Category Archives: Russia

European leaders including Starmer to join Zelenskyy in Washington for meeting with Trump

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Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and others will aim to push back against ceding of Ukraine territory in ‘peace plan’

European leaders including Britain’s Keir Starmer will join Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at a White House meeting on Monday with Donald Trump, in an extraordinary joint effort to push back on a US-backed plan that would allow Russia to take further Ukrainian territory.

As well as the UK prime minister, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, Italy’s PM, Giorgia Meloni, and the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, will all accompany Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.

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Keir Starmer hopes to exploit curious relationship with Trump in Ukraine talks

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PM has positioned himself as someone who can get along with US president while stressing Europe’s red lines

Asked behind the scenes at June’s G7 summit if he could explain why Donald Trump seemed to like him so much, Keir Starmer admitted he did not really know. Whatever the reason, when it comes to Ukraine, the UK prime minister is once again hoping to exploit this somewhat curious relationship.

As soon as it was announced that a string of European leaders planned to join Volodymyr Zelenskyy to back the Ukrainian president in crucial talks with Trump at the White House on Monday, it was obvious Starmer would be joining them.

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Putin demands full control of Donetsk and Luhansk as condition for ending Ukraine war – live

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Putin told Trump he would halt further advances and freeze Ukrainian frontline where Russian forces occupy significant areas, sources say

For those who feared the summit on Ukraine might resemble Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938, the reality was worse.

The Guardian’s David Smith has this politics sketch from Anchorage:

Today, following a conversation with President Trump, we further coordinated positions with European leaders. The positions are clear. A real peace must be achieved, one that will be lasting, not just another pause between Russian invasions.

Killings must stop as soon as possible, the fire must cease both on the battlefield and in the sky, as well as against our port infrastructure. All Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians must be released, and the children abducted by Russia must be returned. Thousands of our people remain in captivity – they all must be brought home. Pressure on Russia must be maintained while the aggression and occupation continue.

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Donald Trump reportedly delivered letter from first lady to Vladimir Putin

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White House officials said it mentioned the abductions of Ukrainian children by Russian forces in occupied territory

Donald Trump hand-delivered a personal letter from first lady Melania Trump to Russian leader Vladimir Putin raising the plight of Ukrainian and Russian children caught in the middle of the ongoing war between the two European countries, it was reported on Saturday.

The contents of the letter were unknown – but two Trump administration officials told Reuters that it mentioned the abductions of children resulting from the war that broke out after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

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Zelenskyy may be asked to cede land to Russia at Trump meeting in Washington

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Ukrainian leader to return to White House after Alaska summit between US president and Vladimir Putin

Ukraine’s president has said he will fly to Washington on Monday to meet Donald Trump after the Alaska summit amid speculation that the US president will ask him to cede territory to end the war.

Next week’s meeting will mark the first return to the White House for Volodymyr Zelenskyy since his infamous row with Trump and the vice-president, JD Vance, in the Oval Office in February.

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Ukraine says it has bombed Russian ship carrying drone parts at Caspian port

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Attack on cargo vessel more than 500 miles from frontline is show of force before Trump-Putin meeting

Ukraine says it has conducted a long-range drone attack on a supply ship that it claims was carrying drone components from Iran, striking it at a port north of the Caspian Sea, in a show of force hours before Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet for a summit in Alaska.

Photographs showed a partially sunken cargo vessel at Olya, near Astrakhan, more than 500 miles from the frontline. Ukraine’s military claimed credit for the attack and the overnight bombing of an oil refinery at Samara on the Volga River, deep inside Russia.

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USSR sweatshirt and chicken kyiv: Russia dials up trolling before Alaska summit

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Foreign minister’s attire and inflight menu for Russian media are latest in series of provocations towards Ukraine

In a not-so-subtle act of trolling, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, arrived in Alaska on the eve of the US–Russia summit wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with “USSR”.

