WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that the leaders of  have agreed to his request for a three-day ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners, adding that such a halt to hostilities could be the “beginning of the end” of the long war between them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, both confirmed the agreement.

“I asked and, President Putin agreed. President Zelenskyy agreed — both readily,” Trump said as he departed the White House to attend a dinner at his Virginia golf club. ” And we have a little period of time where they’re not going to be killing people. That����ap very good ”

Trump earlier Friday had announced on social media that the ceasefire would run Saturday through Monday. Saturday is , a holiday that commemorates the victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

“I am pleased to announce that there will be a THREE DAY CEASEFIRE (May 9th, 10th, and 11th) in the War between Russia and Ukraine,” Trump wrote. “The Celebration in Russia is for Victory Day but, likewise, in Ukraine, because they were also a big part and factor of World War II.”

The Republican president said the ceasefire includes a suspension of all kinetic activity and the exchange of 1,000 prisoners by each country.

Russia had announced a ceasefire for Friday and Saturday, but it quickly unraveled, with both sides blaming the other for the continued fighting, just as they had when Ukraine’s own unilateral ceasefire had swiftly collapsed earlier in the week.

Trump said he made his request for the ceasefire “directly” to the two presidents. “Hopefully, it is the beginning of the end of a very long, deadly, and hard fought War,” he said.

Trump added that talks continue over ending the war that began in February 2022 “and we are getting closer and closer every day.” Trump has gone back and forth over whether the war will end, at times expressing optimism and at other times saying Russia and Ukraine should be left to fight it out to the bitter end.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s decision on how to engage with those discussions was shaped in part by the prospect of freeing its prisoners. Ukraine has made the return of prisoners of war a central demand throughout the conflict.

“Red Square matters less to us than the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war who can be brought home,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. Red Square is where Russia holds its traditional military parade to celebrate Victory Day, one of the biggest holidays of the year.

After releasing his statement, Zelenskyy issued a formal presidential decree “authorizing” Russia to hold the parade, declaring Red Square off-limits for Ukrainian strikes for the duration of the event. The framing of the decree appeared designed to underscore Kyiv’s claim that it holds effective targeting reach over the Russian capital, while publicly tying Ukrainian restraint to the ceasefire terms.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later shrugged off Zelenskyy’s decree as a “silly joke.”

“We don’t need anyone’s permission to be proud of our Victory Day,” Peskov told reporters.

Zelenskyy said the deal for a ceasefire was reached through a U.S.-mediated process and thanked Trump and the American team for what he called effective diplomatic engagement. He said Ukraine expected Washington to hold Russia to the terms of the agreement.

“We are counting on the United States to ensure that Russia fulfills its commitments,” Zelenskyy said.

Zelenskyy said he had instructed his team to prepare everything necessary for the exchange without delay.

Trump’s announcement came hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a much more somber tone about negotiations to halt Russia’s 4-year-old war in Ukraine, saying U.S. mediation efforts have not led to a “fruitful outcome” so far.

“While we’re prepared to play whatever role we can to bring it to a peaceful diplomatic resolution, unfortunately right now, those efforts have stagnated,” Rubio told reporters at the end of a visit to Rome and the Vatican. “But we always stand ready if those circumstances change.”

Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv and Giada Zampano in Rome contributed to this report.

MATANZAS, Cuba (AP) — A Russian tanker docked Tuesday at the Cuban port of Matanzas laden with 730,000 barrels of oil, marking the first time in three months that an oil tanker reached the island.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump had allowed the Anatoly Kolodkin to proceed despite an ongoing U.S. energy blockade.

Cubans including Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy cheered the ship’s arrival. A shortage of petroleum has exacerbated a deep economic crisis that has left the population mired in long blackouts and facing a severe shortage of food and medicine.

“Our gratitude to the Government and People of Russia for all the support we are receiving. A valuable shipment that arrives amid the complex energy situation we are facing,” de la O Levy wrote on X.

Cuba produces barely 40% of its required fuel and relies on imports to sustain its energy grid. Experts say the anticipated shipment could produce about 180,000 barrels of diesel, enough to feed Cuba’s daily demand for nine or 10 days.

“The arrival of an oil tanker to a country has likely never generated so much news as the Russian one to Cuba,” wrote Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío on X. “It����ap a sign of the brutal siege Cubans endure with heroism and stoicism. It����ap a demonstration of the criminal cruelty of imperialism against a nation that refuses to be dominated.”

Some Cubans, however, wondered who would benefit from the newly arrived shipment.

“A ship comes; it gives us aid. But who does it go to? Because we don’t get anything here,” said 54-year-old Matanzas resident Leticia Almeida Barceló. “The ships that come in with oil or anything else don’t give us anything. Because we’re still stuck with blackouts, with water shortages, with shortages and shortages, and we need everything.”

The vessel’s arrival was watched by some fishermen as it docked under the early morning sun.

“We’ve been waiting for the ship to arrive because it����ap been some time since any ship entered,” said 50-year-old Armando Ramirez. “And it is needed here for the people, for Cuba.”

Others celebrating the arrival included Matanzas resident Camilo Galves, who watched the ship dock from his home.

