Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin warns of escalation if peace isn’t achieved as Zelensky meets Trump

Russian commanders told president Vladimir Putin during an inspection visit that their forces had captured the towns of Myrnohrad, Rodynske and Artemivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as well as Huliaipole and Stepnohirsk in the Zaporizhzhia region, the Kremlin said on Telegram.

Ukraine’s military rejected Russia’s assertions about Huliaipole and Myrnohrad. The situation in both places remained “difficult” but Ukrainian troops were continuing “defensive operations”, the General Staff said in a statement on social media.

Ukraine’s Southern Command said on Telegram that “fierce fighting” continued in Huliaipole but that “a substantial part of Huliaipole continues to be held by the Defence Forces of Ukraine”.

• Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky are meeting in Florida on Sunday for talks aimed at ending the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.
• Zelensky has said security guarantees and territorial issues in eastern Ukraine, including Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, will be central to the discussions.
• He said a draft peace plan includes US-backed security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5, while Ukraine continues to reject Russian demands to give up territory.
• A day before the talks, Russia launched missile and drone attacks on Kyiv, killing at least one person. Zelensky said the attack showed Moscow “doesn’t want peace”.
• European leaders, including UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron, have said any ceasefire must include international monitoring, a move Russia opposes.
• Zelensky said the peace plan is “about 90 per cent ready” and that he hopes European leaders can be involved in talks at a later stage.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine was in no hurry for peace and that if it did not want to resolve the conflict peacefully, Moscow would accomplish all its goals by force.

Putin’s remarks, carried by state news agency TASS yesterday, followed a large Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was demonstrating its wish to continue the war while Kyiv wanted peace.

Zelensky is due to meet US president Donald Trump in Florida today to seek a resolution to the war Putin launched nearly four years ago with a full-scale invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbour.

Russia would consider any European troop contingents deployed to Ukraine as legitimate targets for its armed forces, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said.

In remarks published by Russia’s state news agency TASS on Sunday, Lavrov said any European troops sent to Ukraine would become legitimate targets for Russia’s armed forces.

Lavrov also accused European politicians of being driven by “ambitions” in their relations with Kyiv and of disregarding the people of Ukraine and of their own nations.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that he would hold talks with European leaders after meeting US president Donald Trump today, as Kyiv seeks to strengthen its diplomatic position to prevent Russia from prolonging the war.

Zelensky said he had already spoken with a group of Ukraine’s partners to coordinate priorities ahead of the discussions.

“Tomorrow, after the meeting with President Trump, we will continue the discussion,” he said in a post on Telegram.

Russia is likely to be placing new hypersonic ballistic missiles at a former airbase in Belarus, according to Reuters.

Two US researchers discovered the possibility using satellite imagery and broadly aligns with the findings of US intelligence, according to a source close to the matter.

President Vladimir Putin has previously stated his intention to place intermediate-range Oreshnik missiles in Belarus, but the exact location has not been reported previously.

The missiles have an estimated range of up to 3,400 miles (5,500 km).

Belarusian defence minister Viktor Khreni said on Wednesday that the deployment was a “response” to the “West’s aggression”, in an interview with state-run news agency Belta.

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky are set to meet in Florida today for face-to-face talks on ending the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.

Zelensky said security guarantees and territorial issues in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions would be among the topics of discussion.

Zelensky stopped in Canada to meet prime minister Mark Carney yesterday before heading to the US.

He told reporters he would aim to ensure there were “as few unresolved issues as possible” in talks with his US counterpart Trump, while respecting Ukraine’s red lines.

Zelensky has said the draft peace plan includes a US commitment to provide guarantees mirroring the Nato alliance’s Article 5, which means an attack on Ukraine would trigger a collective military response from the US and its allies.

But key details are still to be worked out, with territorial concessions the most sensitive of the issues the two leaders will discuss.

“I so desperately wanted to, I was trying to force myself to let some emotion out,” he recalls. “But because I was too terrified in that place, I wasn’t able to cry. In five-and-a-half months of captivity, I never cried once. There was moments where I wanted to, but I just physically couldn’t.”

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