in Ukraine’s northeast, and were moving forward in Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions further south. They were also progressing in setting up buffer zones in Sumy and Kharkiv regions in the north.

In his remarks to the meeting, Putin said Russia’s objectives remained the same as when he launched its “special military operation” in February 2022, saying it was aimed at “demilitarising and denazifying” its smaller neighbour.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron faced growing pressure on Tuesday to resign or hold a snap parliamentary election to end political chaos that has forced the resignation of five prime ministers in less than two years.

The 47-year-old centrist president has repeatedly said he will see out his second term, which ends in 2027.

But resignation calls, long confined to the fringes, have entered the mainstream during one of the worst political crises since the 1958 creation of the Fifth Republic, France’s current system of government.

On Tuesday, as Macron’s outgoing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu held last-ditch talks to form a new government, his first premier in 2017, Edouard Philippe, said it was time for a new president to break the deadlock.

Speaking to RTL radio, Philippe said Macron should be “leaving in an orderly manner” to allow a way out of the crisis.

‘It’s a mess’

Political turmoil in the euro zone’s second largest economy was front page news across Europe at a time when US President Donald Trump is demanding the continent do more to shore up its own defenses and aid Ukraine.

Markets have taken fright, with investors keeping a close eye on France’s ability to cut a yawning budget deficit. French stocks fell 1.4% on Monday and the risk premium on French government bond yields rose to a nine-month high on the crisis.

“It’s a mess. It makes you sad,” said Brigitte Gries, a 70-year-old pensioner in Paris, summing up public consternation.

“We’re becoming a bit of a laughing stock around the world right now,” added taxi driver Soufiane Mansour in the southern city of Montpellier. “We’re a bit of a clown around the world and in Europe, unfortunately.”

‘Allies round on Macron’

Philippe, whom polls show to be the best-placed candidate to lead the political centre in a succession battle, was the second of Macron’s former prime ministers to distance themselves from him in as many days.

Gabriel Attal, another erstwhile Macron loyalist, was blunt in his criticism. He was prime minister for a few months last year before Macron called a snap vote that delivered a hung parliament with three ideologically opposed blocs.

“Like many French people, I no longer understand the president’s decisions,” he said on TF1 TV, after Macron asked Lecornu, who had just tendered his resignation, to go back to opponents for last-gasp talks.

Lecornu, whose 14-hour-old administration was the shortest in modern French history, was given two days to find consensus.

Attal, however, ruled out calling for Macron to resign, someone who took part in a meeting of his parliamentary group said.

‘Far-right snubs talks’

Meanwhile, Lecornu held talks with leaders of Macron’s centrist alliance and conservatives, in which they agreed that finding a deal on next year’s budget was a priority.

He will need others, including the Socialists, on board to have the numbers needed to form a majority in the National Assembly— not least to pass a budget for next year.

Lecornu now plans to talk with the opposition in the afternoon and on Wednesday morning, but the far-right National Rally said they saw no point in those talks and would skip them.

Party chiefs Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen instead “reiterate their call for the dissolution of the National Assembly,” the RN said.

The RN tops opinion polls, but those surveys show a repeat election would likely produce another divided parliament, with no group holding a majority.

Palestinians on Tuesday marked two years since Israel’s devastating war on Gaza began, a conflict that has left an indelible scar on the enclave and its people.

The grim anniversary comes as Israeli bombardment continues across the Strip, compounding what the United Nations has repeatedly described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Since October 7, 2023 — when Hamas launched its attack on Israel, triggering a full-scale war — Gaza has endured relentless air strikes, ground assaults, and a suffocating blockade.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children, while tens of thousands more remain missing beneath the rubble of flattened neighbourhoods.

The two-year onslaught has also rendered the majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents homeless, forcing families into overcrowded makeshift shelters and tent camps amid severe shortages of food, water, and medicine.

A famine officially declared on August 22 this year has deepened Gaza’s suffering.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) — a global measure of hunger — reported that over half a million Palestinians are on the brink of starvation, with many surviving on animal feed and contaminated water. Aid convoys, when allowed to enter, barely meet a fraction of the needs.

Despite the staggering toll, Israeli strikes have not ceased, with explosions continuing to rock parts of Gaza even as mediators from Egypt, Qatar, and the United States push for a ceasefire.

The anniversary also follows the recent civilian initiative known as the Global Sumud Flotilla, an international effort to break the Israeli siege on Gaza.

All participating boats were intercepted by the Israeli navy, and activists aboard were arrested, sparking widespread protests across Europe and other countries condemning Israel’s actions.

Delegations from Israel and Hamas are currently holding indirect talks in Egypt, following a US-backed proposal to end the war and facilitate a prisoner exchange.

Here are the highlights of the devastation brought by the Israeli offensive to Gaza:

Satellite images show destruction in Gaza

Lives shattered, hopes endure