Summary
That’s it from us on this live blog. Here’s a recap of the main news of the day:
The leaders of France, Germany and the UK spoke with Donald Trump about Ukraine on Wednesday. In similar statements Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz and Keir Starmer said they discussed “the state of talks” on ending the Ukraine war, agreeing that “intensive work on the peace plan is to continue in the coming days.” The leaders also agreed that it was “a crucial moment” for Ukraine and for “common security in the Euro-Atlantic area.”
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his team would talk to US negotiators on Wednesday about the process of postwar reconstruction and economic development. This comes a day before urgent talks with 30 leaders in the Coalition of the Willing and amid plans to use frozen Russian assets to provide a $78bn loan to Kyiv.
There were unconfirmed reports that another meeting of European leaders on Ukraine is planned for Monday in Berlin, a week on from the latest summit in London.
German chancellor Friedrich Merz said he wanted the US to remain a partner of Germany despite a changing nature of their relationship, saying he would also defend his country’s record on migration when he next meets Donald Trump. This comes after Trump attacked Europe as “decaying” because of immigration. Merz said: “We are preparing ourselves for a change in transatlantic relations. But I would still like to see it as a partnership, and I hope that America sees it the same way in its relations with Europe and also with Germany.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is ready to hold a wartime election within the next three months, if Ukraine’s parliament and foreign allies will allow it, after Donald Trump accused him of clinging on to power.
Pope Leo has criticized Trump’s comments about Europe. Without naming the US president the pope said: “Remarks that are made about Europe, also in interviews recently, I think, are trying to break apart what I think needs to be a very important alliance today and in the future.”
Venezuela’s opposition leader was awarded the Nobel peace prize in absentia at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway. María Corina Machado, has vowed to continue her struggle to free the country from years of “obscene corruption”, “brutal dictatorship” and “despair”. In a lecture delivered by her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, the former congresswoman and veteran pro-democracy campaigner pledged to continue leading Venezuela on its “long march to freedom”.
in Kyiv
A source in Ukraine’s SBU security service has provided footage of a drone attack on a Russian tanker allegedly belonging to the “shadow fleet” transporting Russian oil in defiance of sanctions.
The attack, earlier on Wednesday in the Black Sea, was a joint operation between the SBU and the Ukrainian navy, and used “Sea Baby” drones, small unmanned boats which can be fitted with a kamikaze explosive load, said the source.
The footage shows explosions on the tanker, named as the Dashan, which was flying under the flag of the Comoro Islands and was reportedly heading to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk. The Dashan has been put under British and European sanctions over suspicions it is part of the shadow fleet.
There was no independent confirmation of the video’s authenticity, nor was information available about the fate of the ship after the attack, but it appears to fit a pattern of Kyiv attacking shadow fleet ships as part of a strategy to deny Russia revenues from oil. Late last month, two other suspected shadow fleet ships were hit by Ukrainian drones in the Black Sea.
