Ukraine-Russia conflict newest: Kremlin welcomes assembly with Trump as ‘supermarket hit with US missile’ in Donetsk

Ukraine expects high level contacts with the new US administration immediately after Donald Trump takes office, including an eventual meeting between Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky, Kyiv’s foreign ministry said on Friday.

“We are waiting for a meeting between our presidents because for us the main thing is to work together with America… we are preparing for contacts at the highest and high levels immediately after the inauguration,” ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi said.

The Kremlin has welcomed a meeting with US president-elect Donald Trump just days after he claimed Vladimir Putin wanted to sit down with him.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there could be progress on setting up the meeting after Trump is sworn in as US president on 20 January.

Trump claimed Putin wanted to meet with him as he spoke with Republican governors at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, earlier this week.

“President Putin wants to meet. He has said that even publicly and we have to get that war over with. That’s a bloody mess,” he said.

On Thursday, Trump pushed back his campaign pledge to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours and said six months was a more realistic target.

“The whole [Trump] team is obsessed with strength and looking strong, so they’re recalibrating the Ukraine approach,” a European official told the Financial Times.

Vladimir Putin’s forces have launched a fresh drone assault on Ukraine as Donald Trump revealed the Russian leader wants to meet him.

Russian troops fired up to 72 drones at Ukraine overnight, hitting various buildings in the northern region of Chernihiv, as Kyiv’s airforce was scrambled to down 33 of them, it said.

Ukraine’s army struck a supermarket on Friday in the Russian-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine in an attack that used US-supplied missiles and wounded two people, a senior Russian-backed official said.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine and Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.

Unverified photos posted on social media showed a burnt out car in front of a shattered two-storey circular building surrounded by debris.

Dashcam footage posted by a driver nearby appeared to show the moment the supermarket – called Moloko (Milk) – was struck, with an ensuing large explosion and flames soaring into the sky.

Moscow is alarmed at the incoming US president-elect Donald Trump’s plans to acquire Greenland, according to a senior Russian official and close aide of Vladimir Putin.

Mr Trump on Tuesday said he would not rule out the use of military force to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, as he declared US control of both to be vital to American national security.

“The Arctic is a zone of our national interests, our strategic interests,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, responding to Mr Trump’s remarks.

He added: “We are watching the rather dramatic development of the situation very closely, but so far, thank God, at the level of statements.”

Greenland, home to a large US military base, is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a longtime US ally and a founding member of Nato. Mr Trump cast doubts on the legitimacy of Denmark’s claim to Greenland.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued a new alert yesterday warning non-European carriers not to fly within western Russia airspace due to the risk of being unintentionally targeted by its air defence systems.

“The ongoing conflict following the Russian invasion of Ukraine poses the risk of civil aircraft being unintentionally targeted in the airspace of the Russian Federation due to possible civil-military coordination deficiencies, and the potential for misidentification,” EASA said.

EASA said the crash last month in Kazakhstan of an Azerbaijan Airlines plane, after Russian air defences fired against Ukrainian drones, demonstrated the high risk at play. At least 38 people died in the crash.

“EASA recommends not to operate within the affected airspace of the Russian Federation located west of longitude 60° East at all altitudes and flight levels.”

The warning was for third-country operators authorised by EASA, given Russian airspace has been closed to European Union airlines since the bloc imposed Ukraine-related sanctions targeting Russia’s aviation sector.

Four sources with knowledge of the preliminary findings of Azerbaijan’s investigation told Reuters last month that Russian air defences had mistakenly shot the airliner down. Passengers said they heard a loud bang outside the plane.