“This is undoubtedly a great relief for the Cuban people and a moment of great joy for us amid so many hardships we are experiencing,” he said. “It����ap yet another sign that we are not alone in the world.”

Cuba used to receive most of its oil from Venezuela, but those shipments were halted ever since the U.S.  and arrested its leader in early January.

Since then, Mexico also has halted its oil shipments to Cuba as Trump threatened in late January to impose tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to the island. The U.S. administration is demanding that Cuba’s government ease political repression and liberalize its economy for a lifting of sanctions.

On Sunday night, Trump had said he had “no problem” with a  off the coast of  delivering relief to the island,

“We don’t mind having somebody get a boatload because they need … they have to survive,” Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington.

“Cuba’s finished,” he added. “They have a bad regime. They have very bad and corrupt leadership and whether or not they get a boat of oil, it����ap not going to matter.”

The vessel is sanctioned by the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom following .

On Monday, when asked about Trump’s decision to allow the Russian oil tanker and not ones from other countries, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “a decision that will continue to be made on a case-by-case basis for humanitarian reasons or otherwise,” adding that “there’s been no firm change in our sanctions policy.”

Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio have been pressuring for major changes in Cuba’s policies and governance. Both sides have said  as the island’s economic and energetic crises deepen.

It’s a question that is impossible to answer, but fun to contemplate: How would the Avs, the NHL’s top team at the Olympic break, fare against the top national teams if they had been allowed to enter the tournament?

We asked a handful of the Avs players. Here’s the scenario: the eight Olympians from Colorado play for the Avs, and those countries get to replace them with alternates. Let’s replace France, which wouldn’t have been in the tournament had Russia been allowed to compete, with the Avalanche.

How would they fare?

“I think we’d do pretty good,” said Avs captain Gabe Landeskog, one of the eight Olympians who competed in the tournament. “There’s some pretty good teams over there, no doubt about it. I think what this tournament has shown is that there’s no easy games. All of the teams are super competitive. Everybody is just very proud to go compete for their countries.

“But I think if the Avs showed up, we’d do alright. We’d hold our own.”

Club teams playing against national teams can be a fun debate in soccer, another sport with a global talent pool. The general consensus is that top club teams like Arsenal, Bayern Munich and FC Barcelona would likely defeat most, if not all, of the top national sides. Even a club like Tottenham, currently 16th in the Premier League standings, would likely be able to beat most of the teams at the 2026 World Cup that aren’t among the contenders to win the tournament.

One of the arguments is talent. The top club teams are filled with players who are the stars of their country’s national teams. But a big part of it is the continuity and chemistry that comes from practicing and playing together for nine months a year.

National teams in soccer play a fraction of the games together every year, and only the ones in tournaments actually replicate the speed and intensity of a critical league match. In hockey, the national teams spend even less time together.

Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States had the 4 Nations tournament last year, but those groups have only practiced a handful of times together over the past two years.

“I think we’d do pretty well, honestly,” Avs goaltender Scott Wedgewood said. “I think we have the advantage of our team system. We have some top guys – eight guys that made the Olympics. There were teams that didn’t have that many NHL players, so that����ap in your favor. I think we’d have a chance of medaling, for sure.”

Canada would need to replace Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Devon Toews. Finland would need replacements for Artturi Lehkonen and Joel Kiviranta. Sweden would need a replacement for Landeskog, the United States for Brock Nelson and Czechia for Martin Necas.

All five of the top teams would be slightly weaker, though Canada and the U.S. have all-star level options at their disposal. The other three countries do not.

Necas was Czechia’s best player. Lehkonen scored two massive goals for the Finns, which is just what he does.

The Avs would have more NHL star power than the other six teams in the tournament.

“I think it would be kind of what we’ve seen — close games,” Wedgewood said. “I don’t think anyone runs away from us. I think we’d be like Sweden, be like Finland – be battling in a game and hockey is hockey.

“I think the top three teams in the league could probably do the same thing. I think each team might have a chance. I think the Olympic squads have star power throughout their lineups, but then the NHL teams get their go-to checking lines that can wreak havoc.”

Josh Manson pointed out two reasons why the Avs could do well — Valeri Nichushkin and the goaltenders. Russia is currently not allowed to compete in international tournaments because of the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, so Manson’s reasoning was that teams with great Russians would have an advantage. Mackenzie Blackwood and Wedgewood were two of the top candidates to be on Canada’s roster in net, and just missed out.

Tampa Bay would have Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy. Dallas would neuter Finland by taking back Mikko Rantanen, Miro Heiskanen, Roope Hintz and Esa Lindell, plus Jake Oettinger in net.

Wedgewood is right — the Avs are probably right there with Finland and Sweden as the next-best teams behind the two current titans of the sport.

Could the Avalanche defeat Canada or the United States in a seven-game series? Almost certainly not. But, as we saw during an incredible Olympic tournament, a good goaltending performance and some strong defensive work can turn any individual game.

“I feel like we’d do pretty well. It would be hard,” Avs forward Ross Colton said. “When you watch, all of those teams have so much skill but aren’t as structured. Obviously, Canada and the U.S. have the best players in the world, but I guess we’d probably be more structured. I would think they could be good games.

