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Ukrainian and US presidents will hold talks in Oval Office after Trump said he would meet Putin in Hungary
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Donald Trump is hosting Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine today, a day after the US president announced a new summit with Vladimir Putin in Budapest.
The US president will begin a flurry of diplomatic activity on Friday aimed at ending Russia’s invasion, a week after he helped strike a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In a post on X, Zelensky said he would meet with representatives of defence and energy companies ahead of his meeting with Trump in the Oval Office.
“We expect that the momentum of curbing terror and war that succeeded in the Middle East will help to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” the Ukrainian president said.
The US president held a two-hour phone call with Putin on Thursday, during which the Russian president congratulated him on the “Great Accomplishment of Peace in the Middle East”.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would meet with Russian officials next week, followed by a summit between himself and Putin in Budapest on an unspecified date.
Hundreds of people gathered in the centre of St Petersburg in a rare moment of protest against Russian president Vladimir Putin to sing anti-war songs.
A crowd of young people gathered to sing anti-war songs in Kazanskaya Square, including the proscribed song “Swan Lake Collective” by Russian rapper Noize MC, in footage that has now gone viral on social media.
The song, banned from distribution by the Primorsky District Court in May, features anti-Putin lyrics including “The old man still clings to his throne, afraid to let go” and “When the tsar dies, we’ll dance again — ‘Swan Lake’ on every screen.”
Crowds could be heard chanting the chorus: “I want to watch the ballet, let the swans dance. Let the old man shake in fear for his lake”.
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Donald Trump has agreed to a second Ukraine war summit with Vladimir Putin after a “productive” phone call between the pair on the eve of a White House visit by Volodymyr Zelensky.
A date has not been set, but Mr Trump wrote on social media that the meeting would take place in Budapest.
“I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” the US president wrote after the conversation, which lasted more than two hours.
Their previous summit, in Alaska in August, ended without any significant diplomatic breakthroughs for Mr Trump. Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, said the Russian president initiated the call, which he described as “very frank and trusting”.
It came as Mr Zelensky was heading to the White House to push for more military support, including long-range Tomahawk missiles that would allow Ukraine to strike deeper into Russian territory.
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Russian president Vladimir Putin’s latest phone call with Donald Trump may have slowed growing US momentum to toughen its stance on Moscow, according to a former US State Department official.
“Putin is trying to derail the momentum toward greater pressure on Russia,” said Dan Fried, a former US State Department official and veteran diplomat who oversaw sanctions policy under multiple administrations.
“We’ll see what happens tomorrow [on Friday, with Zelensky due to meet Trump] but the chances of moving toward a ceasefire by pushing Russia to get serious seem to have diminished.”
The Kremlin described Thursday’s Trump and Putin call as “extremely frank and trustful”.
Earlier, Trump had appeared to harden his position, voicing frustration with Russia’s continued attacks and hinting at a possible decision to provide Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.
Explosions were reported overnight in both occupied Donetsk and the Russian resort city of Sochi, as suspected Ukrainian drone attacks targeted sites deep inside Russian-held territory.
“An air defence system is active in Sochi. An attack by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is being repelled,” Sochi Mayor Andrei Proshunin said.
In Donetsk, local channels reported that a Russian ammunition depot had been struck, setting off a series of explosions and large fires visible across the occupied city.
Videos circulating on social media appeared to show multiple blasts lighting up the night sky, Kyiv Independent reported.
Ukrainian officials have not commented on either incident.
Donald Trump appeared uncertain on Wednesday about supplying Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, saying the US must also keep enough for its own defence – just hours before his scheduled meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington.
“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too. We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean, we can’t deplete for our country,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“I don’t know what we can do about that,” he added.
Zelensky, who arrived in Washington earlier in the day, is expected to make a fresh push for the long-range missiles, which can strike targets up to 2,500 kilometres away.
Earlier, Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Moscow had warned Trump against arming Kyiv with the missiles.
“Vladimir Putin reiterated his point that Tomahawks would not change the situation on the battlefield but would cause significant harm to relations between our countries, not to mention the prospects for peaceful settlement,” Ushakov said, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Russia launched one of its biggest aerial attacks in months on Thursday, pounding Ukraine’s energy network just as president Volodymyr Zelensky flew to Washington to ask Donald Trump for long-range Tomahawk missiles.
More than 300 drones and 37 missiles rained down across Ukraine overnight, sparking blackouts in eight regions and fires at key gas facilities.
“This autumn, the Russians use every single day to strike at our energy infrastructure,” Zelensky said on X.
One of the main targets was the Shebelinka gas processing plant in Kharkiv region, where drones and missiles hit around 5.30am.
Huge columns of black smoke rose from the site as crews battled multiple fires.
Volodymyr Zelensky has said the Russian president’s sudden push to meet Donald Trump shows the Russian leader is “on the defensive”.
Speaking in Washington on Thursday, the Ukrainian president said Putin’s eagerness to resume talks was directly tied to Trump’s recent suggestion that the US could send Tomahawk cruise missiles to Kyiv.
“We can already see that Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks,” Zelensky said.
His comments came after Trump confirmed he is planning to meet Putin in Budapest in the coming weeks.
One of Trump’s main arguments for ending the war in Ukraine is that it would allow for strong economic cooperation between the US and Russia, the Kremlin said.
In a statement, Yury Ushakov said: “It is noteworthy that one of the US President’s key arguments centred on the premise that the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine would open up tremendous – and he stressed this – tremendous prospects for the development of US-Russian economic cooperation.”
After Trump and Putin’s meeting, Trump said the pair “spent a great deal of time talking about trade between Russia and the United States when the war with Ukraine is over.”
The European Union has unveiled four flagship projects to strengthen its defence capabilities against Russia by 2030, as recent airspace violations show that “Europe is at risk”.
The European Commission will submit the ‘Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030’ to EU leaders next week, essentially presenting them with a checklist of equipment to buy, with hopes of encouraging states to decide who will take the lead on projects.
What are the projects?
The European Drone Defence Initiative
As a top priority, the plans include the European Drone Defence Initiative, which aims to build counter-drone capabilities to detect, track, and disable rogue drones. The system is expected to be initially operational by December 2026 and fully functional in late 2027.
The Eastern Flank Watch
The drone system is part of the wider Eastern Flank Watch scheme, which aims to fortify defences along Europe’s eastern border on land, in the Baltic and Black seas, in the sky, and against hybrid operations. It hopes to be fully functional by 2028.
The European Air Shield
The European Air Shield aims to protect member states’ airspace by creating an integrated, multi-layered air and missile defence shield to protect against all Russian air threats.
The European Space Shield
The fourth project is the European Space Shield, which aims to protect space assets and services against growing threats.
Donald Trump has suggested that the US may need to keep its Tomahawk missiles for itself, as Zelensky is expected to push for its supply at their meeting tomorrow.
He said: “Tomahawks. We have a lot of them, but we need them. We can’t deplete” US stockpiles, the BBC reported.
The Russian president has warned Trump that supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would harm peace prospects and damage US-Russia relations, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.
Trump said: “I did actually say to him, ‘Would you mind if I gave a couple of thousands of Tomahawks to your opposition?’ I did say that to him. I said it just like that. He didn’t like that idea,” according to the BBC.
“You have to be a bit light-hearted sometimes.”
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