Ukraine-Russia battle newest: Trump plans main assertion on Russia after rising frustration with Putin

Donald Trump has planned to issue a “major statement” on Russia on Monday, he told NBC.

While he declined to elaborate, Mr Trump in recent days, has expressed frustration with Russian president Vladimir Putin over the lack of progress towards ending the war sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Mr Trump also told NBC News about what he called a new deal between the US, Nato allies and Ukraine over weapons shipment from the United States.

“We’re sending weapons to Nato, and Nato is paying for those weapons, 100 percent.”

The positive trend in Russia-US relations continues and has not faded, although the US administration is acting in a zigzag manner, Russian deputy foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the RIA news agency in remarks published on Friday

.”No, I do not agree that the positive trend in relations between Moscow and Washington is fading,” RIA cited Ryabkov as saying.

“I think that the current US administration acts in a zigzag manner on this and many other issues. I wouldn’t say they are firmly following a set course once and for all. We don’t dramatise over this.”

Countries prepared to provide troops for a post-ceasefire force in Ukraine agreed to set up a headquarters in Paris for a rapid deployment after the end of hostilities.

A US delegation was present for the first time at a meeting of the group on Thursday.

Retired Lt Gen Keith Kellogg, US president Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, was on hand for the meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the fourth annual conference on Ukraine’s recovery held in Rome.

Also present were Republican senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal, who recently co-sponsored a new sanctions bill against Russia, calling in part for a 500 per cent tariff on goods imported from countries that still bought Russian oil.

French president Emmanuel Macron and UK prime minister Keir Starmer joined the meeting via videoconference from Britain, where Mr Macron was on a state visit.

In a statement, coalition members said they had agreed on a Paris headquarters for the first year of the force, to be known as the Multinational Force Ukraine, and then rotating it to London, with plans for a coordination cell in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.

One civilian was killed and another was injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Tula region, around 200 kilometres, or 124 miles, south of Moscow, the local governor said on Friday.

Russian defence ministry’s air defence units destroyed 13 drones during the night combat operations to protect the region’s airspace, Tula’s regional governor, Dmitry Milyaev, said on Telegram.

A senior officer from Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency has been shot dead in a car park in broad daylight in the capital, Kyiv, according to officials.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) confirmed the fatal shooting but did not release the name of the victim. Ukrainian media outlets have identified him as Colonel Ivan Voronych.

The attack took place around 9am local time in the southern Holosiivskyi district on Thursday.

Footage from the scene, verified by the Reuters news agency, shows a man in a dark T-shirt and jeans leaving a building before reportedly approaching the officer and opening fire. The assailant fled the scene and remains at large.

Kyiv police confirmed in a statement that officers arrived at the location to find a man dead from gunshot wounds. “Measures are being taken to detain him,” the statement added, referring to the unidentified attacker.

The SBU said it was carrying out “a comprehensive set of measures to clarify all the circumstances of the crime and bring the perpetrators to justice”.Colonel Voronych is believed to have served in an internal security role. The SBU is responsible for counter-intelligence and domestic threats, similar to the UK’s MI5. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, however, the agency has also taken part in covert operations deep inside Russian territory.

While Ukraine has not officially acknowledged involvement, its security services have been widely linked to high-profile assassinations and sabotage missions. These include the car bombing of Russian General Yaroslav Moskalik in Moscow earlier this year and the killing of General Igor Kirillov in December 2024.

Officials in Kyiv have yet to suggest a motive for Thursday’s shooting. The SBU said it would continue its investigation to establish whether the attack was related to Colonel Voronych’s role in the agency.

Volodymyr Zelensky said that Thursday’s assault by Russia had involved around 400 drones and 18 missiles, primarily targeting the capital.

Explosions and anti-aircraft fire rattled the city. Windows were blown out, facades ravaged and cars burned to shells. In the city centre, an apartment in an eight-storey building was engulfed in flames.”

This is terror because it happens every night when people are asleep,” said Karyna Volf, a 25-year-old Kyiv resident who rushed out of her apartment moments before it was showered with shards of glass.

Air defences stopped all but a few dozen of the drones, authorities said, a day after Russia launched a record 728 drones at Ukraine.

Russia unleashed heavy airstrikes on Ukraine on Thursday before a conference in Rome at which Kyiv won billions of dollars in aid pledges, and US-Russian talks at which Washington voiced frustration with Moscow over the war.

Two people were killed, 26 were wounded, according to figures from the national emergency services, and there was damage in nearly every part of Kyiv from missile and drone attacks on the capital and other parts of Ukraine.

Addressing the Rome conference on Ukraine’s reconstruction after more than three years of war, Mr Zelensky urged allies to “more actively” use Russian assets for rebuilding and called for weapons, joint defence production and investment.

Participants pledged over $12bn to help rebuild Ukraine, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said. The European Commission, the EU’s executive, announced $2.7bn in support.

At talks with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov while in Malaysia, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said he had reinforced the message that Moscow should show more flexibility.

“We need to see a roadmap moving forward about how this conflict can conclude,” Mr Rubio said, adding that the Trump administration had been engaging with the US Senate on what new sanctions on Russia might look like.

“It was a frank conversation. It was an important one,” Mr Rubio said after the 50-minute talks in Kuala Lumpur. Moscow’s foreign ministry said they had shared “a substantive and frank exchange of views”.

Donald Trump on Tuesday said the US would send more weapons to Ukraine to help the country defend itself against intensifying Russian advances.

The package could include defensive Patriot missiles and offensive medium-range rockets but a decision on the exact equipment had not been made, sources said. One of the people said this would happen at a meeting on Thursday.

The Trump administration had so far only sent weapons authorised by former president Joe Biden, who was a staunch supporter of Kyiv. The Pentagon and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr Trump had pledged to swiftly end the war but months into his presidency, little progress has been made. The Republican president has sometimes criticised US spending on Ukraine’s defence, spoken favorably of Russia and publicly clashed with Ukraine’s leader.

However, sometimes he has also voiced support for Kyiv and expressed disappointment in the leadership of Russia.