“I have no idea, but we’re not going to get dominated. I think we could compete for sure.”

MOSCOW (AP) — The Kremlin said Thursday it regretted the expiration of the last remaining  between Russia and the United States, while U.S. President Donald Trump declared he was against keeping its limits and wants a better deal.

The pact’s termination left no caps on the two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than a half-century, fueling fears of 

Russian President Vladimir Putin last year declared his readiness to  if Washington followed suit, but Trump has ignored the offer and argued that he wants China to be a part of a new pact — something Beijing has rebuffed.

“Rather than extend ‘NEW START’ (A badly negotiated deal by the United States that, aside from everything else, is being grossly violated), we should have our Nuclear Experts work on a new, improved, and modernized Treaty that can last long into the future,” Trump posted on his Truth Social network.

Putin discussed the pact����ap expiration with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday, noting the U.S. failure to respond to his proposal to extend its limits and saying that Russia “will act in a balanced and responsible manner based on thorough analysis of the security situation,” Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow views the treaty’s expiration Thursday “negatively” and regrets it. He said Russia will maintain its “responsible, thorough approach to stability when it comes to nuclear weapons,” adding that “of course, it will be guided primarily by its national interests.”

Peskov emphasized that “if we receive constructive responses, we will certainly conduct a dialogue.”

With the end of the treaty, Moscow “remains ready to take decisive military-technical measures to counter potential additional threats to the national security,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

“At the same time, our country remains open to seeking political-diplomatic ways to comprehensively stabilize the strategic situation on the basis of equal and mutually beneficial dialogue solutions, if the appropriate conditions for such cooperation are shaped,” it said in a statement issued late Wednesday.

Even as New START expires, the U.S. and Russia  to reestablish high-level, military-to-military dialogue following a meeting between senior officials from both sides in Abu Dhabi, the U.S. military command in Europe said. The link was suspended in 2021 as relations between Moscow and Washington grew increasingly strained before Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Details of the pact

New START, signed in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, restricted each side to no more than 1,550 nuclear warheads on no more than 700 missiles and bombers — deployed and ready for use. It was originally supposed to expire in 2021 but was extended for five more years.

The pact envisioned sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance, although they stopped in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never resumed.

In February 2023, Putin suspended Moscow’s participation, saying Russia couldn’t allow U.S. inspections of its nuclear sites at a time when Washington and its NATO allies have openly declared Moscow’s defeat in Ukraine as their goal. At the same time, the Kremlin emphasized it wasn’t withdrawing from the pact altogether, pledging to respect its caps on nuclear weapons.

In offering in September to abide by New START’s limits for a year to buy time for both sides to negotiate a successor agreement, Putin said the treaty’s expiration would be destabilizing and could fuel nuclear proliferation.

New START was the last remaining pact in a long series of agreements between Moscow and Washington to limit their nuclear arsenals, starting with the SALT I in 1972.

Trump wants China in a pact

Trump has indicated he would like to keep limits on nuclear weapons but wants to involve China in a potential new treaty.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that Trump has made clear “in order to have true arms control in the 21st century, it����ap impossible to do something that doesn’t include China because of their vast and rapidly growing stockpile.”

In his first term, Trump tried and failed to push for a three-way nuclear pact involving China. Beijing has balked at any restrictions on its smaller but growing nuclear arsenal, while urging the U.S. to resume nuclear talks with Russia.

“China’s nuclear forces are not at all on the same scale as those of the U.S. and Russia, and thus China will not participate in nuclear disarmament negotiations at the current stage,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Thursday.

He said China regrets the expiration of New START, calls on the U.S. to resume nuclear dialogue with Russia soon, and respond positively to Moscow’s suggestion that the two sides continue observing the core limits of the treaty for now.

Peskov reaffirmed Thursday that Moscow respects Beijing’s position. He and other Russian officials have repeatedly argued that any attempt to negotiate a broader nuclear pact instead of a U.S.-Russian deal should also involve nuclear arsenals of NATO members France and the U.K.

Arms control advocates bemoaned the end of New START and warned of the imminent threat of a new arms race.

“If the Trump administration continues to stiff-arm nuclear arms control diplomacy with Russia and decides to increase the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S. deployed strategic arsenal, it will only lead Russia to follow suit and encourage China to accelerate its ongoing strategic buildup in an attempt to maintain a strategic nuclear retaliatory strike capability vis-a-vis the United States,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association in Washington. “Such a scenario could lead to a years-long, dangerous three-way nuclear arms buildup.”

Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed.

Correction: This version of the story corrects the last paragraph to say China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Beijing calls on the U.S. to respond positively to Moscow’s proposal to keep adhering to the treaty, not that China views it positively.

The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The United States is offering Ukraine  for a period of 15 years as part of a proposed peace plan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday, though he said he would prefer an American commitment of up to 50 years to deter Russia from further attempts to  by force.

U.S. President Donald Trump  at his Florida resort on Sunday and insisted that Ukraine and Russia are “closer than ever before” to a peace settlement.

