Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is certain that Ukraine will have success in its war against Russia and insisted that Kyiv has a plan for the year head, as he defended the slow pace of his country’s counteroffensive. “I am sure that we’ll have success,” the Ukrainian president told Reuters, adding: “We’ll try to show the result this year. We don’t need to surprise everybody in the world, we need this for ourselves.” His comments came as a top Donbas military official said that Russia’s “third wave” advance near Avdiivka been bogged down on sodden land, with several days of rain having for the moment ruled out any new Russian advance. “We’ve had nearly a week of heavy rain,” Vitaliy Barabash, head of Avdiivka’s military administration told Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne. “The terrain is too difficult and equipment cannot move.” Elsewhere, the Kremlin has again warned of the risk of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons being used amid the war, blaming a “deterioration in global security” as a “the natural consequence of the United States’ destructive policies”. Read More Anger as Ramaswamy seems to call Jewish Ukraine leader Zelensky ‘Nazi’ at GOP debate Russia seeks an 8-year prison term for an artist and musician who protested the war in Ukraine Russia reportedly is using Ukrainian POWs to fight in their homeland on Moscow's side Ukraine takes step towards EU membership as European Commission backs negotiations to begin