Ukraine

WASHINGTON — Plans are on hold for President Trump to sit down with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to talk about resolving the war in Ukraine, according to a U.S. official.

The meeting had been announced last week. It was supposed to take place in Budapest, although a date had not been set.

The decision was made following a call between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The official requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

The back-and-forth over Trump’s plans are the latest bout of whiplash caused by his stutter-step efforts to resolve a conflict that has persisted for nearly four years.

Lee writes for the Associated Press. This is a developing story that will update.

Moscow is accused of running sabotage and espionage operations across Europe, targeting nations supporting Ukraine.

Authorities in Poland have arrested eight individuals across the country on suspicion of espionage and sabotage.

In a brief statement on social media, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that the case is developing and that “further operational activities are ongoing” without providing further details.

The detentions come amid accusations that Russia is operating a network of spies and saboteurs across Europe.

Referring to the prime minister’s post, the coordinator of Poland’s special services, Tomasz Siemoniak, said that the detained people are suspected of engaging in espionage and planning attacks.

They were arrested due to “conducting reconnaissance of military facilities and critical infrastructure, preparing resources for sabotage, and directly carrying out attacks”, he said.

While Warsaw has not directly linked the arrests, officials have said previously that Poland has been targeted with such attacks in a “hybrid war” waged by Russia to destabilise nations supporting Ukraine.

Several other European countries have also pointed the finger at Moscow as they have suffered similar attacks since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Polish authorities have detained dozens of people over suspected sabotage and espionage over the past three years or so.

Moscow denies the accusations, insisting that they are the result of “Russophobia”.

In May last year, Polish authorities arrested three men for an arson attack. In September, Lithuanian prosecutors broke up a network that they said planned arson and explosive attacks in several European Union states.

The same month, Latvia’s security service announced the detention of a man suspected of passing military intelligence to Russia, and British police arrested three people suspected of running sabotage and espionage operations for Russia.

The United Kingdom has also repeatedly accused Russia of orchestrating sabotage and spy operations on its soil and beyond. The Kremlin has accused London of blaming Moscow for “anything bad that happens”.

Drones increasing concern

This autumn, drone incursions have added to the European security concerns, with Belgium, Denmark and Germany among several countries reporting sightings.

The incursions provoked airport closures in both Germany and Denmark.

“We are at the beginning of a hybrid war against Europe,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said. “I think we are going to see more of it … We see the pattern, and it does not look good,” she added.

Tusk pledged to urgently upgrade Poland’s air defences after NATO forces shot down several drones over his country last month.

The European Union, recognising the inefficiency of using multimillion-euro weapons to battle cheap drones, has reacted to the incursions with proposals to develop a “drone wall” on its eastern borders.

Here are the key events from day 1,335 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, October 21, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched several attacks on Ukraine’s Kherson region, killing one person and injuring three others, the Kherson Regional State Administration wrote in a post on Telegram.

• A Russian attack on the Ukrainian border region of Chernihiv cut off power to parts of northern Ukraine, including the main town outside the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power station, officials said, according to the Reuters news agency.

• The 7th Corps of Ukraine’s Air Assault Forces reported in a post on Facebook that a Russian assault group killed several Ukrainians during an attack on the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in recent days, without providing further details of the number of people killed or when the attack occurred.
• Russian forces launched an attack on a coal enrichment plan in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, private Ukrainian energy company DTEK wrote in a post on Telegram.
• In the Russian border region of Belgorod, two people were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on the village of Yasnye Zori, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote in a post on Telegram.

Politics and diplomacy

• Speaking at the White House on Monday, United States President Donald Trump said of Ukrainians’ prospects in the war: “They could still win it”, but added, “I don’t think they will”.
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, and discussed “advancing a durable resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war, in line with Trump’s vision,” according a summary of the call released by the US State Department.
• Russian lawmakers have drafted a law mandating life imprisonment for anyone involving minors in sabotage and lowering the threshold for criminal responsibility for such crimes to 14 years old, citing rising threats from Ukraine and NATO countries.

Budapest talks

• French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters in Slovenia that Ukraine and European countries should be included in upcoming talks between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hungary.
• “From the moment they discuss the fate of Ukraine, the Ukrainians should be at the table. From the moment they discuss what impacts the security of Europeans, the Europeans should be at the table,” Macron said.
• Macron also said that Ukraine’s allies, known as “the coalition of the willing”, are planning their own meeting in London on Friday, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy present.
• Speaking to reporters on Monday, Zelenskyy said he is hoping to be invited to Budapest, whether the invitation is “in a format where we meet as three or, as it’s called, shuttle diplomacy”.

Weapons

• Zelenskyy said that his country is still “working with the United States” to secure “the necessary number of Patriot systems”, saying that he spoke with weapons companies on a recent visit to Washington, DC, and that support is needed at the “political level in Washington”.