Negotiators are still searching for a breakthrough on key issues, however, including whose forces withdraw from where in Ukraine and the fate of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied , one of the 10 biggest in the world. Trump noted that the monthslong U.S.-led negotiations could still collapse.

“Without security guarantees, realistically, this war will not end,” Zelenskyy told reporters in voice messages responding to questions sent via a WhatsApp chat.

Ukraine has been fighting Russia since 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea and Moscow-backed separatists took up arms in the Donbas, a vital industrial region in eastern Ukraine.

Details of the security guarantees have not become public but Zelenskyy said Monday they include how a peace deal would be monitored as well as the “presence” of partners. He didn’t elaborate, but Russia has said it won’t accept the deployment in Ukraine of troops from NATO countries.

Trump and Putin discuss peace efforts by phone

Trump on Monday had “a positive call” with Putin about the war, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X. The two leaders had also spoken ahead of Trump’s talks with Zelenskyy on Sunday as the American president tries to steer the countries toward a settlement.

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said that Trump is pushing Ukraine to seek a comprehensive peace agreement and not demand a temporary respite for its military through a ceasefire. Putin has also insisted on a full settlement before any truce.

In Monday’s call, Putin told Trump that Ukraine attempted to attack the Russian leader’s residence in northwestern Russia with long-range drones almost immediately after Trump’s Sunday talks with Zelenskyy.

The attack “certainly will not be left without a serious response,” Ushakov said, adding that Moscow will now review its negotiating position.

Zelenskyy denied the Russian claim of an attack, describing it as an attempt to manipulate the peace process. He said it was “another lie” and came about because Moscow is unnerved by progress in peace efforts.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Ukraine launched an attack on Putin’s residence in the northwestern Novgorod region overnight from Sunday to Monday using 91 long-range drones.

Russia claims its forces are advancing

As indications suggest negotiations could come to a head in January, before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022,  on Monday claimed that Russian troops are advancing in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine and are also pressing their offensive in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

Putin has sought to portray himself as negotiating from a position of strength as Ukrainian forces strain to keep back the bigger Russian army.

He also emphasized at a meeting with senior military officers the need to create military buffer zones along the Russian border. “This is a very important task as it ensures the security of Russia’s border regions,” Putin said.

 said Kyiv’s allies will meet in Paris in early January to “finalize each country’s concrete contributions” to the security guarantees.

Trump said he would consider extending U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine beyond 15 years, according to Zelenskyy. The guarantees would be approved by the U.S. Congress as well as by parliaments in other countries involved in overseeing any settlement, he said.

Zelenskyy said he wants the 20-point peace plan under discussion to be approved by Ukrainians in a national referendum.

However, holding a ballot requires a ceasefire of at least 60 days, and Moscow has shown no willingness for a truce without a full settlement.

Ukrainians doubt Putin’s sincerity

On the snowy streets of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, people were skeptical about the chances of peace.

One military veteran who uses the call sign Sensei, in keeping with the rules of the Ukrainian military, said Putin’s record in power shows he can’t be trusted. Sensei joined the military in 2022 and was wounded that year during the battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Now, he said, almost nobody from his company is still alive.

“But all these sacrifices, they are not in vain, because we need to prove … that we exist, that we are, that we have the right to our existence, to our territory, to our culture, to our language,” the 65-year-old told The Associated Press.

Denys Shpylovyi, a 20-year-old student who was home for the holidays, said Trump’s willingness to accept Putin’s arguments has put Zelenskyy in a difficult situation.

“But I’m thankful for some progress. They are speaking, and maybe someday there will be hope,” he said.

Oleh Saakian, a Ukrainian political scientist, said it was a good sign that Zelenskyy is managing to build a relationship with Trump, although he noted that “nothing has been adopted yet, nothing has been signed yet.”

“I don’t see these negotiations bringing us closer to real peace, because they are based on equality between the aggressor and the victim, they are based on complete disregard for international law, and … disregard for European security,” he said.

Associated Press journalists Vasilisa Stepanenko and Volodymr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine contributed to this report.

In November, a train carrying almost 500 people came to . A broken overhead line had smashed several windows, and the track ahead was damaged. Elsewhere on the line, explosives detonated under a passing freight train.

No one was hurt in either case and the damage was limited, but Poland, which blamed the attack on Russia’s intelligence services, responded forcefully: It deployed 10,000 troops to protect critical infrastructure.

The sabotage in Poland is one of 145 incidents in an that Western officials say are part of a campaign of disruption across Europe masterminded by Russia. Officials say the campaign — waged since President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — aims to , create divisions among Europeans and identify the continent����ap security weak spots.

So far in this , most known acts of sabotage have resulted in minimal damage — nothing compared to the tens of thousands of lives lost and cities decimated .

But officials say each act — from vandalism of monuments to cyberattacks to warehouse fires — sucks up valuable security resources. The head of one large European intelligence service said investigations into Russian interference now swallow up as much of the agency’s time as terrorism.

