Ukraine-Russia conflict dwell: Moscow responds to ‘very angry’ Trump whereas Putin drafts 160,000 males for conflict

Russia fired two Kh-59/69 cruise missiles at southeastern Ukraine overnight, Kyiv’s air force said.

Both the missiles were shot down by Ukraine’s air defences.

The air force did not mention any drones launched by Russia overnight in its statement on the Telegram app.

German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock has arrived in Kyiv as European allies look to bolster support for Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters, Ms Baerbock says Europe must support Kyiv more than ever.

Given the deadlock between the USA and Russia, she says, in an apparent reference to Donald Trump’s reported anger with Vladimir Putin, Europeans must now show that they stand by Ukraine without any ifs or buts.

Ms Baerbock is expected to be replaced as foreign minister once CDU leader Friedrich Merz becomes chancellor following his February election success.

British, French and Ukrainian military leaders will meet in the coming days to build on “real momentum” in efforts to boost Ukraine’s security, a spokesperson for prime minister Keir Starmer said.

The meeting to “drive forward the next stage of detailed planning” was agreed on a call between Sir Keir and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, the spokesperson said yesterday.

The call came after a “coalition of the willing” of European countries supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia met in Paris last week and vowed to strengthen Kyiv’s army for future security.

France and Britain at the meeting also tried to expand support for a planned foreign “reassurance force” in the event of a truce with Russia.

“The leaders reflected on their visit to Paris last week and agreed there was real momentum to support Ukraine’s security for the long term,” the prime minister’s spokesperson said.

Such is the Trump Tower-sized self-conceit of Donald J Trump that for weeks – if not months – he could not see what virtually the whole of the rest of the world could: Vladimir Putin was playing him like a cheap violin.

Trump, seemingly mesmerised by the Russian leader, gave his friend everything he wanted: dominance in Ukraine, aside from a carve-out for US mineral interests; a Russian zone of influence in Europe; the abandonment of Nato and other allies. All of that in return for the Russians scaling back their nuclear arsenal and giving the Americans a free run at acquiring Greenland and Canada (even if they are not Russia’s to give away and won’t ever happen).

That looked to be the kind of grand bargain Trump was looking for, but Putin overplayed his hand.

Sir Keir Starmer paid tribute to the citizens of Bucha on the third anniversary of the city’s liberation in a call with Volodymyr Zelensky days before a meeting of military chiefs to discuss peacekeeping plans for Ukraine.

The prime minister reflected on the “courage and strength” of residents, whose stories he said were a “painful reminder of Russia’s barbarity” in a conversation on Monday evening.

The Kremlin’s forces occupied Bucha weeks after they invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and stayed for about a month until their withdrawal during the Kyiv offensive in March that year.

Russian forces shelled a frontline settlement in Ukraine’s southeast Zaporizhzhia region yesterday, killing one person and injuring five, the regional governor said.

Ivan Fedorov did not identify the settlement, but posted pictures of heavily damaged homes and other buildings alongside piles of rubble.

He said a 66-year-old woman had died in the attack.

Zaporizhzhia is one of four regions partly occupied by Russian forces. All four were illegally annexed by Moscow seven months after the Kremlin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine and Western nations denounce the annexations as illegal.

A host of European foreign ministers have criticised Russia for delaying a ceasefire and “playing games”.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said: “Russia is playing games and not really wanting peace. So our question is, how can we put more pressure on Russia.”

Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski has called for some kind of a deadline for Russia to accept a ceasefire in Ukraine.

French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that Russia owed a clear response to the US on whether it wants to go on a peace path at all.

The calls for scrutiny on Russia come as Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it would be “a drawn-out process”.

Vladimir Putin has signed a decree on the spring conscription for military service to boost his army.

The Russian president has ordered at least 160,000 men between 18 to 30-year-old to be drafted into the army by mid-summer this year, even as he drags on peace talks with Ukraine and the US.

“To carry out the conscription for military service of Russian citizens aged 18 to 30 who are not in the reserve and subject to conscription for military service, in the amount of 160,000 people, from April 1 to July 15, 2025,” the decree, quoted by TASS, says.

Last year, the spring conscription was extended to 150,000, in 2023 – to 147,000 and in 2022 –134,500.

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer spoke to Donald Trump last night to agree on the need to “keep up the collective pressure on Putin” after the US president said he was “p***ed off” with his Russian counterpart for questioning the credibility of Volodymyr Zelensky.

Mr Trump, who has previously called the Ukrainian president a dictator, suggested he was considering putting “secondary sanctions” on Russian oil in an interview with NBC News.

Donald Trump has suggested he could impose secondary tariffs of 25-50 per cent on buyers of Russian oil if Vladimir Putin does not cooperate on ceasefire talks.

“I want to see him make a deal so that we stop Russian soldiers and Ukrainian soldiers and other people from being killed,” Mr Trump said in the Oval Office. “I want to make sure that he follows through, and I think he will.”

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault… I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Mr Trump told NBC.

“That would be, that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States,” he said. “There will be a 25 per cent tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”

Oil prices were little changed yesterday as traders tried to work out how Mr Trump’s threat of secondary tariffs against the world’s second largest oil exporter might look.

China and India buy about 80 per cent of Russian crude exports. Chinese traders said they were unfazed by the threat, while Beijing said its cooperation with Russia was neither directed against, nor affected by, third parties.