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Russia warned it will retaliate to hurt Washington if Tomahawks are sent to Ukraine
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv will nominate Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize if he sends Tomahawk missiles to his country and helps negotiate a ceasefire with Russia.
“During our most recent meeting, I didn’t hear a ‘no’. What I did hear was that work will continue at the technical level and that this possibility will be considered,” Zelensky told reporters on Thursday about a meeting he held with the US president during the US General Assembly in New York last month.
Zelensky added that if Trump can offer the world, and “above all, the Ukrainian people”, a chance for a ceasefire, then he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
“We will nominate him on behalf of Ukraine.” he said.
His comments followed a warning by Russia that it will create “problems” for Europe if Trump allows Tomahawk missiles to be sent to Ukraine.
“We know these missiles very well, how they fly, how to shoot them down; we worked with them in Syria, so there is nothing new. The only problems will be for those who supply them and those who use them,” said Andrei Kartapolov, head of the Russian parliament’s defence committee.
This week the US president said he had “sort of” decided whether to allow Ukraine’s European allies to provide Kyiv with the subsonic long-range cruise missiles.
The United States has imposed sanctions on Serbia’s Russian-owned oil company NIS NIIS.BEL.
The move prompted neighbouring Croatia to cut crude supplies, which has led to concerns that the country’s sole oil refinery could stop operations in weeks.
“These are extremely severe consequences for our entire country. It’s not just about the functioning of one company,” said Serbia’s president Aleksandr Vucic in a televised address.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Indian leader Narendra Modi met on Thursday to discuss a move away from fossil fuels during discussions about the war in Ukraine.
Mr Starmer said he supported India taking its “rightful place” on the UN Security Council.
He added: “The Prime Minister and I also discussed the need for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine, the need for stability and security in the Indo-Pacific, and the need to co-operate in critical areas like climate and energy, including breaking away from dependence on fossil fuels.”
EU sanctions chief David O’Sullivan said sanctions are clearly damaging Russia’s economy, but he warned that US commitment to further measures remains uncertain.
He called the US decision not to join other G7 members in lowering the Russian oil price cap “regrettable” and said it is an “open question” whether US president Donald Trump will back more sanctions, despite signs he is “losing patience” with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
He stressed the need to close loopholes as Russia keeps finding ways to circumvent sanctions, and urged more US pressure on EU countries like Slovakia and Hungary to stop Russian energy imports.
He also warned that China is a key hub for sanctions evasion.
“We do see evidence that China is a platform for the import and re-export to Russia of quite significant numbers of battlefield goods,” he told Reuters.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has said that procedures are in in motion to help restore external electricity to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Thursday.
The power plant had been damaged following frequent contacts with Russia and Ukraine in recent weeks.
“Following intensive consultations, the process leading to the re-establishment of off-site power – through the Dniprovska and Ferosplavna-1 lines – has started,” the UN nuclear watchdog’s chief Rafael Grossi wrote in a post on X/Twitter.
Former Russian President and Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, visited the Central Cadres Training School of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang on Thursday.
Russia has expressed its hopes for a lasting ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
President Vladimir Putin said that he would be willing to support efforts to end the bloodshed in a statement on Thursday.
“We very much hope that these initiatives of the U.S. president will actually be realised in practice,” the Russian leader said during a summit in Tajikistan.
India is now believed to be the biggest supplier of fuel additives used to enhance the capabilities of Russian fighter jets, according to a new report.
More than half a dozen Indian companies – suppliers and manufacturers based in Delhi and Mumbai – were found to have supplied nearly half of the total of Russia’s imported fuel additives in 2024, a Kyiv-based think tank has found.
Arpan Rai reports:
Russia has destroyed 60 per cent of Ukraine’s gas production, as winter looms, according to reports.
Chief executive of Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state energy company, Sergii Koretskyi, told the Financial Times that he believes that the goal of the attacks was to “break our spirit” and sap morale.
“This has nothing to do with military needs, none of these assets have any military value at all,” he said.
Russia and Ukraine both maintain that they do not attack civilian infrastructure.
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