While the campaign places a heavy burden on European security services, it costs Russia next to nothing, officials say. That����ap because Moscow is carrying out cross-border operations that on investigations — while often using foreigners with criminal backgrounds as cheap proxies for Russian intelligence operatives. That means Moscow notches up a win just by tying up resources — even when plots aren’t successful.

“It����ap a 24/7 operation between all the services to stop it,” said a senior European intelligence official, who like the head of the European intelligence service and other officials who spoke to AP insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.

Over the course of the year, AP spoke to more than 40 European and NATO officials from 13 countries to document the scope of this hybrid war, including incidents on its map only when linked by Western officials to Russia, its proxies or its ally Belarus.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AP that Russia doesn’t have “any connection” with the campaign.

AP’s map tracking Russian sabotage and disruption

AP’s database shows a spike in arson and explosives plots from one in 2023 to 26 in 2024. Six have been documented so far in 2025. Three vandalism cases were recorded last year, meanwhile, and one this year.

The data is incomplete since not all incidents are made public, and it can take officials months to establish a link to Moscow. But the spike matches what officials have warned: The .

The countries most frequently targeted, according to the map, border Russia: Poland and Estonia. Several incidents have also occurred in Latvia, the U.K., Germany and France. All are major supporters of Ukraine.

The European official, a senior Baltic intelligence official and another intelligence official said the campaign noticeably calmed in late 2024 and early this year. Their analysis showed Moscow likely paused the campaign to curry favor with U.S. President Donald Trump’s new administration. It has since resumed at full pace.

“They are back to business,” the European official said.

Multicountry plots drain resources

The man officials say was behind the attack on that carries supplies to Ukraine is Yevgeny Ivanov — a Ukrainian convicted of working with Russian military intelligence to plot arson attacks at home improvement stores, a cafe and a drone factory in Ukraine, according to court documents.

Ivanov, who left Poland after the attack there, worked for Yury Sizov, an officer from Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, according to Ukraine’s security service.

Ivanov was convicted in absentia in Ukraine but managed to enter Poland because Ukraine did not inform Polish officials of his conviction, Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said. Ukraine’s security service said it closely cooperates with allies.

Staging plots that involve perpetrators from several countries or who have crossed borders drains investigatory resources from multiple authorities across Europe — one of Moscow’s key goals, according to Estonian State Prosecutor Triinu Olev-Aas.

Over the last year, she said the profile of attackers in Estonia has changed from locals largely known to law enforcement to unknown foreigners. That requires increased cooperation among countries to disrupt plots or detain perpetrators.

For two attacks in January — — the people hired had never been to Estonia before, Olev-Aas said.

At the restaurant, a Moldovan man smashed a window, threw in a can of gasoline and set it alight. Video showed his arm on fire as he ran away.

The man and his accomplice fled through Latvia, Lithuania and Poland before being caught in Italy.

Turning to criminals

While Russian intelligence officers might be the masterminds of such operations, they frequently rely on recruiters — often with convictions or criminal connections — who assign tasks to saboteurs on the ground, the Baltic official said.

Outsourcing to people with criminal backgrounds, like Ivanov, means Russia doesn’t have to risk highly trained intelligence operatives — agents Moscow often doesn’t have recourse to anyway since European countries kicked out scores of spies as relations nosedived in recent years.

Russian criminal networks offer a ready-made alternative, the Baltic official said.

The European official said the man accused of coordinating a plot to put , for example, was recruited by Russian intelligence after involvement with smuggling guns and explosives. The man is linked to .

Other people are recruited from European prisons or soon after they’re released, the Baltic official said.

In one case, the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, dedicated to the Soviet Union’s occupation of the country, was set on fire by someone released from prison the previous month.

Greater strain, greater cooperation

Even plots that are foiled are a win for Moscow because they test defenses and waste resources.

In 2024, a Ukrainian man, working on the orders of Russian military intelligence, dug up a cache of items buried in a cemetery in Lithuania, including drone parts and cans of corn filled with explosives.

Officials believe the plan was to rig the drones with the explosives. The plot was eventually foiled — but not before considerable resources were used to track down everyone involved, said Jacek Dobrzyński, the spokesperson for Poland’s security minister.

The sheer number of plots is overstretching some law enforcement agencies, but Moscow’s campaign has also fostered greater cooperation, the European official said.

Prosecutors in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have created joint investigation teams for attacks organized by foreign intelligence services, said Mārtiņš Jansons, a special prosecutor in Latvia.

In the U.K., front-line police officers are being trained to spot suspicious incidents that may be state-backed, said Cmdr. Dominic Murphy, head of the counterterrorism squad at the Metropolitan Police.

He noted a trainee detective flagged an arson attack at a warehouse in London after realizing the business was owned by Ukrainians and contained communications devices used by the military. Police determined the attack was .

But officials warn Russia is continually testing new methods.

Smugglers in Russia’s ally Belarus have sent carrying cigarettes into Lithuania and Poland, repeatedly forcing the Lithuanian capital’s airport to shut in what authorities called a hybrid attack.

“Nowadays they only carry cigarettes,” Dobrzyński warned, “but in future they could carry other things.”

Associated Press writers John Leicester in Paris, Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw, Poland, and Volodymyr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed.