Once seen in western capitals as a pragmatic and skilled diplomat, the 75-year-old has in recent years mirrored the Kremlin’s radicalised politics, adopting an increasingly combative tone and resorting to trolling and mockery.

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Putin hails ‘heroic’ North Korean troops fighting against Ukraine in letter to Kim Jong-un

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Letter marking the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule a sign of increasingly close ties between Russia and North Korea

Russian president Vladimir Putin hailed North Korean troops sent to fight in Ukraine as “heroic” in a letter to Kim Jong-un, North Korean state media reported on Friday.

In a letter marking the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule, Putin recalled how Soviet Red Army units and North Korean forces fought together to end Japan’s colonial occupation.

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‘What about our lives?’: emotions run high in frontline Ukrainian city over ceding land to Russia

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Trump’s talk of ‘land swaps’ as a simple transaction belies grim reality of what it would mean for people in Zaporizhzhia

The city of Zaporizhzhia, an industrial hub in south-east Ukraine, is as good a place as any to grasp the stakes of freezing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine along its current frontlines, or of implementing a “land swap for peace” deal as envisioned by Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

Since Russian troops began rolling into Ukraine in February 2022, Zaporizhzhia, with its broad avenues and Stalin-era apartment blocks, has been a 30-minute drive from the frontline. It has been under near-constant attack from missiles and drones. On Sunday, a Russian guided air bomb hit a bus station, wounding 24 people – just another day of suffering in a city that has known many of them.

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Putin ready to make Ukraine deal, Trump says before Alaska summit

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US president’s comment that Russian and Ukrainian leaders may have to ‘divvy’ things up likely to raise alarm

Donald Trump has said he believes Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal on the war in Ukraine as the two leaders prepare for their summit in Alaska on Friday, but his suggestion the Russian leader and Volodymyr Zelenskyy could “divvy things up” may alarm some in Kyiv.

The US president, who left the White House on Friday at 7.30am, implied there was a 75% chance of the Alaska meeting succeeding, and that the threat of economic sanctions may have made Putin more willing to seek an end to the war. “HIGH STAKES!!!” he posted on Truth Social as his motorcade idled outside the White House shortly after sunrise in Washington.

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EU leaders defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide future ahead of Trump-Putin summit

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Statement on Ukrainian sovereignty signed by all EU leaders except for Viktor Orbán before call with Trump

European Union leaders made a rallying call to defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide its own future in advance of their virtual summit with Donald Trump – convened to discuss US strategy before the president’s talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday.

With the exception of Hungary, all EU leaders signed a joint statement, with Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, also calling for the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to attend the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Friday.

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Finland charges tanker crew members with sabotage of undersea cables

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Captain and first and second officers of Eagle S, understood to be part of Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’, charged over incident

Finnish authorities have filed charges against members of the crew of an oil tanker suspected of damaging five undersea cables by dragging its anchor between Finland and Estonia.

Finland’s deputy prosecutor general’s office said on Monday it had filed charges of aggravated sabotage and aggravated interference with telecommunications against the captain and first and second officers of the Eagle S. The Cook Islands-registered tanker is understood to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” – comprising vessels that sail under foreign flags to evade sanctions.

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Europe’s leaders raise pressure on Trump to involve Ukraine in Putin talks

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Move comes as Germany warns White House against any deal hatched ‘over heads of Europeans and Ukrainians’

Europe’s leaders have raised the pressure on Donald Trump to involve Ukraine in a planned summit with Vladimir Putin, as Germany warned the White House against any deal hatched “over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians”.

Speaking before a bilateral meeting expected to take place between the US and Russian leaders on Friday in Alaska, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he hoped and assumed that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would also be involved.

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Confusion over the Alaska summit shows Vladimir Putin still calls the shots

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Donald Trump rewarding the Kremlin’s hardline attitude shows Russia can still sideline Ukraine from deal to end war

In the five months since Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met at the Oval Office in late February, Ukrainian officials have worked hard to repair the damage of that day, which ended with the Ukrainian president being kicked out of the White House.

