Donald Trump has issued a warning about Moscow’s response to Ukraine’s bomber attacks at the weekend. Meanwhile, the Russia’s UK ambassador has told Yalda Hakim that Britain is partly to blame for the strikes. Watch the full interview live on The World below from 9pm.
Thursday 5 June 2025 21:15, UK
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More to bring you from that interview with Russia’s ambassador to the UK now.
Andrei Kelin has been asked by Yalda Hakim about how Russia plans to respond to Ukraine’s attack on multiple airbases deep inside the country over the weekend.
“Putin said [there will be a response], he also said this also to president Trump, but it is up to the Ministry of Defence to decide when and how it is going to happen,” he said.
But when asked whether everything is on the table, including a nuclear attack, Kelin responded by saying “I don’t think so”.
“We have different means, but it is not up to me. I have no idea,” he added, reiterating that the matter is up to the Ministry of Defence.
Many analysts labelled Ukraine’s weekend airfield attacks as being a humiliation for Russia, but Kelin insists that is not the case.
“There are some people saying that there should be more precautions taken on the airfields, and that is correct,” he added.
Watch the interview in the video below.
Yalda Hakim’s full interview with Russia’s UK ambassador is playing out on the Sky News channel now – as a reminder, here’s the full story we published earlier on their conversation…
The World with Yalda Hakim is live on Sky News now.
During the programme you’ll be able to watch Yalda’s interview with Russia’s ambassador to the UK.
You can watch live in the stream at the top of this page. We’ll also bring you any other key lines from the interview right here.
After Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke again on the phone yesterday, US correspondent Mark Stone and Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett discussed their relationship in the latest episode of the Trump 100 podcast.
Stone said Trump’s strategy of building a cordial relationship with Putin in order to win him over doesn’t seem to be working.
The two leaders have a “fascinating relationship”, Bennett added.
He said: “It appears to be a turbulent relationship that flits between cordial and frustrated, then flirtatious, then tense – mostly because of Donald Trump’s fluctuations.”
Watch Stone and Bennett’s discussion below – or follow Trump 100 wherever you get your podcasts to listen to the full episode.
Some reaction to bring you now from Friedrich Merz, who has been speaking about his meeting with Donald Trump at the White House.
The German chancellor said he was “extremely satisfied” with the talks, adding that they laid the foundation for good conversations at upcoming G7 and NATO summits.
“I’m returning with the feeling that I’ve found in the American president someone I can speak with very well on a personal level,” he said.
“We have a lot in common, even in the different career paths we’ve taken between politics. That creates a certain bond.”
By Adam Parsons, Europe correspondent in Brussels
Everyone at NATO knows about battles. Sometimes you come out on top and sometimes you have to know when you’re beaten. And here, it’s the Americans who are wearing the biggest smiles.
It has long been a mantra of Donald Trump that European nations should spend a lot more money on defence. During his first term, when he seemed to be deriding NATO on a regular basis, he amplified a debate that had long rumbled; now it feels like it’s coming to a resolution.
Certainly there was a bounce in the step of US defence secretary Pete Hegseth when we spoke.
“We all need increased capabilities and we all need to spend more,” he said. “Thank you to president Trump for reviving this alliance. It was an alliance that was sleepwalking to irrelevance and president Trump, in his first term, said you need to step up and spend more. And he has in this term done the same.
“What I saw in there” – he motioned to the meeting rooms where all the ministers had met – “were countries prepared to step up to push the limits of what they can do. That’s a good thing. That’s friends helping friends.”
Watch: Hegseth says US is ‘not here to discuss’ leaving NATO
Hegseth came into this meeting with one big demand – for NATO allies to bump up their defence spending to a total of 5% of GDP – more than any of them are spending at the moment.
Of that, he believes that at least 3.5% should be going towards core defence spending – soldiers, planes, guns and so on – while a further 1.5% could be spent on other “defence related” elements – infrastructure, espionage, civil defence.
Pot one is clear. Pot two is vague – nobody seems quite sure what counts as “defence related”. Climate change resilience, for instance, has been suggested by some countries. That one will need clearing up.
But even the 3.5% demand is a huge one. According to the latest data I’ve seen, only one NATO member presently spends above that target – and no, that isn’t America. It’s Poland, which has ramped up military spending ever since neighbouring Ukraine was invaded. Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia have all done the same, nervously looking towards Russia.
The United States sits at 3.4% of GDP. But that’s 3.4% of a very big number, so it equates to an awful lot of spending.
So to put that in context, more than a third of worldwide spending on defence is carried out by America. Look at the top ten nations in the world for defence spending, and America is top by a mile. It spends more than the other nine countries in that list put together.
What’s more, the vast majority of that money goes to American companies, and a great deal of it is shared among a relatively small number of those companies.
Increased military spending may well be good for global security but, until such time as Europe expands its own defence industry, it’s also excellent news for the American economy.
Mark Rutte, the NATO Secretary General, admitted that it was a huge challenge, but said that he would not accept countries simply kicking the financial can down the street. Countries will be monitored constantly to ensure they are making annual progress towards the 5% target.
A finishing line hasn’t been established yet, but it’s probably going to be 10 years from now. Still, Rutte said he didn’t want “hockey sticks” – the statistical model where things stay flat for a long time, and the big rise only comes at the end.
Just catching up with our updates this evening?
Here’s a summary of everything Donald Trump and Friedrich Merz had to say about the war in Ukraine during their Oval Office meeting:
Donald Trump’s comments likening the war between Russia and Ukraine to two children fighting are “trivialising and minimalising of the scale of the conflict”, the associate editor at The Hill has said.
Speaking to Jonathan Samuels, Niall Stanage said that comparison would be “frankly offensive” to many Ukrainians and those that support them.
“We are talking about a situation where a much larger neighbour, Russia, invaded Ukraine and occupies about one fifth of its territory,” he explained.
“There was a study earlier this week that put the total number of dead and wounded on the battlefield on both sides at well over one million, 1.4 million was the figure cited.
“So to analogise that as toddlers squabbling in a playground seems, I think, trivialising and minimalising off the actual scale of the conflict that we have seen for so long.”
Stanage noted that one moment that stood out to him from the Oval Office meeting was when the German chancellor pressed Trump on his support for Ukraine.
“In my eyes, Trump was being very noncommittal in response,” he added.
“[Merz] at one point was talking about the need for more pressure on Russia, Trump completely sidestepped that point it seemed to me.”
Watch the full interview in the video below.
Donald Trump and Friedrich Merz are having lunch at the White House after their meeting in the Oval Office.
Take a look at the pictures below as the US president met the German chancellor the first time.
Russia’s UK ambassador has told Sky News that Ukraine’s recent attacks risk escalating the conflict to “World War III” as he partly blamed the UK.
Andrei Kelin warned that Ukraine’s actions “are bringing the conflict to a different level of escalation”, in an interview with Sky News’ Yalda Hakim, and said Kyiv should “not try to engulf World War III”.
“That’s the very worst case scenario that we can imagine,” he said.
But Kelin pointed the finger at the UK when he suggested Ukraine must have had assistance in the attacks.
Watch: Russia’s ambassador says ‘we know how much London is involved’
“[This] kind of attack involves, of course, provision of very high technology, so-called geospaced data, which only can be done by those who have it in possession. And this is London and Washington,” he added.
“I don’t believe that America [is involved], that has been denied by president Trump, definitely, but it has not been denied by London.
“We perfectly know how much London is involved, how deeply British forces are involved in working together with Ukraine.”
Watch the full interview on The World with Yalda Hakim from 9pm tonight.
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