Understanding the conflict three years on.

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Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at U.S. pressure on Ukraine, deadly clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, and Lithuania’s state of emergency.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is facing increasing pressure from the White House to accept major territorial concessions as part of a U.S.-proposed peace deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war. This could include Kyiv relinquishing control of its entire Donbas region to Moscow despite Ukrainian forces still holding around 14.5 percent of the territory.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at U.S. pressure on Ukraine, deadly clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, and Lithuania’s state of emergency.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is facing increasing pressure from the White House to accept major territorial concessions as part of a U.S.-proposed peace deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war. This could include Kyiv relinquishing control of its entire Donbas region to Moscow despite Ukrainian forces still holding around 14.5 percent of the territory.

But this week, Zelensky doubled down on Ukrainian sovereignty, saying Kyiv has no “legal” or “moral” right to cede any land. “Of course, Russia insists that we give up territories,” he told reporters late Monday. “We, of course, do not want to give anything away. That is exactly what we are fighting for.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused Zelensky of stalling peace progress and not promptly reading Washington’s latest proposal. Trump has also suggested that it is likely that Moscow will win the war.

“Russia has the … upper hand” in negotiations, Trump told Politico on Tuesday. Although Kyiv deserves “tremendous credit” for its efforts, the U.S. president added, “at some point, size will win,” referring to how much larger of a country Russia is compared to Ukraine.

According to Trump, Moscow is “fine” with the current U.S. proposal. And on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the Donbas “our historical territory.”

But........

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