Ukraine war live: Zelenskyy ‘fully committed’ to US talks in Saudi after Trump’s Russia comments | Ukraine

Toby Helm

When he rose to his feet at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Keir Starmer delivered a stirring tribute to six British soldiers who lost their lives in Afghanistan 13 years ago.

He read out their names very deliberately, one by one. The House was silent. The prime minister then added a tribute to a 22-year-old British Royal Marine, also killed on 6 March, but in 2007 in Helmand province.

They were poignant moments, on what is normally a raucous and crudely partisan occasion in the political week. Across the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Starmer told MPs, 642 individuals had died “fighting for Britain alongside our allies”. Many more had been wounded. “We will never forget their bravery and their sacrifice,” Starmer said.

But the prime minister’s tributes were not just for the families of the lost soldiers. Nor were they just for British ears. They were also intended to be heard loud and clear in the US, inside Donald Trump’s administration, most notably by vice-president JD Vance, who the day before had appeared to disrespect British troops by saying that a US stake in Ukraine’s economy was a “better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years”.

Less than a week after Starmer’s tactile “love in” with Donald Trump in the White House, views on how to react to the new US administration had evolved, not just here, but across Europe.

Trump and Vance’s wild, erratic and at times insulting comments about European governments, had left politicians on this side of the Atlantic facing two dawning realities: first, that they had, somehow, to find ways to push back against Trump and Vance without stoking tensions to even more dangerous levels. And second that for the long-term they had to formulate a real plan for a world in which the US would no longer be the cornerstone of western security.

As one European diplomat put it: “It has become clear that Trump is not saying what he is saying just to shake us up, but he is saying it because he means it.”

Amid the turbulence, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Brussels on Thursday attending an EU summit called to address the security crisis. To the sound of spontaneous clapping, EU leaders rose to their feet to shake his hand, offering backslaps and air kisses. While Zelensky was there Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg gave a brutal justification of his country’s decision to freeze military aid: “The best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a two by four across the nose. You get their attention.”

You can read the full piece by Toby Helm, Jennifer Rankin in Brussels, Luke Harding in Kyiv and Kate Connolly in Berlin here:

Lloyd Green

Alexander Vindman entered the spotlight in 2019. As a US army lieutenant colonel detailed to the national security council, the Ukraine-born officer listened to a 25 July phone call between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president. Vindman thought Trump’s demand, that Zelenskyy find dirt on the Bidens or lose US aid, crossed a line. He formally reported the call. In that moment, he helped trigger the first Trump impeachment.

In February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, a move by Vladimir Putin that Trump described as “genius” and “savvy” while calling Nato “dumb”. The swift victory contemplated by the Kremlin and Trump did not come. The war enters its fourth year.

Sadly, US support for Ukraine frays. Joe Biden is no longer in the White House, the Republicans control all three branches of government. On 28 February, an explosive Oval Office meeting between Trump, vice-president JD Vance and Zelenskyy left little doubt that US sympathies now lie with Moscow. Military and intelligence support has been suspended. Last week, the US awoke to learn that the Trump administration contemplates deporting 240,000 Ukrainian refugees.

Enter Vindman, again, with a book subtitled “How the West Deceived Itself About Russia and Betrayed Ukraine” and meant as an indictment of Washington’s stance toward the former Soviet republic over the last three decades and more, from George HW Bush onward.

“Starting with the fall of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991, extending throughout six US presidential administrations … US policymakers have bought fully into Russia’s vision of itself as the exceptionally and naturally dominant player in the post-Soviet space,” Vindman charges.

Léonie Chao-Fong

In just seven weeks since returning to the White House for a second term, Donald Trump has upended the US approach to the invasion of Ukraine and treated Russia increasingly not as an adversary, but an ally.

After tossing aside decades of alignment with Europe against Russian aggression, the US president suspended military assistance and intelligence to Kyiv and said on Friday he finds it “easier” to work with Russia than Ukraine.

You can find a timeline of the Trump administration’s moves towards an apparent new alliance at the link below:

Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the frontline.

The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photos on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia.

The post included a message thanking the “dear mums” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons”. It said the gifts were the initiative of the women’s wing of the party.

Some online commentators called the gesture as “shameful” and “inappropriate”.

Russia is often accused of throwing its frontline soldiers into a “meat grinder” with scant regard for their lives.

The Russian word for meat grinder, myasorubka, has the same double meaning as in English.