BERLIN (AP) — The U.S. has agreed to provide unspecified security guarantees to  as part of a peace deal to end Russia’s nearly four-year war, and more talks are likely this weekend, U.S. officials said Monday following the latest discussions with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Berlin.

The officials said talks with President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, led to narrowing differences on security guarantees that Kyiv said must be provided, as well as on Moscow’s demand that Ukraine concede land in the Donbas region in the country’s east.

Trump dialed into a dinner Monday evening with negotiators and European leaders, and more talks are expected this weekend in Miami or elsewhere in the United States, according to the U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly by the White House.

“I think we’re closer now than we have been, ever,” Trump told reporters at an unrelated White House event. He added, “We’re having tremendous support from European leaders. They want to get it ended, also.”

The U.S. officials said the offer of security guarantees won’t be on the table “forever.” They said the Trump administration plans to put forward the agreement on guarantees for Senate approval, although they didn’t specify whether it would be ratified like a treaty, which needs the chamber’s two-thirds approval.

In a statement, European leaders in Berlin said they and the U.S. committed to work together to provide “robust security guarantees,” including a European-led ”multinational force Ukraine” supported by the U.S.

They said the force’s work would include “operating inside Ukraine” as well as assisting in rebuilding Ukraine’s forces, securing its skies and supporting safer seas. They said Ukrainian forces should remain at a peacetime level of 800,000.

Witkoff and Kushner were accompanied by U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who heads NATO’s military operations and the U.S. European Command, as talks honed in on the particulars of what the U.S. officials described as an “Article 5-like” security agreement. Article Five in the NATO treaty is the collective defense clause stating that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

The U.S. side presented the Ukrainians a document that spelled out in greater specificity aspects of the proposed U.S. security guarantees — something that Ukrainian officials said was missing from earlier iterations of the U.S. peace proposal, according to U.S. officials.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called it a “truly far-reaching, substantial agreement that we did not have before, namely that both Europe and the U.S. are jointly prepared to do this.”

Questions over Ukraine’s postwar security and the fate of occupied territories have been the main obstacles in talks. Zelenskyy has emphasized that any Western security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress. Meanwhile, Russia has said it will not accept any troops from NATO countries being based on Ukrainian soil.

Zelenskyy on Monday called the talks “substantial” and noted that differences remain on the issue of territory.

Zelenskyy has expressed readiness to drop Ukraine’s bid to join  if the U.S. and other Western nations give Kyiv security guarantees similar to those offered to NATO members. But Ukraine’s preference remains NATO membership as the best security guarantee to prevent further Russian aggression.

Ukraine has continued to reject the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia. Russian President  wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control as a key condition for peace.

The U.S. officials on Monday said there is consensus on about 90% of the U.S.-authored peace plan, and that Russia has indicated it is open to Ukraine joining the European Union, something it previously said it did not object to.

The Russian president has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO, however, as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.

Asked whether the negotiations could be over by Christmas, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said trying to predict a potential time frame for a peace deal was a “thankless task.”

“I can only speak for the Russian side, for President Putin,” Peskov said. “He is open to peace, to a serious peace and serious decisions. He is absolutely not open to any tricks aimed at stalling for time.”

Putin has denied plans to attack any European allies.

Drone strikes continue

Russia fired 153 drones of various types at Ukraine overnight Sunday into Monday, according to Ukraine’s Air Force, which said 133 drones were neutralized, while 17 more hit their targets.

In Russia, the Defense Ministry on Monday said forces destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones overnight. An additional 16 drones were destroyed between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. local time.

Eighteen drones were shot down over Moscow itself, the defense ministry said. Flights were temporarily halted at the city’s Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports as part of safety measures, officials said.

Damage details and casualty figures were not immediately available.

Madhani reported from Washington. Seung Min Kim and Darlene Superville in Washington; Pietro De Cristofaro in Berlin; Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine; and Katie Marie Davies in Manchester, England, contributed to this report.

Follow the AP’s coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine at .

Bardakov, a 24-year-old rookie with the Colorado Avalanche, is trying to adjust to playing hockey in North America. But he had to adjust to the altitude first.

“I can tell you it was quite an easy transition,” Bardakov said through a translator. “The only thing is that I was worried about my wife and my kid: ‘How are they going to settle here?’ It was a little breathing problem at the beginning. It����ap much higher above sea level. But then I don’t have any problems right now, and I feel very good.”

For many Russian players, the switch from the KHL to the NHL is hard. The playing surface is smaller, and the style of play is faster and more direct. It’s also more physical.

Bardakov is dealing with some of the challenges — his English is limited, and there are new systems to learn. But there are other parts where he looks like a natural, and it’s why he made the Avalanche opening-night roster with a strong training camp.

“He has a North American style. That����ap how he plays,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “He hasn’t stepped on the ice for us once in two weeks where he hasn’t shown, ‘This is who I am, and this is my DNA.’ Now it����ap just up to us to help him get incrementally better, day by day.