A draft regulation approved by European Union energy ministers would phase out Russian import contracts by January 2028.

European Union states have agreed to halt Russian oil and gas imports by 2028, severing an energy link they fear helps fuel Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Almost all EU energy ministers voted in favour of the draft regulation, which applies to both pipeline oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG), during a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

It would require EU members to phase out new Russian gas import contracts from January 2026, existing short-term contracts from June 2026 and long-term contracts in January 2028.

The proposal must now be approved by the European Parliament, where it is expected to pass.

The plan is part of a broader EU strategy to curb Russian energy dependence amid the war in Ukraine – and follows persistent calls by United States President Donald Trump for European states to stop “funding the war against themselves”.

‘Not there yet’

Lars Aagaard, Denmark’s energy minister, called the proposal a “crucial” step to make Europe energy independent.

“Although we have worked hard and pushed to get Russian gas and oil out of Europe in recent years, we are not there yet,” Aagaard said. His country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

The EU has already brought down Russian oil imports to just 3 percent of its overall share, but Russian gas still makes up 13 percent of gas imports, accounting for more than 15 billion euros ($17.5bn) annually, according to the European Council.

Nevertheless, these purchases make up a relatively small portion of Russia’s overall fossil fuel exports, which mostly go to China, India and Turkiye, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

The EU countries importing the most Russian energy are Hungary and Slovakia, followed by France, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Hungary and Slovakia – which are diplomatically closer to Moscow – both opposed the latest EU initiative, but it only needed a weighted majority of 15 states to pass, meaning they could not block it.

“The real impact of this regulation is that our safe supply of energy in Hungary is going to be killed,” Budapest’s top diplomat, Peter Szijjarto, was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

The text approved on Monday allowed specific flexibilities for landlocked member states, which include Hungary and Slovakia.

In addition to the trade restrictions, the EU is negotiating a new package of sanctions against Russia that would ban LNG imports one year earlier, from January 2027.

The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Kaja Kallas, said earlier on Monday the new sanctions package could be approved as early as this week.

In recent months, a new baseline idea has taken hold in European and United States debates on Ukraine: “Article 5‑like” guarantees. In March, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was the first to suggest a mechanism inspired by Article 5 of the NATO Charter, which provides for collective action in the event of an attack on a member. US President Donald Trump’s team then promoted a US “Article 5‑type” guarantee outside NATO in August. In September, French President Emmanuel Macron capped this shift by gathering 26 European partners in Paris to pledge a post-war “reassurance force”.

These proposals may sound reassuring, but they should not. In a world where we face nightly drone raids, blurred lines at sea, and constant pressure on critical infrastructure, replicating NATO’s words without NATO’s machinery would leave Ukraine exposed and Europe no safer.

Russia’s activity inside NATO territory has moved from rare to routine. On September 10, two dozen Russian-made drones crossed into Polish airspace during a wider strike on Ukraine; NATO jets shot down those that posed a threat, and Poland activated Article 4 of the NATO Charter, which allows for consultations in the event of a threat.

In the following weeks, Denmark temporarily shut down several airports after repeated drone sightings. Days later, French sailors boarded a tanker suspected of being part of a Russia-linked “shadow fleet” and of taking part in the drone disruptions.

Germany also reported coordinated drone flights over a refinery, a shipyard, a university hospital, and the Kiel Canal. Meanwhile, across the Baltic Sea, months of damage to undersea cables and energy links have deepened concern.

Each of these episodes is serious. Yet, none of them clearly crossed the legal threshold that would have triggered collective defence under Article 5.

That is the core problem with “NATO‑style” guarantees. Article 5 is powerful because it establishes that an attack on one is an attack on all, but it still needs a political process that begins with consultations and leaves each ally free to decide how to respond. It was written for visible aggression: Columns of troops on a border; ships firing across a line; fighter jets attacking territory.

Today’s reality is different. Drones launched from outside Ukrainian territory, one-night incursions over allied infrastructure, or cable cuts by vessels are meant to sit just under formal thresholds. A copy of Article 5 outside NATO’s integrated command, without a standing allied presence or pre-agreed rules for Ukraine, would be even slower and weaker than the original.

When mulling a security mechanism for Kyiv, allies need to recognise that it is no longer a security consumer; it is a security contributor. After Poland’s incident, allies began asking for Ukrainian counter-drone know-how. Ukrainian specialists have deployed to Denmark to share tactics for fusing sensors, jamming, and using low‑cost interceptors.

NATO leaders now say openly that Europe must learn how to defeat cheap drones without firing missiles that cost hundreds of thousands of euros. This is a notable shift: Ukraine is not just receiving protection; it is helping to build it.

Ukraine’s allies also need to remember what happened in 1994. Under the Budapest Memorandum, Kyiv gave up the world’s third‑largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for political “security assurances” from several countries, including Russia and the US. Those assurances were not legally binding.