It refers to a tactic in which small groups of soldiers are sent into attack, one after another, in waves, risking heavy losses, with the aim of eventually wearing out and overpowering Ukrainian troops.

The party’s local branch in the town of Polyarniye Zori defended itself against the online backlash, saying critics were making “callous and provocative interpretations” of its gifts.

The mayor, Maxim Chengayev, who took part in the handover of gifts, said that meat grinders were not originally intended to be included but “one woman asked for it and we of course could not say no”.

The local party later posted a video in which one of the soldiers’ mothers awkwardly thanked the party for the gifts and confirmed that she had asked for a meat grinder because she needed one.

Russia on Sunday claimed the capture of a village in Ukraine’s Sumy region after mounting a cross-border offensive while battling Ukrainian troops in its Kursk region.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Russia’s defence ministry said in a briefing that its forces had “liberated” the small village of Novenke in Sumy region near the border with Kursk region.

The Guardian has been unable to independently verify the report.

A Ukrainian drone hit an industrial facility overnight in Russia’s Volga river region of Chuvashia, 1,300km (800 miles) from the border with Ukraine, the regional governor said on Sunday, according to Reuters.

The strike – one of the deepest yet into Russia by a Ukrainian drone – caused no casualties, Chuvashia governor Oleg Nikolayev said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Emergency services were at the scene at the Kombinat Burevestnik facility in the region’s capital, Cheboksaray, Nikolayev added. He provided no further details about the strike and the extent of any damage was unclear.

Russian authorities said earlier that air defence units had destroyed 88 Ukrainian drones overnight, with no injuries or other damage reported. Russia’s defence ministry said 52 of the drones were destroyed over the border Belgorod region, while 13 were over the Lipetsk region and nine were over the Rostov region, both in Russia’s south-west. The rest of the Ukrainian drones were downed over Russia’s Voronezh, Astrakhan, Krasnodar, Ryazan and Kursk regions, the ministry said.

Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said on Telegram that the airports of Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan had been closed for several hours overnight to ensure air safety.

Unofficial Russian news Telegram channels said the Ukrainian attacks on Ryazan and Lipetsk had targeted local oil refineries, reports Reuters.

Ukrainian Lt Andriy Kovalenko, who heads the Centre for Countering Disinformation, part of the National Security and Defence Council, said, without providing evidence or saying directly that Ukrainian drones were involved, the Novolipetsk Metallurgical plant in Lipetsk was under attack. Reuters could not independently verify the reports on what was targeted in the attacks.

Russia was storming the town of Sudzha on Sunday after special forces used a gas pipeline to surprise Ukrainian units as part of a major offensive to eject Ukrainian soldiers from the western Russian region of Kursk, pro-Russian war bloggers said, according to Reuters.

Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers seized about 1,300 square km of Russia’s Kursk region in August last year in what Kyiv said was an attempt to gain a bargaining chip in future negotiations and to force Russia to shift military forces from eastern Ukraine.

Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger, said Russian special forces had walked about 15km along the inside of a major gas pipeline and some had spent several days in the pipe before surprising Ukrainian forces from the rear near Sudzha.

Sudzha is the home of major gas transfer and measuring stations on a pipeline that used to carry Russian natural gas into the Ukrainian gas transmission system for onward transportation to Europe.

Pro-Russian war blogger Two Majors said a major battle was under way for Sudzha and that Russian forces had surprised Ukrainian soldiers by entering the town via a major gas pipeline, reports Reuters.

Russian Telegram channels showed pictures of special forces in gas masks and lights, some using colourful Russian curses, along the inside of what looked like a large pipe. Reuters was unable to verify the reports immediately.

“Fighting continued throughout the night in Sudzha,” said Podolyaka. “The fighting did not stop.”

Another war blogger, Yuri Kotenok, said that Ukrainian forces have been moving equipment away from Sudzha, closer to the border.

“At the moment, our units are attacking in the north-eastern part of Sudzha and fighting in the area of Lomonosov Street and the industrial zone of Sudzha,” Kotenok said.

In recent weeks and months, Russian forces have pushed Ukrainian forces back across the Kursk front, placing tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops in danger of being encircled.

Andrew Roth

There was an audible gasp in the room at the Council on Foreign Relations as Keith Kellogg, the White House’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, characterised the US decision to cut off intelligence sharing and military aid to Kyiv as like beating a farm animal with a piece of wood.