“… I like the way he plays. He’s a competitive, heavy guy. He’s playing for keeps out there. I like that. He gets to the dirty areas of the ice. We’ve just got to keep working with him, and he’s got to keep performing like he has so far.”

The Avalanche traded for Bardakov on March 1, 2024. The New Jersey Devils wanted Kurtis MacDermid, in part to give Matt Rempe of the rival New York Rangers someone to spar with.

At the time, it seemed like a minor trade. The Avs got some salary cap relief and a player drafted in the seventh round in 2021 who had modest numbers in the KHL.

But Bardakov’s production for SKA St. Petersburg took a huge surge forward last season: 17 goals and 35 points in 53 games, nearly three times the previous year (six goals, 12 points in 51 games). The Avs signed him in April, and general manager Chris MacFarland dropped his name twice as a potential contributor near the end of last season.

“He’s a nice guy, a good teammate,” said San Jose Sharks defenseman Shakir Mukhamadullin, who played with Bardakov for Russia at the 2021 world junior championships and against him in the KHL. “He’s a hard-working guy. Plays hard on the forecheck, he can hold onto the puck and can score. He can fight and help the team in the D-zone. Only good things.”

While his game looks like a strong fit for how the Avs want their depth forwards to play, it’s still a challenge for Bardakov to get up to speed with systems play and on-ice positioning. While he didn’t play Tuesday in Los Angeles and won’t be in the lineup for the home opener Thursday, Bardakov will likely play a lot with Parker Kelly on the fourth line.

Kelly is one of the players who has been trying to help him get more comfortable on the ice.

“It����ap been a learning experience for me, too,” Kelly said. “I’m trying my best in order to make it as simple as possible. My wife would probably say I don’t explain things well. Like, if I’m talking about a board game, I explain it terribly. Now, I’m in my head saying, like, ‘Am I making it easy enough for this guy to listen to me?’ We’ve gone to the board to show him visually, just to really make sure.

“He’s super eager to learn. He’s starting to ask more questions. I want to be a sounding board for him and hopefully build that kind of chemistry as we go.”

Bardakov had his first fight in a preseason game. He called it a good experience, though he didn’t understand the official trying to tell him to stay down after it was over. He scored a pretty goal in one of the exhibition games, but also took a pair of penalties in another.

As for how the off-ice transition is going, Bardakov joked, “I think you should ask my wife.” She’s pretty active on Instagram, and it does seem like Daria and their daughter, Maya, have been enjoying exploring their new city.

DONETSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) — With the Russian advance deeper into the Donetsk region, the air in is thick with dread and the future for civilians who remain grows ever more uncertain.

In Kostiantynivka, once home to 67,000 people, there is no steady supply of power, water or gas. Shelling intensifies, drones fill the skies and the city has become unbearable, driving out the last remaining civilians.

Kramatorsk, by contrast, still shows signs of life. Just 25 kilometers (15 miles) to the north, the prewar population of 147,000 has thinned, but restaurants and cafes remain open. The streets are mostly intact. Though the city has endured multiple strikes and is now dominated by the military, daily routines persist in ways that are no longer possible in nearby towns.

Once the industrial heart of Ukraine, Donetsk is being steadily reduced to rubble. Many residents fear its cities may never be rebuilt and, if the war drags on, Russia eventually will swallow what is left.

“(Donetsk) region has been trampled, torn apart, turned into dust,” said Natalia Ivanova, a woman in her 70s who fled Kostiantynivka in early September after a missile struck near her home. Russian President Vladimir Putin “will go all the way … I’m sure of it. I have no doubt more cities will be destroyed.”

Despair and destruction

Kostiantynivka now sits on a shrinking patch of Ukrainian-held territory, wedged just west of Russian-occupied Bakhmut and nearly encircled on three sides by Moscow’s forces.

“They was always shooting,” Ivanova said. “You’d be standing there … and all you’d hear was the whistle of shells.”

She had two apartments. One was destroyed and the other one damaged. For months, she watched buildings disappear in an instant, while swarms of buzzing drones “like beetles” filled the sky, she said.

“I never thought I’d leave,” she added. “I was a stolid soldier, holding on. I’m a pensioner and it (the home) was my comfort zone.”

For years now, Ivanova had watched the region’s cities fall: Bakhmut, then Avdiivka, and others. But the war, she said, still felt far away, even as it closed in on her doorstep.

“I felt for those people,” she said. “But it wasn’t enough to make me leave.”

A blast near her building finally forced her out. The explosion bent her windows so badly she couldn’t shut them before fleeing. Her apartment remained wide open. She left her whole life behind in Kostiantynivka, the city where she was born.

“Please, stop it,” she pleaded, directing her appeal to world leaders as she sat in an evacuation hub shortly after fleeing. “It����ap the poorest people who suffer the most. This war is senseless and stupid. We’re dying like animals — by the dozens.”

Living through it together

Olena Voronkova decided to leave Kostiantynivka earlier, in May, when she could no longer run her two businesses: a beauty salon and a cafe.

She and her family relocated to nearby Kramatorsk, which is so close yet, in many ways, far away, as she is no longer able to enter her hometown. It wasn’t the first loss she had suffered since the war began. In 2023, a rocket strike from a multiple-launch system severely damaged their house.

