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Overnight Russia launched 450 drones and 45 missiles to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as Zelensky reiterated his call for sanctions
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Donald Trump met with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban in Washington on Friday as the US president seeks to persuade European nations to stop buying Russian oil and gas.
Orban received a warm welcome at the White House, where he said one of the issues up for discussion will be to explain the consequences of moving away from Russian energy.
The two spoke about the war in Ukraine, which the US administration is seeking to end by putting pressure on Putin through sanctions on its energy industry.
Orban said Trump was the only country serious about ending the war, other than Hungary, and said: “Other governments prefer to continue the war because many of them think that Ukraine can win on the frontline, which is a misunderstanding of the situation.”
Trump asked Orban to clarify whether he believes Ukraine “cannot win that war”.
“You know, miracles can happen,” Orban replied, to which Trump laughed: “Yeah, that’s right.”
Overnight, Russia attacked Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with 450 drones and 45 missiles as President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated his calls for sanctions.
Lucy Leeson reports:
This is the moment an 11-year-old girl bravely confronts Vladimir Putin about her uncle injured in the war with Ukraine.
The child approached Putin at Russia’s Unity Day service on Tuesday (4 November), telling him how her uncle suffered an injury to the arm that went untreated in hospital before being sent back to fight.
She said “My uncle is currently at the front, he was wounded in the arm. He was in the hospital, they weren’t treating him, and now they’re sending him on a mission, and I would like him to be transferred to a good hospital in Russia.”
Putin replies: “We’ll find him, ok?”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has dismissed speculation of a split between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin after the collapse of a highly-anticipated summit between the Russian leader and US President Donald Trump.
The meeting, to be held in Budapest, was postponed after Lavrov is said to have refused to budge rom a hardline position on Ukraine during a call with US secretary of state Marco Rubio.
Peskov said such suggestions “do not correspond to reality” and Lavrov remained focused on his duties as foreign minister.
Ukraine has sentenced a Russian soldier to life in prison for killing a Ukrainian prisoner of war in a landmark first ruling for the country.
Dmitry Kurashov, 27, was found guilty of fatally shooting Vitalii Hodniuk, a 41-year-old veteran Ukrainian soldier who surrendered when his dugout was captured by Russian forces in January 2024.
Kurashov told Reuters that he did not plan to appeal the decision after the sentencing was handed down at the court in the city of Zaporizhzhia.
The Independent’s foreign correspondent Sam Kiley reports from Ukraine:
More than 1,400 citizens from 36 African nations are reportedly fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, Kyiv‘s foreign minister revealed on Friday.
Ukrainian officials claim Russia is actively seeking to augment its invading army by recruiting individuals from various countries, often employing deceptive tactics.
Andriy Sybiha warned that Russia is luring Africans into contracts he described as “equivalent to … a death sentence,” urging African governments to issue warnings to their populations.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko has said that Russian strikes have damaged several large energy facilities in the central Kyiv and Poltava regions and in the Kharkiv region in the northeast.
“The enemy has again deliberately targeted energy infrastructure,” Svyrydenko said on the Telegram app on Saturday.
Efforts are underway to fix the damage and restore electricity supplies.
Ukraine’s General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces has reported that Russia has lost around 1,150,100 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion in February 2022, in new figures released on Saturday.
According to the report, Russia has lost 11,330 tanks, 23,544 armoured fighting vehicles and fuel tanks and 34,321 artillery systems during the conflict.
The figures include the loss of 1,538 multiple launch rocket systems, 1,239 air defense systems, 428 airplanes, 347 helicopters, 78,928 drones, 28 ships and boats, and one submarine.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Russia launched 450 drones and 45 missiles in overnight attacks targeting the energy sector and other infrastructure.
Russian regional governor Georgy Filimonov said that three Ukrainian drones hit an electricity substation in the northern Russian region of Vologda overnight.
Zelensky reiterated his call for allies to introduce stronger sanctions against the Russian energy sector.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has approved the appointment of a Commander of Unmanned Air Defense Systems to “scale up the development of the unmanned component within the Air Force”, the Ukrainian leader wrote in a post on X/Twitter on Friday.
A corresponding order has been signed by Minister of Defense Denys Shmyhal. The new commander, Yurii Cherevashenko, helped create the first group of mobile rapid-response air-defense brigades and has worked on interceptor drones, Zelensky said.
“At the Staff meeting, we approved numerous tasks for the new commander, with emphasis on actively integrating unmanned systems – in particular, interceptor drones – and strengthening our air defense capabilities with advanced armaments,” he wrote.
Nato chief Mark Rutte has said that the success of the alliance’s annual nuclear exercise earlier this month, has given him “absolute confidence in the credibility of NATO’s nuclear deterrence” in the face of Russian threats.
“When Russia is using dangerous and reckless nuclear rhetoric, our populations must know that there is no need to panic, because Nato has a strong nuclear deterrent,” he said, according to German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
“And (Russian President Vladimir) Putin must know that nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.”
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