In 2014, Russia seized Crimea and fuelled war in Donbas while denying its troops were there, using soldiers without insignia to keep the situation ambiguous. Even if Ukraine had been in NATO then, that ambiguity would have raised doubts about whether Article 5 applied. In 2022, Russia invaded openly.

Clearly, non-enforceable promises and debates over thresholds do not stop a determined aggressor. This is why we need guarantees that trigger action automatically, not statements that can be argued over in the moment.

What would work is a package that is tougher than Article 5 on the issues that matter against a sub‑threshold attacker: Time, automaticity, presence, intelligence, and production.

First, there needs to be automatic triggers. A legally ratified “if‑then” mechanism should activate within hours when clear markers are met: State‑origin drones or missiles entering Ukrainian airspace from outside; mass drone incursions into border regions; destructive cyberattacks or sabotage against defined critical infrastructure. The initial package would include both military steps and heavy sanctions. Consultations would adjust the response, not decide whether there will be one.

Second, there needs to be a joint aerial and maritime shield that treats Ukrainian skies and nearby seas as one operating picture. Allies need to keep persistent airborne radar and maritime patrol coverage; fuse sensors from low to high altitude; delegate rules for downing drones along agreed corridors; combine electronic warfare, directed‑energy and radio‑frequency tools, and low‑cost interceptors with classic surface‑to‑air missiles. The test is economic: Europe must make Russian drone raids expensive for Moscow, not for itself.

Third, there must be visible presence and ready logistics. Before a ceasefire is concluded, allies need to build forward logistics: ammunition, spare parts, and maintenance hubs in Poland and Romania with a standing air bridge into Ukraine. Following an agreed ceasefire, they can rotate multinational detachments, air defence crews, maritime patrol teams, and engineers through Ukrainian ports and airfields. The aim would be not to establish permanent bases, but to ensure any renewed attack instantly draws in several capitals.

Fourth, there needs to be an intelligence compact. Allies need to move from ad hoc sharing to an institutional arrangement with Ukraine that integrates satellite, signals, open‑source, and battlefield sensors into common, near‑real‑time products. Fast attribution is central: The right to defend yourself relies on what you can prove, and deterrence relies on an adversary knowing you can prove it quickly.

Fifth, there needs to be a production deal. Multi‑year funding should anchor co‑production in Ukraine of drones, air‑defence components, and artillery rounds, alongside European and US plants making the high‑end systems Ukraine and Europe still lack. Allies should commit to buy Ukrainian systems at scale and tie guarantees to contracted output, not to communiques. Empty magazines make empty promises.

These measures would not copy the letter of Article 5. They would meet a different threat with tools that can counter it. Europe’s recent experience, in Poland’s skies, at German shipyards, at Danish airports, and in the Baltic Sea shows how an adversary can apply steady pressure without triggering classic definitions of “armed attack”.

If Ukraine receives only “NATO‑style” language, it will inherit those same gaps outside the alliance. If instead Ukraine and its partners lock in automatic responses, a shared air picture, visible presence, real‑time intelligence, and an industrial base that keeps pace, they will build something stronger: A guarantee that works in the world as it is, not the world at it was.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Ukraine attacks Russian gas processing plant as Zelenskyy calls for more international pressure on Putin.

Here is how things stand on Monday, October 20, 2025:

Fighting

• The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in a post on Facebook that it struck a gas processing plant in Russia’s Orenburg region, causing explosions and “a large-scale fire”.
• Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Energy said that the Orenburg gas processing plant, the largest facility of its kind in the world, had been forced to suspend its intake of gas from Kazakhstan following the Ukrainian drone attack.
• Orenburg Governor Yevgeny Solntsev had said earlier on Sunday that the plant, which is run by state-owned gas giant Gazprom, had been partially damaged, and that the drone attack caused a fire at a workshop at the facility. The blaze was later put out, Russian media outlet Kommersant reported, citing the operator.
• Ukraine’s General Staff also said that its forces hit the Novokuybyshevsk oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region.
• Russian forces launched a “massive” attack on a coal mine in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, private Ukrainian energy company DTEK wrote in a post on Telegram, adding that 192 mineworkers, who were underground during the incident, were being evacuated.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it shot down 323 Ukrainian drones, two guided bombs, and three rocket launchers in a 24-hour period, according to Russia’s state TASS news agency.
• Russia launched more than 3,270 attack drones, 1,370 guided aerial bombs, and nearly 50 missiles against Ukraine in the past week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a post on Facebook.

