{"id":171081,"date":"2025-11-08T09:24:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T09:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-trump-explains-why-he-cancelled-putin-meeting-as-he-hosts-orban-who-says-ukraine-need-miracle-sky-news\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T09:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T09:24:15","slug":"ukraine-war-latest-trump-explains-why-he-cancelled-putin-meeting-as-he-hosts-orban-who-says-ukraine-need-miracle-sky-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-trump-explains-why-he-cancelled-putin-meeting-as-he-hosts-orban-who-says-ukraine-need-miracle-sky-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war latest: Trump explains why he cancelled Putin meeting as he hosts Orban – who says Ukraine need 'miracle' – Sky News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has given Hungary a one-year exemption from Russian oil and gas sanctions after the country’s PM Viktor Orban visited DC, according to a White House official.
Saturday 8 November 2025 09:08, UK
As drones and missiles fell over Ukraine overnight, firefighters were seen sorting through rubble and helping casualties. 
A residential building was struck in Dnipro, killing one person and injuring at least 11 other, according to president Zelenskyy.
He said a person also died in the Kharkiv region, while people were injured in the Kyiv and Poltava regions.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has just provided an update on Russian attacks overnight, saying one person had been killed and at least 11 others injured after a residential building was struck in Dnipro.
On X, he said 450 drones and 45 missiles were fired, aimed at civilian life, residential buildings, Ukraine’s energy sector and other infrastructure. 
He said children were among those injured in Dnipro, and that another person died in the Kharkiv region, while people were also injured in the Kyiv and Poltava regions.
“There were also strikes in the Dnipro, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv regions,” he added. “The Odesa region has been under attack since the evening.”
He reiterated his calls for allies to introduce sanctions against the Russian energy sector, which largely funds its war on Ukraine.
As we reported earlier, Russia’s Defence Ministry said it downed 83 drones overnight, mostly over regions bordering Ukraine, while local officials reported that two people had been wounded after a Ukrainian drone hit a residential building in the Russian city of Saratov.
Two people have been wounded after a Ukrainian drone hit a residential building in the Russian city of Saratov, according to local governor Roman Busargin.
The industrial city on the Volga river located 388 miles from the Ukrainian border, has been repeatedly struck by Ukrainian drones since Russia started the war in 2022.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said it downed 83 drones overnight, mostly over regions bordering Ukraine.
Ukraine has not yet released its figures from overnight.
Hungary won’t be punished for purchasing Russian energy for another year even if sanctions come in for others, according to a White House official.
The update came hours after Trump told Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban he was “looking at” giving the country an exemption as he urges Europe to end its reliance on Russia for oil.
He said it was “very difficult for him [Orban] to get the oil and gas from other areas”.
Buyers from Moscow’s two biggest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, have been threatened with secondary US sanctions as part of Donald Trump’s attempts to end the war in Ukraine.
Orban is a long-time Trump ally, but Budapest has pushed back against plans by the European Commission to phase out imports of all Russian gas by the end of 2027.
The allowance will keep Russian oil and gas flowing to Hungary in a sign of the close affinity between the two leaders.
Good morning and welcome back to our coverage of the war in Ukraine.
We’ll resume our live updates shortly. Before we begin, Donald Trump welcomed Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban to the White House yesterday afternoon – the war in Ukraine was top of the agenda.
Here’s a round-up of the top lines as they met in the Cabinet Room:
Thanks for following our live coverage of the war in Ukraine, we’re pausing our updates for now.
All eyes were on Washington this afternoon as Donald Trump welcomed Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban to the White House.
Orban is considered Putin’s closest partner in Europe – and oil was top of the agenda.
Russian oil is the one area where allies Trump and Orban have diverged, with the US president urging Europe to end its reliance on Moscow for energy.
But Budapest has pushed back against plans by the European Commission to phase out imports of all Russian gas by the end of 2027.
Last month, Trump told reporters Orban has “asked for an exemption” on buying Russian oil.
Trump said that it’s something he’s “looking at”, adding “it’s very difficult for him [Orban] to get the oil and gas from other areas”.
Here’s what else was said in the Cabinet Room:
Putin-Lavrov rift?<\/b>
Elsewhere, the Kremlin has denied that Vladimir Putin has fallen out with one of his most longstanding and loyal aides, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
A report in the Moscow Times said the source of the rift between the pair was a “disastrous” call Lavrov had with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which happened just before Washington ordered sanctions on Russia’s biggest two oil firms and cancelled a planned meeting between Putin and Donald Trump.
The newspaper reported that Lavrov was not present for Wednesday’s meeting of Russia’s security council, despite being a permanent member.
Our Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett<\/a> said Putin’s right-hand man made him look weak by alienating the US – and it may have cost him his seat at the Kremlin’s top table.
Read his full analysis below.
Some of the fiercest fighting along the frontline in Ukraine’s east has been in and around the city of Pokrovsk.
Nicknamed “the gateway to Donestk”, if Russia manages to take it, it would represent one of Moscow’s most important gains inside Ukraine since Avdiivka in early 2024.
Analysts also say that if Russia did take the city, it would give Vladimir Putin’s forces the platform to push onwards and take swathes of new territory.
This includes the key fortress cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk and capturing the remaining 10% of the Donbas region.
So far, Russia has generally struggled to penetrate through Ukraine’s current line of defences.
If it were able to take new land, after months of inertia, it would also give Putin a stronger hand during negotiations.