“Very candidly, they brought it on themselves, the Ukrainians,” Kellogg said as the veteran diplomats, academics, and journalists in the room recoiled in surprise. Several held their hands in their faces. “I think the best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose,” he continued. “You got their attention, and it’s very significant, obviously, because of the support that we give.”

The collapse in US-Ukraine relations since the White House summit between Trump and Zelenskyy has been precipitous. Those around Trump viewed as the strongest supporters of Ukraine – including secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and Kellogg – have become vocal sceptics of continued US support or been sidelined entirely.

“We know that [the Maga wing] are just waiting for something they can use to pounce,” said a former senior US diplomat. “And I think that’s where you get the posturing by Rubio, Kellogg and also Waltz, which disturbs people who understand America’s interest in preventing a Putin win in Ukraine.”

It has been matched by a rise in the people around Trump who hold vocally Eurosceptic views: Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, and JD Vance, the vice-president who seized his moment in the Oval Office and provoked a greater conflict between Trump and Zelenskyy.

Vance has made several key interventions meant to sow divisions with Europe. He appears to have planned ahead of time. His team briefed European media before he spoke up during Trump’s meeting with Keir Starmer to complain about “infringements on free speech” in the UK. And when Zelenskyy disregarded advice from Kellogg, Republican senators, and others, not to clash with Trump during the White House meeting, Vance once again poured petrol on the fire.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine is “fully committed” to having a constructive dialogue with US representatives in Saudi Arabia next week, even as Donald Trump said he found it “easier” to deal with Russia than with Ukraine in efforts to end the war.

“Realistic proposals are on the table. The key is to move quickly and effectively,” the Ukrainian president said on X ahead of his trip to Saudi Arabia next week.

Zelenskyy said that after his meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday, Ukrainian diplomatic and military representatives would stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the US team.

“On our side, we are fully committed to constructive dialogue, and we hope to discuss and agree on the necessary decisions and steps,” he said.

But the Ukrainian president also called for sanctions on Russia to be increased after a devastating attack on Saturday. Two ballistic missiles hit the centre of Dobropillia in the eastern Donetsk region, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens more.

“Such strikes show that Russia’s objectives have not changed,” Zelenskyy wrote on Facebook. “Therefore, it is crucial to continue to do our best to protect lives, strengthen our air defences, and increase sanctions against Russia. Everything that helps Putin finance the war must collapse.”

In other developments:

• Three people were killed and seven others injured in a drone attack early on Saturday in the city of Bogodukhiv, the military head of the eastern Kharkiv region, Oleg Synegubov, said. Russia fired two missiles and 145 drones at Bogodukhiv, Ukraine’s air force said.

• The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Saturday that appeasement towards Russia was leading to more tragedy in Ukraine. “This is what happens when someone appeases barbarians,” Tusk wrote on X. “More bombs, more aggression, more victims. Another tragic night in Ukraine.”

• The Russian defence ministry announced the recapture of Viktorovka, Nikolayevka and Staraya Sorochina in its Kursk region. According to DeepState, an online military tracker linked to the Ukrainian army, the Russian move followed a “breach” in Ukrainian defence lines near the town of Sudzha, which is under Kyiv’s control. An army source interviewed by Ukrainska Pravda newspaper said that the Ukrainian soldiers were trying to “stabilise the situation” but the Russian troops had “completely cut off the supply lines”.

• Moscow’s defence ministry on Saturday said its air defence systems had destroyed 31 Ukrainian drones over the previous night. A Ukrainian drone attack also targeted Russia’s Kirishi oil refinery and falling debris caused damage to a reservoir, the governor of the north-western Leningrad region, Aleksandr Drozdenko, said. A civilian was injured by a drone attack in Belgorod district near the Ukraine border, the local governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, wrote on Telegram.

• Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said his country would consider taking part in a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine. The Australian leader spoke on Saturday with his UK counterpart, Keir Starmer, who has joined France in trying to rally a “coalition of the willing” to protect any ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine war. “Both of our nations are very clear about our support for Ukraine, and it of course is too early – you can’t have peacekeeping forces without having peace,” Albanese told a news conference. “I certainly have said very clearly, publicly, repeatedly, that we would give consideration to participating in any peacekeeping mission in the Ukraine.” Australia will send a senior representative to a chiefs of defence meeting in Paris on Tuesday to discuss future backing for Ukraine, Albanese said.