Politics and diplomacy

• United States President Donald Trump pressed Zelenskyy to give up territory to Russia during a White House meeting on Friday that left the Ukrainian delegation disappointed, Reuters reported, citing two unidentified officials.
• The Financial Times also reported that the meeting was tense, saying that Trump told Zelenskyy that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “destroy” Ukraine if Kyiv did not accept Moscow’s terms for ending the war.
• Polish President Donald Tusk wrote on X on Sunday that “none of us should put pressure on Zelenskyy when it comes to territorial concessions”.
• Zelenskyy told NBC that more pressure is needed on Putin, since the Russian leader is “more strong than Hamas”.
• The Ukrainian president also said that he should be included in upcoming talks between Putin and Trump in Hungary.
• In an interview on Fox News on Sunday morning, Trump again indicated that he was not willing to send more arms to Ukraine, saying: “We have to remember one thing. We need them for ourselves too. You know, we can’t give all of our weapons to Ukraine.”
• Germany’s Federal Foreign Office announced that it was temporarily recalling its envoy to Georgia, saying in a post on X that the country’s “leadership has for months been agitating against the EU, Germany and the German ambassador personally”.

Here are the key events from day 1,333 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, October 19, 2025:

Fighting

• Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed that its forces captured the village of Pleshchiivka in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine on the latest claim of territorial gain by Moscow.

• The Russian Defence Ministry had earlier announced the capture of one village in the Dnipropetrovsk region and two in the northeastern Kharkiv region, closer to the Russian border.

• Two internally-displaced people were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, the Russian-installed regional governor, Vladimir Saldo, said on the Telegram messaging platform.

• Three people were killed and five others injured following an explosion at an industrial plant related to weapons production in the southwest Russian city of Sterlitamak, Radiy Khabirov, the governor of Bashkortostan, said in a statement on Telegram.

• The chief of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, announced on X that repairs have begun on damaged power lines at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Authorities had warned that a four-week outage of power at the plant was endangering the safety of the Russian-controlled facility, which needs power to ensure that reactors are kept cool to avoid a dangerous meltdown.

Politics and diplomacy

• Austria’s Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs announced that it is supporting the European Union’s decision to impose new sanctions against Russia, which require a unanimous vote and have been stymied due to Vienna’s earlier opposition to the plan.

• Ukrainians said they were disappointed that the United States may not provide Kyiv with long-range Tomahawk missiles, the Associated Press news agency reported, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, on Friday.

Regional security

• Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on Saturday urged Trump to step up efforts to support democracy in her country, arguing that a free Belarus was in Washington’s interests.

The plant’s last external lines were severed in September in attacks that Russia and Ukraine blame on each other.

Repair work has started on damaged off-site power lines to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant following a four-week outage, the United Nations nuclear watchdog has confirmed.

The work began after local ceasefire zones between Ukrainian and Russian forces were established to allow the work to proceed, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said in a post on social media platform X on Saturday.

“Restoration of off-site power is crucial for nuclear safety and security,” Grossi said.

“Both sides engaged constructively with the IAEA to enable complex repair plan to proceed.”

The Russian-appointed management of the occupied plant, in one of the war’s most volatile nerve points in southeastern Ukraine, confirmed the maintenance work, saying it was made possible by “close cooperation” between the IAEA and Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom.

The Russian Defence Ministry will play a key role in ensuring the safety of the repair work, the plant said on Saturday via its Telegram channel.

The plant is in an area that has been under Russian control since early in Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and is not in service, but it needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.

It has been operating on diesel generators since September 23, when its last remaining external power line was severed in attacks that each side blamed on the other. The IAEA has repeatedly expressed alarm about the nuclear plant, which is the biggest in Europe.

The Associated Press news agency reported earlier this week that the IAEA is proposing to restore external power to the plant in two phases, quoting a European diplomat briefed on the proposal by Grossi. A Russian diplomat confirmed some aspects of the plan.

Both diplomats spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the confidential negotiations publicly.

During the first phase, a 1.5km-radius (1-mile-radius) ceasefire zone would be established to allow repair of the Dniprovska 750-kilovolt line, the main power line to the plant that has been damaged in an area under Russian control.

During the second phase, a second such ceasefire zone would be established to repair the Ferosplavna-1 330-kilovolt backup line, which is in area under Ukraine’s control.

Grossi held talks with both Kyiv and Moscow last month. He met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on September 29 at the Warsaw Security Forum, following meetings in the Russian capital with President Vladimir Putin on September 25 and Rosatom Director General Alexei Likhachev on September 26.

The IAEA warned that if diesel generators fail, “it could lead to a complete blackout and possibly causing an accident with the fuel melting and a potential radiation release into the environment, if power could not be restored in time”.

Ukraine’s foreign minister accused Russia on Sunday of deliberately severing the external power line to the station, to link it to Moscow’s power grid.

A top Russian diplomat this month denied that Russia had any intention of restarting the plant.

