Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.
Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in
US president claims progress made in his two-hour call with Putin, but repeats his threats to abandon efforts at brokering peace
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Vladimir Putin is “trying to buy time” to continue his war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky has warned, after Donald Trump insisted progress had been made after his two-hour call with the Russian president.
Despite Mr Trump saying negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow would begin “immediately”, the Kremlin quickly poured cold water on the US president’s optimistic statements, saying “there are no deadlines and there can’t be any”.
Mr Trump, meanwhile, repeated his threat to abandon efforts to broker peace, insisting that he has a “red line in my head” on when he will walk away and saying: “This is not my war.”
Engaging in a flurry of diplomacy with calls to Kyiv’s allies on Tuesday, the Ukrainian president said he accepted that “there is no doubt that the war must end at the negotiating table”, but warned that Russia must face tough sanctions if it “continues to put forward unrealistic conditions and undermine progress”.
Meanwhile, heavy fighting continued along the front line, with Ukraine reporting 177 combat clashes and claiming to have inflicted more than 1,000 casualties upon Russia over the past 24 hours.
Two Russian Tu-95M strategic bombers carried out a scheduled flight over international waters in the Barents Sea, which borders Norway, Moscow’s defence ministry has said.
The planes were escorted by flight planes belonging to an unnamed foreign country for part of the flight, which lasted more than four hours, Russian state news agencies cited the ministry as saying.
The European Union – which has today adopted a 17th package of sanctions against Russia – needs to start working on its 18th package on the same day, Lithuania’s foreign minister Kęstutis Budrys has warned.
The EU’s newly announced 17th package targets nearly 200 ships in Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of vessels accused of helping Moscow to evade sanctions on crude oil.
Europe must commit to defending itself without the United States, a Scandinavian drone defence company has warned, urging the continent to prepare to act independently in today’s “new era of conflict”.
Karl Rosander, CEO of Nordic Air Defence, told The Independent that the US “can no longer be relied upon unconditionally for Europe’s defence, and it’s increasingly clear that it is not ready for the way warfare is evolving”.
“Europe must be prepared to act independently,” he added. “If you can’t defend your country, you have no country.”
Mr Rosander warned that the defence of Europe must come down to the whole continent, “not just the Scandinavian and Baltic countries directly in the firing line”.
“We cannot wait for our calls to help to fall on deaf ears. One of the keys to this is a resilient, homegrown defence-tech industry so we can adapt to the changing nature of warfare,” he added.
Poland’s foreign minister has warned that Europe is “facing an existential choice” and must be prepared for Donald Trump to wash his hands “not only of Ukraine, but even of Europe”.
Arguing that “the most reasonable and respectable approach is to treat whatever the US president says both literally and seriously”, Radosław Sikorski wrote in an opinion piece for non-profit outlet Project Syndicate: “Given the current state of the world, this implies that Europe faces an existential choice.
“We can enter the global game united, as a heavyweight competitor, or we can condemn ourselves to marginalisation.”
He added: “Deterring Russia is not beyond our means. We don’t need to match US military capabilities; rather, we just need enough to force Putin to reconsider his chances of winning in a confrontation with a united European community of democratic nation-states.”
Ukrainian politicians criticised the Trump administration’s approach to negotiating a ceasefire, in a meeting today between the UK and Ukrainian foreign affairs committees.
Ukrainian MP Mariya Ionova, member of the committee on Foreign Policy and Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation, said: “In Trump’s team, there are no diplomats. It’s all businessmen. And that’s why we hear ‘deal, deal, deal’. If a democracy is a deal, if territorial integrity is a deal, we will never accept it.”
Ms Ionova also took aim at US special envoy Steve Witkoff for misinformation around Ukraine, questioning why the official had visited Moscow, but never Kyiv.
“Why is he only going to Russia? Let him come to Ukraine, no problem. If he has any questions, we are ready to answer,” she told the committee.
She added: “We are not hiding anything – please go ahead. Meet with the hostages, and they will tell you under what conditions they were [held] in Russian prisons.”
Vladimir Putin is playing Donald Trump “like a violin”, a former British foreign secretary and leader of the Conservative Party has warned.
Asked whether he believes Mr Trump could give up on his push for peace, Lord William Hague said: “I think he is very close to that, which is the exact opposite of what a negotiator should do, because in successful peace negotiations you need a powerful peace negotiator to come along and say, ‘I’m not going until you two have agreed’, and then really apply themselves to it and say ‘if this takes months, I’m staying here’.
“This is the opposite. This is: ‘if you don’t agree, I’m off.’ That, of course, is exactly what Putin wants. So Putin is playing him totally … flattering him, sending him a portrait, having long phone calls with him, saying no doubt how wise he is, and so on – and then doing nothing until he goes away.
“That is the Putin strategy. At the moment it’s working, and it’s astonishing that a president of the United States can fall for that so easily but he is being played like a violin,” Lord Hague – who is now the chancellor of Oxford University – told Times Radio.
“It is alarming to see because it just underlines that there is a serious risk that Ukraine will be almost entirely dependent on support from Europe, including Britain, rather than from the United States.
Following Vladimir Putin’s phone call with Donald Trump, the Russian foreign ministry has claimed that Ukraine must now decide whether or not it will cooperate in discussing a memorandum ahead of a future peace accord that Moscow has proposed.
Despite Mr Trump saying negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow would begin “immediately”, the Kremlin quickly poured cold water on the US president’s optimistic statements, saying “there are no deadlines and there can’t be any”.
And the Kremlin warned earlier that the process for Moscow and Kyiv to develop a unified text of a peace and ceasefire memorandum would be complex. Ukraine has repeatedly called for a ceasefire before proper peace talks can begin.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff has warned that, “unfortunately, following the Trump–Putin phone call, the status quo has not changed”.
Writing on social media, Mikhailo Podolyak warned that Russia “still seeks war, destruction, and killing – believing them to be the only means of preserving its current state,” accusing Moscow of being “unwilling and categorically refusing” to accept a ceasefire.
The chief presidential aide added: “There is also this obsessive search for the so-called ‘root causes of the war’, even though the only real cause is the simple fact of Russia’s unprovoked aggression.”
“Ukraine continues to offer the only realistic path out of the war – through an immediate and unconditional ceasefire – comprehensive, long-term, and binding,” said Mr Podolyak, adding: “The United States remains a global mediator – still assuming that Russia is capable of negotiating and willing to end the war for the sake of business or strategic interests.”
The European Union has adopted new sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine, zeroing in on Moscow’s “shadow fleet” of oil tankers, human rights violations and hybrid threats, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said.
“The EU has approved its 17th sanctions package against Russia, targeting nearly 200 shadow fleet ships,” Kaja Kallas said on social media.
“More sanctions on Russia are in the works. The longer Russia wages war, the tougher our response.”
The UK also announced fresh sanctions targeting Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” of tankers which seek to circumvent a G7 price cap on Russian crude oil imposed in response to the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The G7 cap was designed to allow Russian oil to be sold to third countries using Western insurance services provided the price was no more than $60 a barrel. The move has started to bite and the EU will push for a lower price cap this week during a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Canada.
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in