With advice from European allies, Zelenskyy recalibrated his strategy for dealing with the Trump administration, and there was a feeling it was broadly going well. “We managed to reset communications, to find a new language to work with Trump,” said one senior official in Kyiv a week ago.

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Iran and Russia stand to lose from US deal with Azerbaijan and Armenia

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Trump-brokered peace treaty predicted to suffocate geopolitical influence of Washington’s rivals in region

Iran expressed concern about foreign interference on Saturday, fearing it had been carved out of a declaration brokered by Donald Trump between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The two countries have come closer to ending 35 years of enmity by signing a peace treaty in Washington and agreeing to a US private consortium taking control of a strategic corridor on Iran’s border.

The corridor passing through southern Armenia will link Azerbaijan with its exclave Nakhchivan, a longstanding demand of Baku. The US will operate the corridor under Armenian sovereignty on a 99-year land lease, changing the balance of power in the region. Some Iranian commentators claimed the deal amounts to “Iran’s geopolitical suffocation in the region”.

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Path to peace cannot be decided without Ukraine, says Europe

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Ukrainian and European partners to join UK foreign secretary and US vice-president at Chevening for talks

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, and the US vice-president, JD Vance, held a meeting with Ukrainian and European partners in Britain on Saturday to discuss the drive for peace in Ukraine.

The summit comes before a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin set for next Friday in Alaska. In a comment that that was met with pushback from Kyiv, the US president said that an end to the war must involve “some swapping of territories”. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, stressed early on Saturday that “Ukrainians will not give their land to occupiers”.

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Ukraine will not give up land, Zelenskyy warns ahead of Trump-Putin meeting

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US president said end to war will involve ‘some swapping of territories’ before announcing meeting

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said early on Saturday that “Ukrainians will not give their land to occupiers” after Donald Trump said he would meet Vladimir Putin next week and that an end to the war must involve “some swapping of territories”.

The Ukrainian president said Kyiv was ready for real solutions that could bring peace but that any solutions without Ukraine would be against peace. “Any decisions against us, any decisions without Ukraine, are also decisions against peace. They will achieve nothing,” he said, adding that the war “cannot be ended without us, without Ukraine”.

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‘Freeze’ in Ukraine war may be close, says Tusk, as US and Russia plan talks

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Polish PM makes remarks after speaking with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, amid White House efforts to end the conflict

A “freeze” in the war in Ukraine may be close, the Polish prime minister said on Friday, as the White House and the Kremlin push forward with discussions for a high-level summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in the coming days.

Donald Tusk’s remarks came after he spoke with the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has communicated with Trump and European leaders in recent days as the White House continues to try to broker an end to the three-and-a-half-year war.

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Russian football clubs secure €10.8m in Uefa ‘solidarity’ funds since Ukraine invasion

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Exclusive: Five Ukraine clubs failed to win similar payments due to allegedly being located in ‘zone of military operations’

Uefa has paid more than €10.8m (£9.4m) in “solidarity” funds to Russian football clubs since they were banned from taking part in European tournaments after the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Guardian can reveal.

The payments were made despite five Ukrainian clubs failing to receive similar such funds allegedly due to their locations being in a “zone of military operations”.

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US envoy Steve Witkoff meets Putin as Trump’s Ukraine deadline approaches

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Talks between Trump’s negotiator and Russian president lasted about three hours as US pushes for peace deal

Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff spent three hours in the Kremlin talking to Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, two days before a deadline the US president set for Russia to reach a peace deal in the Ukraine war or face fresh sanctions.

It was not immediately clear whether any agreement had been reached during the talks, which Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov described as “useful and constructive”. Ushakov said that it was only after Witkoff reported back to Trump that it would be possible to say more about the outcome of the meeting.

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