Here are the key events from day 1,332 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, October 18, 2025:

Fighting

• Ukrainian shelling killed two adults and a 10-year-old child in Russian-occupied Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed governor of the region, wrote in a post on Telegram.
• Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy region killed a 38-year-old man and injured four others, the regional administration wrote in a post on Telegram.
• Russian attacks also injured at least eight people in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, according to local officials.
• Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces claimed a Ukrainian drone attack destroyed an oil depot and a gas treatment plant in Russian-occupied Crimea on Friday night.
• The Russian-installed governor of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said that a Ukrainian drone attack damaged several electrical substations in the Russian-occupied region, according to Russia’s state-run TASS news agency.
• Russian forces shelled Ukraine’s Chernihiv region 68 times in a 24-hour period, causing fires at a logging company and damaging residential areas, Regional Governor Vyacheslav Chaus said.
• Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova called for relevant United Nations bodies to condemn the Ukrainian attack that killed Russian war correspondent Ivan Zuyev and seriously wounded his colleague in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region on Thursday.

Politics and diplomacy

• United States President Donald Trump met his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday, telling reporters he was optimistic about ending the war. “I think we have a chance of ending the war quickly if flexibility is shown,” Trump told reporters.
• Zelenskyy congratulated Trump on his “successful ceasefire” in the Middle East, saying that while “Putin is not ready”, he is confident that with Trump’s “help, we can stop this war, and we really need it”.
• Trump did not commit to Zelenskyy’s request for Tomahawk missiles, which are precise, long-range projectiles that Kyiv is seeking in order to strike deep into Russia, saying doing so “could mean big escalation”.
• Trump also told reporters that Zelenskyy will “be in touch” during upcoming negotiations in Hungary, where the US president will meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
• Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country would allow Putin to attend the planned summit with Trump in Budapest, despite the Russian leader facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which Hungary is in the process of leaving.
• Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s investment envoy, proposed building a “US-Russia link via the Bering Strait” in a post on X, also suggesting that the undersea tunnel connecting Russia and the US could be built together with billionaire Elon Musk’s The Boring Company.
• Asked about the tunnel proposal on Friday, Trump said it was “interesting”, while Zelenskyy said: “I’m not happy with this idea.”
• United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer held a call with Zelenskyy after his White House meeting, where he “reiterated their unwavering commitment to Ukraine in the face of ongoing Russian aggression”, according to a summary of the call published by Downing Street.

Regional Security

WASHINGTON — President Trump is hosting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for talks at the White House on Friday, with the U.S. leader signaling he’s not ready to agree to sell Kyiv a long-range missile system that the Ukrainians say they desperately need.

Zelensky arrived with top aides to discuss the latest developments with Trump over lunch, a day after the U.S. president and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a lengthy phone call to discuss the conflict.

At the start of the talks, Zelensky congratulated Trump over landing last week’s ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza and said Trump now has “momentum” to stop the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

“President Trump now has a big chance to finish this war,” Zelensky added.

In recent days, Trump had shown an openness to selling Ukraine long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, even as Putin warned that such a move would further strain the U.S.-Russian relationship.

But following Thursday’s call with Putin, Trump appeared to downplay the prospects of Ukraine getting the missiles, which have a range of about 995 miles.

“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too,” Trump said. “We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean we can’t deplete our country.”

Zelensky had been seeking the weapons, which would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deep into Russian territory and target key military sites, energy facilities and critical infrastructure. Zelensky has argued that the potential for such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations to end the war more seriously.

But Putin warned Trump during the call that supplying Kyiv with the Tomahawks “won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but would cause substantial damage to the relationship between our countries,” according to Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that talk of providing Tomahawks had already served a purpose by pushing Putin into talks. “The conclusion is that we need to continue with strong steps. Strength can truly create momentum for peace,” Sybiha said on the social platform X late Thursday.

Ukrainian officials have also indicated that Zelensky plans to appeal to Trump’s economic interests by aiming to discuss the possibility of energy deals with the U.S.

Zelensky is expected to offer to store American liquefied natural gas in Ukraine’s gas storage facilities, which would allow for an American presence in the European energy market.

He previewed the strategy on Thursday in meetings with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and the heads of American energy companies, leading him to post on X that it is important to restore Ukraine’s energy infrastructure after Russian attacks and expand “the presence of American businesses in Ukraine.”

It will be the fourth face-to-face meeting for Trump and Zelensky since the Republican returned to office in January, and their second in less than a month.

Trump announced following Thursday’s call with Putin that he would soon meet with the Russian leader in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss ways to end the war. The two also agreed that their senior aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, would meet next week at an unspecified location.

Fresh off brokering a ceasefire and hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas, Trump has said finding an endgame to the war in Ukraine is now his top foreign policy priority and has expressed new confidence about the prospects of getting it done.

Ahead of his call with Putin, Trump had shown signs of increased frustration with the Russian leader.

Last month, he announced that he believed Ukraine could win back all territory lost to Russia, a dramatic shift from the U.S. leader’s repeated calls for Kyiv to make concessions to end the war.

Trump, going back to his 2024 campaign, insisted he would quickly end the war, but his peace efforts appeared to stall following a diplomatic blitz in August, when he held a summit with Putin in Alaska and a White House meeting with Zelensky and European allies.