Moreover, Pokrovsk is a road and rail hub that plays an important role in Ukraine’s defence, so losing it would be a blow to Kyiv.
Russia’s change of strategy<\/b>
In a change of strategy from the frontal assaults Russia has deployed against other cities, it used a pincer movement in Pokrovsk and also in Kupiansk.
Using this, it attempted to surround the city and isolate Ukraine’s soldiers.
Alongside this, it deployed small but highly mobile units and drones to disrupt logistics and sow chaos behind Ukrainian lines.
This has created what Russian military bloggers call a grey zone of ambiguity – where neither side has full control – that’s extremely difficult to defend for Ukraine.
Back to the subject of Pokrovsk now, where Volodymyr Zelenskyy says military data shows there are currently 314 Russian soldiers.
This is significantly fewer than the approximately 1,000 Russian fighters it was reported that the Ukrainian military believed had infiltrated the eastern strategic hub in small groups.
The Ukrainian president says Moscow’s troops have reduced their activity in the city while they wait for reinforcements.
According to Ukrainian outlet Pravda.com, Zelenskyy said Russia’s “number one goal is to occupy Pokrovsk as quickly as possible”.
He said military data also showed there had been 220 assaults on the city in two days.
Two tankers carrying around 1.5 million barrels of Russian Urals crude have dropped anchor at sea on either end of the Suez Canal – in an apparent sign of the difficulty Moscow is having selling oil due to new Western sanctions.
The vessels, Sikar and Monte 1, were both loaded with oil from Russia’s Baltic port of Primorsk in early October and have remained anchored near the canal for over a week, according to tracking data from LSEG and OilX.
It comes after the US and European Union tightened sanctions against Russia’s oil sector, in an effort to push Moscow towards peace negotiations over Ukraine.
The latest US measures target Russia’s two biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, for the first time.
Together, the two companies account for around 5% of global oil supply. As a result, Russian crude is trading in Asia at its steepest discount to Brent for a year, with Indian and Chinese refiners reportedly cutting back on purchases.
The anchorage of the vessels underscores the growing logistical and commercial strain on Russian oil exports, as sanctions increasingly deter buyers and complicate delivery routes. 
By Ivor Bennett<\/a>, Moscow correspondent<\/b>
In Soviet times, Western observers would scrutinise video footage of state occasions, like military parades on Red Square, to try to learn more about the Kremlin’s hierarchy.
Who was positioned closest to the leader? What did the body language say? Which officials were in, and out, of favour?
In some ways, not much has changed.
The footage present-day Kremlinologists are currently poring over is from Wednesday’s landmark meeting of Russia’s Security Council, in which Vladimir Putin told his top officials to start drafting proposals for a possible nuclear weapons test.
It was an important moment. Not one you’d expect a trusted lieutenant to miss. 
But Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s veteran foreign minister, was conspicuously absent – the only permanent member of the Council not present.
According to the Russian business daily, Kommersant, his absence was “coordinated”.
That episode alone would have been enough to raise eyebrows. 
But coupled with the selection of a more junior official to lead the Russian delegation at the upcoming G20 summit (a role Lavrov has filled in recent years)? Well, that’s when questions get asked, namely: has Moscow’s top diplomat been sidelined?
The question has grown loud enough to force the Kremlin into a denial, but it’s done little to quell speculation that Lavrov has fallen out of favour.
No one’s bigger than Putin<\/b>
Rumours of a rift have been mounting since Donald Trump called off a planned summit with Vladimir Putin in Budapest last month, following a phone call between Lavrov and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
According to the Financial Times, it was Lavrov’s uncompromising stance that prompted the White House to put the summit on ice.
Conversations I had with diplomatic sources here at the time revealed a belief that Lavrov had either dropped the ball or gone off-script. Whether it was by accident or by design, his diplomacy (or lack of it) torpedoed the summit and seemingly set back a US-Russia rapprochement.
That would’ve angered Putin, who is keen to engage with Washington, not only on Ukraine but on other issues like nuclear arms control. 
More importantly, perhaps, it made the Russian president appear weak – unable to control his foreign minister. And Vladimir Putin is not a man who likes to be undermined.
Football fans will be familiar with Sir Alex Ferguson’s golden rule of management: never let a player grow bigger than the club. 
Putin operates in a similar fashion. Loyalty is valued extremely highly.
Has Kremlin heavyweight thrown his last big punch?<\/b>
If Lavrov has indeed been sidelined, it would be a very significant moment indeed. The 75-year-old has been the face of Russian diplomacy for more than two decades and effectively Putin’s right-hand man for most of the Kremlin leader’s rule.
Known for his abrasive style and acerbic putdowns, Lavrov has also been a vociferous cheerleader for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 
At the Putin-Trump summit in Alaska, he arrived wearing a jumper emblazoned with the initials “CCCP”, the Russian letters for USSR. The apparent message: Ukraine still belongs to Moscow. 
Watch from August: Key takeaways from Trump and Putin’s Alaska meeting<\/i>
And in the melee that immediately followed the press statements by both presidents at the summit, I remember racing over to Lavrov as he was leaving and yelling a question to him through the line of security guards.
He didn\u2019t even turn. Instead, he just shouted back: “Who are you?”
It was typical of a diplomatic heavyweight, who’s known for not pulling his punches. 
But has that uncompromising approach finally taken its toll?
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