Summary of the day so far
It is approaching 6pm in Kyiv and 7pm in Moscow. Here is a summary of the key updates from today’s live blog:
Ukraine is “fully committed” to constructive dialogue with US representatives in Saudi Arabia next week and hopes to agree on the necessary decisions and steps, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday. “Ukraine has been seeking peace from the very first second of this war. Realistic proposals are on the table. The key is to move quickly and effectively,” Zelenskyy said on social media network X.
Donald Trump has said Vladimir Putin was “doing what anybody would do” after Russia launched a massive missile and drone strike on Ukraine days after the US cut off vital intelligence and military aid to Kyiv. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday Trump said he finds it “easier” to work with Russia than Ukraine and that Putin “wants to end the war”.
Zelenskyy on Saturday called for more sanctions against Russia as overnight strikes killed at least 14 people and injured dozens more, days ahead of talks between US and Ukrainian negotiators aimed at securing a truce. A Russian assault hit the centre of Dobropillia in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region late on Friday, killing 11 people and injuring 30, according to the emergency services. In Dobropillia, Agence France-Presse (AFP) saw charred residential buildings, flattened market stalls and evidence of cluster bomb damage.
Separately, 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.
Putin “has no interest in peace”, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said on Saturday, after overnight strikes by Moscow’s troops killed at least 14 people in Ukraine. Polish prime minister Donald Tusk described it as “another tragic night in Ukraine” and said “this is what happens when someone appeases barbarians” in a post on X.
The Russian defence ministry announced the recapture of Viktorovka, Nikolayevka and Staraya Sorochina. Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield report. 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”.
Two Majors, a pro-Russian war blogger, wrote on Telegram on Saturday that Russian troops had begun an assault on Sudzha, a major town about 6 miles (9.5 km) from the border, and that the situation for Ukrainian troops in Kursk was “close to critical”. The Guardian has been unable to independently verify the report.
Ukrainian diplomatic and military representatives will stay for a meeting on Tuesday with the US team. The Ukrainian delegation will include foreign minister Andrii Sybiha, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak and defence minister Rustem Umerov.
Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff has also said he was in discussions with Ukraine for a framework deal to end the three-year war with Russia, and a meeting was planned next week with the Ukrainians in Saudi Arabia.
UK prime minister Keir Starmer has welcomed Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese’s “commitment to consider contributing to a coalition of the willing for Ukraine” in a phone call on Saturday, Downing Street has said.
Ben Wallace, the former UK defence secretary, has said Donald Trump’s decision to suspend US intelligence sharing with Kyiv is “suffocating” Ukrainian hope of holding out against Russian aggression. Wallace, who was the defence secretary when Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, said on Saturday that Trump was diminishing the hope of Ukraine with his actions.
Moscow’s defence ministry on Saturday said its air defence systems destroyed 31 Ukrainian drones over the past 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, local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram.
Higher European defence budgets and a ramp-up of production by military equipment industries are necessary to secure Europe, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte said in a German newspaper interview. “We will need to spend more to keep ourselves safe,” Rutte told German Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag (WamS). “But we also need to quickly ramp up our defence production on both sides of the Atlantic … for far too long, we have produced far too little.”
Russia launched a devastating attack on Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens more, hours after Donald Trump defended Vladimir Putin and said the Kremlin leader was “doing what anybody would do”.
Two ballistic missiles hit the centre of Dobropillia in the eastern Donetsk region. Fire engulfed a five-storey apartment building. As emergency services arrived, Russia launched another strike on the same area. Eleven civilians were killed, with five children among the 30 injured.
Writing on social media, Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the “vile and inhuman intimidation tactic often used by the Russians”. Three people also died and seven injured in a drone attack in the city of Bohodukhiv, in the Kharkiv region.
Russia’s relentless bombardment of Ukrainian cities has intensified after a torrid week in which Trump has pulled the plug on intelligence sharing with Ukraine and halted the supply of US weapons.
These hostile moves mean the alarm system that warns Ukrainian civilians of incoming enemy missiles is less effective. Asked if Putin was taking advantage of US aid pauses, Trump on Friday acknowledged Ukraine was experiencing a “tremendous pounding”.
He suggested, however, that “anyone in Putin’s position” would do the same. Before a meeting on Tuesday between US and Ukrainian representatives in Saudi Arabia, Trump said he was “finding it easier” to deal with Moscow than with Kyiv.
European leaders suggested the US president was complicit in the latest devastation.
The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said there had been “another tragic night in Ukraine”, with “more bombs, more aggression and more victims”. Without mentioning Trump directly, he said: “This is what happens when someone appeases barbarians.”
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the “relentless” Russian missiles demonstrated that Putin had no interest in peace. “We must step up our military support. Otherwise, even more Ukrainian civilians will pay the highest price,” she said.