Trump emerged from those meetings certain he was on track to arranging direct talks between Zelensky and Putin. But the Russian leader hasn’t shown any interest in meeting with Zelensky and Moscow has only intensified its bombardment of Ukraine.

Trump, for his part, offered a notably more neutral tone about Ukraine following what he described a “very productive” call with Putin.

He also hinted that negotiations between Putin and Zelensky might be have to be conducted indirectly.

“They don’t get along too well those two,” Trump said. “So we may do something where we’re separate. Separate but equal.”

Madhani writes for the Associated Press.

Here are the key events from day 1,331 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, October 17, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian war correspondent Ivan Zuyev has been killed by a Ukrainian drone strike while on assignment on the front line of the war in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, his publication, state news agency RIA said. Zuyev’s colleague, Yuri Voitkevich, was seriously wounded in the attack.

• Russia launched a large armoured assault with more than 20 armoured vehicles near the eastern Ukrainian town of Dobropillia, Ukraine’s Azov brigade said, adding that its forces repelled the attack.
• Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces carried out a massive overnight strike on Ukrainian gas infrastructure which supports Kyiv’s military, in retaliation for what it said were Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched a barrage of more than 300 drones and 37 missiles in that attack. Ukraine’s state grid operator, Ukrenergo, has also introduced emergency power cuts in every region of the country.
• Ukraine struck Russia’s Saratov oil refinery overnight, the Ukrainian military general staff said in a statement on Telegram.
• Some 84,000 people are still without power in the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Kherson region after Ukrainian strikes this week on energy infrastructure, according to Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed governor of the region.
• Alexei Likhachev, the head of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, said a decision could be taken as early as Friday on a pause in fighting to enable repairs to power lines at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine.
• North Korean troops based in Russia are operating drones across the border into Ukraine on reconnaissance missions, the Ukrainian military said, the first time Kyiv has reported a battlefield role for North Koreans in months.

Ceasefire talks

• In a surprise move, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to another summit on the war in Ukraine after the leaders held a more than two-hour phone conversation. Trump and Putin may meet within the next two weeks in Budapest, Hungary, Trump said after the conversation, which he called productive.
• The Kremlin confirmed plans for the meeting, adding that Putin told Trump on the call that supplying US Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine would harm the peace process and damage ties.
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will speak in the coming days to prepare the summit, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said, adding that the timing would depend on how preparatory work progressed.
• The development came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was headed to the White House on Friday to push for more military support. Zelenskyy said on the eve of those talks that momentum in the Middle East peace process would help end his country’s more than three-year-old war with Russia.

Europe

• The European Commission has proposed four flagship European defence projects, including a counter-drone system and a plan to fortify the eastern border, as part of a drive to get the continent ready to defend itself by 2030.
• The proposals, in a defence policy “roadmap”, reflect fears fuelled by the war in Ukraine that Russia may attack an EU member in the coming years, and calls by President Trump for Europe to do more for its own security.

Sanctions

• Britain has targeted Russia’s two largest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, and 44 shadow fleet tankers in what it described as a new bid to tighten energy sanctions and choke off Kremlin revenues. Lukoil and Rosneft were designated under Britain’s Russia sanctions laws for their role in supporting the Russian government. They are subject to an asset freeze, director disqualification, transport restrictions, and a ban on British trust services.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would call for the European Union to use Russian assets frozen in the West to provide a large loan to Ukraine to finance its war effort at the upcoming EU summit on October 23.
• Canada and Britain have expressed interest in working on the EU idea of a reparations loan for Ukraine based on immobilised Russian assets, European Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told the Reuters news agency on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington.
• Dombrovskis said he presented the idea of the EU loan, which could be up to 185bn euros ($216.5bn) over two years, to G7 finance ministers.

While both Ukraine and Russia have sustained large amounts of helicopter losses due to dense traditional frontline air defenses, in some cases, drones, and attacks on bases, the U.S. Army is taking a measured approach in applying lessons learned to the future of its own rotary-wing fleet, a top commander told us. Maj. Gen. Claire Gill, commanding general of the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence is adamant that not everything that happens in Ukraine applies to the U.S. Army and it’s absolutely critical that only the right lessons should be heeded.

“When we talk about Ukraine, there are a lot of lessons to be learned,” Gill told us on the sidelines of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual conference in Washington, D.C.. “We focus on the right lessons to be learned.”

“There are some differences between positional warfare with drones – they’re doing World War One with drones right now in Ukraine – and the way that the United States Army fights, particularly as a member of the combined arms team and as a member of the joint force,” he added. “So, there are a lot of things that we should pay attention to there, but they’re not flying at night. They don’t plan like we plan. They don’t bring all the collective elements that we could bring to bear when we execute our operations.”

