The Kremlin has responded to Donald Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine can retake occupied land at the UN General Assembly yesterday. Meanwhile, it’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s turn to address the UN this afternoon. Listen to Trump 100 as you scroll – and submit a question for our live Q&A below.
Wednesday 24 September 2025 11:02, UK
The Kremlin has issued a further rebuttal to Donald Trump’s comments last night that Ukraine can retake the territory Russia occupies.
It said such an idea is “deeply mistaken”.
Further pushing back on the comments, the Kremlin said its invasion was “not an aimless war”.
It also added that the process of normalising relations with Washington was moving much slower than it had hoped.
This week, one of the focuses of the UN General Assembly has been the war in Gaza, with several countries formally recognising a Palestinian state.
But as attention now turns to the war in Ukraine, Israel’s assault on the ground continues.
In the past 24 hours, 51 people have been killed across Gaza, according to medics.
Here’s how many people were reported dead at Gaza’s hospitals:
While today’s main event is Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, Russia’s foreign minister has also arrived for the summit.
Sergei Lavrov landed in the US this morning, Russian state media reports.
Lavrov will have at least 10 meetings on his first day, according to foreign ministry press director Maria Zakharova.
She also says a news conference is being prepared – meaning we may hear from Lavrov.
According to the schedule of US secretary of state Marco Rubio, the pair will meet at midday in the US (5pm UK time).
Russian state media says Lavrov’s plane bypassed all countries on the way to New York. Russian planes have been sanctioned from flying into EU airspace since the invasion of Ukraine.
After several Russian-linked violations of NATO airspace in recent days, the US president suggested last night that NATO should shoot down Russian planes if they enter its airspace.
However, Donald Trump avoided committing to supporting such an intervention, meaning it’s left to the alliance’s European members – who partly sounded more hesitant on the matter.
Here is a rundown of where everyone stands:
Yesterday on the streets of New York, police ended up stopping two world leaders.
France’s Emmanuel Macron and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan were stopped by police after encountering some difficulties getting around the city hosting the UN General Assembly.
Watch the incident unfold here…
While Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in New York to address the UN, Russia’s nightly attacks on Ukraine continued.
Ukraine’s air force says it shot down 126 Russian drones after Moscow launched 152 across the border.
“The air attack was repelled by aviation, anti-aircraft missile troops, electronic warfare and unmanned systems units, and mobile fire groups of the Defence Forces of Ukraine,” the air force said.
Kharkiv City was hit in the attack, with fires breaking out in some areas and four people injured.
Many of the drones used to attack were Iranian-designed Shahed drones – nicknamed suicide drones because they explode on impact.
This summer, Russia has launched some of its biggest aerial attacks on Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the UN to be an “effective force” and “act together” before his address to the General Assembly this afternoon.
Zelenskyy’s top adviser Andriy Yermak has shared a message from the president to the UN this morning:
“Be an effective force. Act together. Unite to stop Russia’s war. We know how to guarantee security. Now we need a strong push to force Russia to move towards peace.”
Yermak adds that Zelenskyy calls on the permanent members of the UN Security Council to act with a “united voice” to force Russia to end its war.
‘Putin is not thinking about peace’
In a statement on Telegram, Yermak also warns that Russia is trying to “drag out the war and continue the killings”, but says it was “afraid” of the US.
“Putin is not thinking about peace, but about how to continue the aggression,” Yermak adds.
The Kremlin has refuted Donald Trump’s dismissal of Russia’s army as a “paper tiger”.
It adds that Trump is a “businessman” and claims he is trying to force the world to buy American oil and gas at a higher price.
The comments from both sides (see our 8.02 post for more from Trump) show a divide between the White House and Moscow – which have grown more aligned during Trump’s second term as the US president attempts to bring the war to an end.
The Kremlin has also tried to keep Trump on side this morning, praising his desire to end the conflict and saying a phone call can be arranged very quickly, according to state news agency RIA.
Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson for Vladimir Putin, claims Russia “is not a tiger but a bear”, according to state news agency TASS.
He adds: “Russia is associated with a bear, there are no paper bears.”
It was notably not Trump’s hour-long speech that delivered yesterday’s most significant news line, but a subsequent social media post that marked a major U-turn in his Ukraine policy.
Where the US president had previously pressed Kyiv to surrender, he now appears to be encouraging it to keep fighting.
Posting on Truth Social after talks with Zelenskyy in New York, Trump said that “Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form”.
Moscow’s “aimless” fighting showed that it was very much “‘a paper tiger'”, the president added.
Our US correspondent Mark Stone has summarised the full story of yesterday’s events here…
Zelenskyy later admitted that he had been surprised by the comments, telling Stone in a brief interview that Trump’s comments marked a “big shift”.
Watch Zelenskyy’s comments to Stone…
After Donald Trump’s headline speech yesterday, the 80th session of the UN General Assembly will continue today with a speech from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Possibly the most hotly anticipated speaker of the day, he is expected to address the UN this afternoon after the opening speech by Spain’s king, Felipe VI.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Zelenskyy has used his General Assembly speeches to keep global attention focused on his country’s struggle and call out Moscow’s wrongdoing.
Upon arrival in New York, the president has already engaged in busy diplomacy as he met with NATO’s general secretary, Mark Rutte, the American special envoy on Ukraine, and later with Trump himself. He also made an intervention at yesterday’s meeting of the UN Security Council, notably urging China to weigh in to stop Moscow’s invasion.
Another focus of the speakers’ list is the Middle East: first, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is set to return to the UN stage after his country’s brief war with Israel and American airstrikes against its nuclear programme this summer.
Then Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, will make his debut at the General Assembly, also becoming the first Syrian president to address the UN since 1967.
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