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Ukrainian and US presidents will hold talks in Oval Office today after Trump said he would meet Putin in Hungary
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Vladimir Putin has warned Donald Trump not to give Tomahawk cruise missiles to Kyiv, hours before Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Washington for talks with the US president on Friday.
The Ukrainian president had hoped to strengthen US support for Kyiv on Friday, after Trump appeared to harden his stance on Putin in recent weeks.
But this progress appears to have been undone after a two-hour Trump-Putin phone call which the US president afterwards described as “very productive” with “great progress”.
Trump will now hold another in-person meeting with Putin in Budapest on an unspecified date.
The Kremlin said Putin had warned Trump that giving Kyiv Tomahawk cruise missiles – one of the most important upgrades in US support which Mr Zelensky has been seeking – would harm relations between Moscow and Kyiv.
Writing on X after landing in Washington, Mr Zelensky accused Moscow of “rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks”.
The US president is set begin a flurry of diplomatic activity on Friday aimed at ending Russia’s invasion.
After meeting Mr Zelensky and his officials, Secretary of State Marco Rubio would meet with Russian officials next week, Trump said on Truth Social.
Russian president Vladimir Putin convened a meeting of Russia’s powerful Security Council following a phone call with Donald Trump, Russian news agencies reported on Friday, citing Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov.
According to Ushakov, Putin provided a detailed briefing to Security Council members about the conversation with Trump.
Trump and Putin agreed on Thursday to another summit on the war in Ukraine, a surprise move that came as Moscow feared fresh US military support for Kyiv.
In Putin’s Russia, the Security Council is a key arena for the formulation of decisions on Russia’s most important national security issues.
Russian forces launched 70 drones at Ukraine overnight into Friday, Kyiv’s air force has said.
The air attack was largely repelled by Ukrainian missile defences but strikes were recorded in 10 locations.
“As of 09:00, air defence units destroyed or jammed 35 enemy UAVs of the Shahed, Gerbera and other types in the country’s north and east,” it said.
“Strikes from 31 attack drones were recorded in 10 locations, with debris from downed UAVs falling in two more.”
Our Asia correspondent Shweta Sharma reports:
US president Donald Trump has claimed that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has agreed to halt the import of Russian oil, even as New Delhi has clarified that the discussions on the topic are ongoing.
India’s increasing import of Russian energy since the start of the war in Ukraine has emerged as one of the most contentious points in India-US relations under Mr Trump’s second term. The US has directed its anger towards India for taking advantage of the discounted prices offered by Moscow, which Mr Trump claims have helped fund Vladimir Putin’s war efforts.
The Trump administration imposed secondary sanctions on India with a 50 per cent tariff on goods from the country as a punishment for India’s reliance on Russian energy, putting a strain on India-US ties for the first time in years.
Talking to reporters at the White House, Mr Trump said Mr Modi agreed to phase out the purchase of Russian oil during a conversation on Wednesday, which was previously not disclosed.
Mr Trump called it a “big step” and said India will halt imports “within a short period of time”.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban said he will talk to Russian president Vladimir Putin today.
Earlier, he said Budapest had begun preparations to host a summit between Putin and US president Donald Trump after the two leaders agreed to meet in Hungary.
Orban said the meeting “will be about peace” and if there is a peace deal, that would lead to a new phase of economic development in Hungary and Europe.
Trump said he made “great progress” in his own phone call with Putin on Thursday, describing the conversation as “very productive”.
The European Union has unveiled a strategy to bolster its defences, to be fully operational by the decade’s end, amidst concerns over Russian incursions.
A key component is the “European Drone Defense Initiative,” to detect, track, and neutralise rogue drones, following troubling airspace violations across Europe, some near Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian borders.
Complementing this is “Eastern Flank Watch,” a scheme to fortify its eastern frontier across land, Baltic and Black seas, air, and against hybrid attacks.
Initial operation for both is December next year, the drone system fully functional by late 2027 and Eastern Flank Watch in full swing by the end of 2028.
Separate air and space shields are also envisioned.
Read more here:
US president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Budapest, with the location reportedly suggested by Trump and immediately agreed to by Putin, according to the Kremlin.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban welcomed the news enthusiastically. He called Hungary an “island of peace” and confirmed that preparations for the summit were underway after speaking directly with Trump.
Budapest is not new to hosting high-level US–Russia talks. It was among the shortlisted locations for the last Trump–Putin summit in Alaska, and it carries significant historical weight in the context of Ukraine.
In 1994, Ukraine handed over the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal under the Budapest Memorandum, receiving security guarantees from Russia, the US, and the UK in return.
Those guarantees were intended to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty – promises that were broken first with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and later with the full-scale invasion in 2022.
The US president has shown he loves to back a winner – especially one that uses US weapons – which means Zelensky must convince him that he’s the one to back with Tomahawk missiles, writes Sam Kiley in Dnipro:
Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban has expressed strong support for the planned summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
“The planned meeting between the American and Russian presidents is great news for the peace-loving people of the world. We are ready!” he said.
The Hungarian leader added that he had spoken by phone with Trump and that preparations for a US–Russia summit were already underway.
Earlier, Trump announced he would be taking part in a new meeting with Putin in Hungary, with the timing yet to be agreed.
He is meeting the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington DC later today.
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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