The Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline was built in the Soviet era to carry Siberian gas to European markets. It became the main conduit to Ukraine’s border with Slovakia from Siberia, passing through the town of Sudzha — which is now under the control of Ukrainian military forces — in Russia’s Kursk region.

Ukraine, which had allowed Russian oil and gas to cross its territory to serve Europe while fighting Moscow’s invasion since 2022, refused to renew the deal.

Russian forces are advancing in the east, slowly but surely, and they are shrinking Ukraine’s partial hold of the border region of Kursk

However, Zelenskyy said it won’t be possible to end the almost three years of war in one day, as Trump claimed during his election campaign he could do. “The ‘hot’ stage of the war can end quite quickly,