The move to Kramatorsk wasn’t by choice, she added, but “because the circumstances left us no other option.”

First came the mandatory evacuation orders. Then a curfew so strict they could only move around the city for four hours a day. Then came the floods of remote-controlled drones.

“We’re used to life in Donetsk region. We feel good here. Kramatorsk is familiar. A lot of people from our city moved here — even local municipal workers,” Voronkova said.

Not long after arriving in Kramatorsk, she opened a cafe that is nearly identical to the one she left behind. She said the space just happened to look similar. It has high white walls and ornate mirrors she brought from her beauty salon, which is now in the combat zone.

The cafe has since become a refuge for others who also fled Kostiantynivka.

“At first there was hope that maybe some homes would survive — that people might go back,” she said. “Now we see it����ap unlikely anyone has anything left. The city is turning into another Bakhmut, Toretsk or Avdiivka. Everything is being destroyed.”

She described the mood as “heavy” because “people are losing hope” and it felt easier in Kramatorsk because everyone shared the same loss, which created a sense of connection and mutual support.

“No one really knows where to go next. Everyone sees that Russia isn’t stopping. And that����ap where the hopelessness begins. No one has a direction anymore. The uncertainty is everywhere,” she said.

Seizing the day

War is slowly draining the life out of Kramatorsk, as if warning that it may be the next city to be reduced to rubble.

Daria Horlova still remembers it as a bustling place where, at 9 p.m., life in the central square was just getting started. Now it����ap deserted at all hours and 9 p.m. is when a strict curfew begins. The city is regularly bombed thanks to its proximity to the front line about 21 kilometers (13 miles) east.

“It����ap still terrifying — when something’s flying overhead or strikes nearby, especially when it hits the city,” the 18-year-old said. “You want to cry, but there are no emotions left. No strength.”

Horlova studies remotely at a local university that relocated to another region and works as a nail artist. One day, she hopes to open her own salon. For now, she and her boyfriend are stuck in limbo, unsure of what to do next.

“It����ap terrifying that most of the Donetsk region is occupied — and that it was Russia who attacked,” she said. “That����ap why it feels like everything could change at any moment. Just look at Kostiantynivka — not long ago, life there was normal. And now …”

To distract herself from the anxiety, and the difficult decision she might soon have to make to leave, Horlova tries to focus on what brings her joy in the moment.

She already was evacuated from Kramatorsk once, earlier in the war, and doesn’t want to repeat it.

Instead of dwelling on what the future could hold, she asked her boyfriend, a tattoo artist, to ink a large tattoo of a goat skull on her right leg, something she has dreamed about for years.

“I think you just have to do things — and do them as soon as you can,” she said. “Being here, I know this tattoo will be a memory of Kramatorsk, if I end up leaving.”

Vasilisa Stepanenko and Yehor Konovalov contributed to this report.

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska (AP) — President Donald Trump said he and  didn’t reach a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine after meeting on Friday — despite Putin saying they had come to “an understanding” — as the two leaders offered scant details on what was discussed while heaping praise on each other.

In brief remarks as they shared a stage after meeting for about 2 ½ hours in Alaska, Putin said he and Trump had reached an “understanding” on Ukraine and warned Europe not to “torpedo the nascent progress.”

But Trump then said, “There’s no deal until there’s a deal” and said he planned to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders soon, to brief them on the discussions.

“We had an extremely productive meeting, and many points were agreed to,” Trump said. “And there are just a very few that are left. Some are not that significant. One is probably the most significant, but we have a very good chance of getting there.”

He continued: “We didn’t get there.”

The high-profile summit ended without a deal to end, or even pause, the brutal conflict — the largest land war in Europe since 1945 — which has raged for more than three years. The two were expected to hold a joint news conference but instead took turns giving brief remarks. Putin went first and then Trump, but both left without taking questions.

Just getting back to the U.S. for the first time in a decade was a win for Putin, whom the U.S. and much of the world had long been attempting to isolate. Agreeing to come to Alaska to meet with Trump also stalled economic sanctions that Trump had promised unless Moscow worked harder to bring fighting to a close.

The outcome could also benefit Russia’s leader since Friday may simply lead to more meetings in the future. Russia’s forces are making fair progress on the battlefield, and more discussions with Trump gives them more time to keep that up while avoiding sanctions.

Putin thanked Trump for the “friendly” tone of their conversation and said Russia and the United States should “turn the page and go back to cooperation.”

He praised Trump as someone who “has a clear idea of what he wants to achieve and sincerely cares about the prosperity of his country, and at the same time shows understanding that Russia has its own national interests.”

“I expect that today’s agreements will become a reference point not only for solving the Ukrainian problem, but will also mark the beginning of the restoration of businesslike, pragmatic relations between Russia and the U.S.,” Putin said.

Trump ended his remarks by thanking Putin and saying, “we’ll speak to you very soon and probably see you again very soon.” When Putin smiled and offered, “next time in Moscow,” Trump said “that����ap an interesting one” and said he might face criticism but “I could see it possibly happening.”