Ukraine and Russia are likely using deception as part of their operations, “but…using the night, using the terrain, using the degraded visual environment, we’ve got some pretty exquisite capabilities, and some well-trained folks, as do the Ukrainians,” Gill noted.

Gill is less convinced about Russian training.

“On the Russian side, I’ve seen some shoot downs that make me wonder, flying around the daytime, at altitude, flying the same routes. That just makes me think you can’t equate the way that they’re flying with the way that we might fly. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity there for us to learn some things, but not throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

“This is something when I talk to young aviators about what we should take away from some of the decisions that are being made in terms of divesting aircraft out of the army and investing in [unmanned aerial systems] UAS,” Gill added. “We have to make changes, right? We have to see the world the way it is. I know we’re not done with rotorcraft like I told you. Everything that we’re flying right now is going to be on the ramp for a long time.”

Army aviation assets include UH-60 Black Hawks, CH-47 Chinooks, AH-64E Apaches and heavily modified MH-60M Black Hawk, MH-47G Chinook, and AH/MH-6R Little Bird helicopters. You can read more about the future of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment’s (SOAR) aircraft in our recent story here. In the coming decade, the Bell MV-75 Valor tilt-rotor aircraft is slated to come online as well. More on that later in this story.

The fate of helicopters in Ukraine has hammered home the need for missions to be mapped out with excrutiating detail before launching, Brig. Gen. Philip C Baker, the Army’s aviation future capabilities director, told us.

“We’ve got to have that ability to have really good planning tools going into mission sets,” Baker explained. “And planning tools is really driven by our data integration across all of our combat systems, intel, maneuver, fires. So when you look at NGC2 [Next Generation Command and Control] that provides us an integrated data path to bring in as much of information early on to planning, so our crews, both manned and unmanned, can plan them out right mission sets so they understand enemy, they understand the electronic spectrum, they understand weather, they understand all that before they go in.”

In addition, “when you look at the battlefield data and the speed of data that passes around the battlefield, we’ve got to be able to have that inside of our operation cells, and we’ve got to have that inside of our aircraft. And so we’re doing a lot this year onboarding new communication capability onto platforms that will bring into our experiment in March, that brings in satellite-based communication, that brings in mesh networks onto platforms to be able to drive that data flow onto platforms inside of our operation cells.”

Having standoff munitions capabilities is also key, Baker posited, pointing to the Army’s developing launched effects effort, a broad term that the U.S. military currently uses to refer to uncrewed aerial systems configured for different missions, like reconnaissance or acting as loitering munitions, which can be fired from other aerial platforms, as well as ones on the ground or at sea. For the Army, one example of a longer-range weapon being fielded for Army helicopters is the Israeli-designed Spike-NLOS. It gives Apaches the ability to hit moving targets far away with exacting precision. Far longer-ranged launched effects will also become available, including those that can decoy, jam, and attack targets many dozens, or even hundreds of miles away.

“The role of launched effects is to provide that standoff capability, not like a Hellfire at eight kilometers, but multiple, multiple kilometers out, so we can make contact with the enemy early, understand what the enemy is doing, and then have an effect on the enemy,” Baker suggested. “So that’s really the role of launched effects.”

New and improved sensors will also help rotary-wing aircraft survive by making them better able to operate in a degraded visual environment, Baker added.

“As we bring new sensors onto the aircraft, we want to be able to truly operate in those environments that give us the highest capability and survivability,” Baker pointed out. “So during darkness hours, during dust, during, you know, the environment where we need we can operate not in daytime. So we’re bringing on sensor capability to our platforms that allow us to even enhance our ability to operate at night.”

Asked about what the right lessons from Ukraine are, especially for a potential fight against a peer adversary like China, Baker said they are “really tied to that standoff range. We know standoff is going to be critical to be able to stay outside of weapon engagement zones so we can operate kind of a sanctuary.”

The Army also wants “to rely on that data network to be able to pass information quickly so we can strike quickly and affect the enemy,” Baker added. 

Lessons learned from Ukraine are informing how the Army is developing the Valor, Brig. Gen. David Phillips, program executive officer of aviation, told TWZ.

“I would offer, from equipment perspective and a sustainment perspective, you can look at the equipment decisions that we’re making on MV-75 and tie them directly to these lessons learned, how we integrate launch effects, how we integrate networks, how we integrate the survivability on the platform, the survivability off board the platform, and just the aircraft survivability itself. I think we’re absolutely integrating those into our design efforts today, as we’re headed toward the critical design review that’s coming up in the spring.”

With many Russian helicopters being lost from attacks on their bases, Maj. Gen. Lori Robinson, Commanding General of Army Aviation and Missile Command, said it will be important to keep an eye on the skies.

“I think the right lesson is that everyone does have to look up,” Robinson told us. “And that includes your sustainment footprint on the ground. So we’re looking into how to make that mobile. We don’t have a mound of stuff on the ground. And then every soldier out there, whether you’re in the aircraft or you’re sustaining the aircraft on the ground, is going to have to be aware of what is above them.”

