President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Kyiv’s battlefield position is the strongest it has been in some time after his forces retook territory through a series of offensives.

It includes one operation previously unannounced in which Kyiv’s troops used gas pipelines to outflank Russian positions.

Zelensky, speaking in his nightly video address, cited a report by senior commanders to say that, for the first time, the “Veles” operation used pipelines in Ukraine’s northeast.

He also referred ⁠to an air assault operation in eastern Ukraine ​and ⁠the “Vivaldi” operation further to the north, designed to prevent Russian advances in key areas.

He said Operation Veles was conducted near Kupiansk, ⁠a city in northeastern Kharkiv region recaptured by Ukrainian forces in late 2022, but ​which has been under constant Russian pressure.

“It is ‌a strong operation, well planned and technology-driven. The Russians tried to use underground gas pipelines to advance past our positions,” Zelensky said.

“Our fighters turned this tactic ‌against the Russians and used the underground infrastructure ‌against the occupiers with extraordinary success,” he said.

In the Vivaldi offensive, one senior commander reported last month that Ukraine’s Third Army Corps had cleared an area of 75 square kms (29 square miles) ⁠of Russian infiltration groups and recaptured a further 10 square kilometres.

That operation was focused on the north of the key strongholds in the region, the so-called “fortress belt” of the cities Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Their capture would bring Russia closer to its goal of seizing the entire Donbas region.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called on Tuesday for new momentum in peace talks.

“We need to get new dynamics in our peace efforts, to speed them up, to find even new momentum, how to get this new energy in our peace efforts,” he told reporters.

He said that President Volodymyr Zelensky had asked the leaders of Finland and Norway to convey to Russian President Vladimir Putin the necessity of a ceasefire and a Ukraine-Russia summit.

Vladimir Putin is targeting Ukrainian civilians in a surge of barbaric attacks across the country despite Donald Trump claiming that Russia is acting “fine” in the war.

New figures released by the UN this week show the number of Ukrainian civilian casualties in September rose by 85 per cent compared with the year before.

First-person drones, long-range glide bombs, ballistic rockets and new jet-powered Shahed cruise missiles are being used in the attacks as winter closes in. No one is off limits. Children, babies, mothers in the park, elderly fruit vendors.

From Kherson to Kharkiv, Kyiv to Kramatorsk, “hunting drone safaris” picking off ordinary people are taking the war far beyond the front lines.

Of the 328 people killed and 2,105 injured last month, 53 per cent of casualties were caused by missiles and long-range drones while 23 per cent were caused by short-range drones.

Ukraine’s Kyiv plans to allocate 1 billion hryvnias ($22 million) to build water crossings over the River Dnipro that divides the capital into two parts, the city mayor said on Tuesday, as Russia escalates its attacks on bridges.

Russia has significantly stepped up its strikes on logistics in and around Kyiv in recent months, and in October it struck bridges, disrupting transportation for hundreds of thousands of people.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that the city’s defence council discussed “the project to build combined water crossings over the River Dnipro and the access roads leading to them.”

The surge in civilian casualties in Ukraine shows how the West, including the UK, must defend Kyiv’s airspace or face worse in the future, explains world affairs editor Sam Kiley

A call by the leaders of Finland and Norway with Russian President Vladimir Putin was coordinated with Kyiv, Ukraine’s foreign minister said on Tuesday.

“We welcome such active support for our diplomatic efforts and peace process. This call was coordinated with us, and this is the right approach,” Andrii Sybiha told reporters.

A regional ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine has come into force to let a humanitarian operation begin in Oleshky, a town in southern Ukraine under Russian occupation.

The ceasefire was agreed in coordination with US First Lady Melania Trump.

Both sides announced the truce on Tuesday, but strikes have continued elsewhere, including in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

The halt in fighting is intended to open the way for aid deliveries and evacuations from the frontline town, which is grappling with acute shortages of food and medicine.

Ukrainian foreign minister Andri Sybiha said the truce could be a confidence-building measure in a wider peace process.

“If we see results in Oleshky, this can pave the way for other steps in the peace process,” he told reporters.

Russia’s veteran foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that the leaders of Finland and Norway said nothing new about Ukraine in their conversation with Russian president Vladimir Putin earlier in the day.

He added that the conflict in Ukraine will continue and is likely to escalate.

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk said earlier than Finland and Norway had told Putin that the security of NATO’s northern and eastern flank was key and non-negotiable.

The phone call by Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere was a bid to influence the diplomatic process at a time when US President Donald Trump has shifted his position in favour of Russia and US ties with Ukraine have hit their lowest point in 18 months.

The Kremlin’s readout of the call did not suggest that Putin had signalled any compromise from previously stated positions.