When it comes to thinking about lessons learned from Ukraine, Gill said one thing stands out. While crewed rotary wing aviation will be in the mix for years to come, uncrewed systems will ultimately be at the pointy tip of the spear.

“The Army made a decision to move toward unmanned capability,” he noted. “And so I think the lesson that I take from Ukraine and this nature of warfare is you lead with unmanned systems, right? So whether you want to create an effect, whether you want to create a diversion, whether you want to find something, and then you introduce people. When you need humans to do the things that humans are really good at doing,”

Contact the author: [email protected]

WASHINGTON — President Trump is scheduled to speak with Russia’s Vladimir Putin Thursday as he considers Ukraine’s push for long-range missiles, according to a White House official who was not authorized to comment on the private call and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The call comes ahead of Trump’s meeting on Friday at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader has been pressing Trump to sell Kyiv Tomahawk missiles which would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian territory.

Zelensky has argued such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations between the Russia and Ukraine to end the war more seriously.

With a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage deal holding, Trump has said he’s now turning his attention to bringing Russia’s war on Ukraine to an end and is weighing providing Kyiv long-range weaponry as he looks to prod Moscow to the negotiating table.

Ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza was central to Trump’s 2024 reelection pitch, in which he persistently pilloried President Joe Biden for his handling of the conflicts. Yet, like his predecessor, Trump also has been stymied by Putin as he’s unsuccessfully pressed the Russian leader to hold direct talks with Zelensky to end the war that is nearing its fourth year.

But fresh off the Gaza ceasefire, Trump is showing new confidence that he can finally make headway on ending the Russian invasion. He’s also signaling that he’s ready to step up pressure on Putin if he doesn’t come to the table soon.

“Interestingly we made progress today, because of what’s happened in the Middle East,” Trump said of the Russia-Ukraine war on Wednesday evening as he welcomed supporters of his White House ballroom project to a glitzy dinner.

Earlier this week in Jerusalem, in a speech to the Knesset, Trump predicted the truce in Gaza would lay the groundwork for the U.S. to help Israel and many of its Middle East neighbors normalize relations. But Trump also made clear his top foreign policy priority now is ending the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

“First we have to get Russia done,” Trump said, turning to his special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has also served as his administration’s chief interlocutor with Putin. “We gotta get that one done. If you don’t mind, Steve, let’s focus on Russia first. All right?”

Trump weighs Tomahawks for Ukraine

Trump is set to host Zelensky for talks Friday, their fourth face-to-face meeting this year.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump has said he’s weighing selling Kyiv long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, which would allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory — if Putin doesn’t settle the war soon. Zelensky, who has long sought the weapons system, said it would help Ukraine put the sort of pressure on Russia needed to get Putin to engage in peace talks.

Putin has made clear that providing Ukraine with Tomahawks would cross a red line and further damage relations between Moscow and Washington.

But Trump has been undeterred.

“He’d like to have Tomahawks,” Trump said of Zelensky on Tuesday. “We have a lot of Tomahawks.”

Agreeing to sell Ukraine Tomahawks would be a splashy move, said Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. But it could take years to supply and train Kyiv on the Tomahawk system.

Montgomery said Ukraine could be better served in the near term with a surge of Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM) missiles and Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS. The U.S. already approved the sale of up to 3,350 ERAMs to Kyiv earlier this year.

The Tomahawk, with a range of about 995 miles (1,600 kilometers), would allow Ukraine to strike far deeper in Russian territory than either the ERAM (about 285 miles, or 460 km) or ATACMS (about 186 miles, or 300 kilometers).

“To provide Tomahawks is as much a political decision as it is a military decision,” Montgomery said. “The ERAM is shorter range, but this can help them put pressure on Russia operationally, on their logistics, the command and control, and its force disbursement within several hundred kilometers of the front line. It can be very effective.”

Signs of White House interest in new Russia sanctions

Zelensky is expected to reiterate his plea to Trump to hit Russia’s economy with further sanctions, something the Republican, to date, has appeared reluctant to do.

Congress has weighed legislation that would lead to tougher sanctions on Moscow, but Trump has largely focused his attention on pressuring NATO members and other allies to cut off their purchases of Russian oil, the engine fueling Moscow’s war machine. To that end, Trump said Wednesday that India, which became one of Russia’s biggest crude buyers after the Ukraine invasion, had agreed to stop buying oil from Moscow.

Waiting for Trump’s blessing is legislation in the Senate that would impose steep tariffs on countries that purchase Russia’s oil, gas, uranium and other exports in an attempt to cripple Moscow economically.

Though the president hasn’t formally endorsed it — and Republican leaders do not plan to move forward without his support — the White House has shown, behind the scenes, more interest in the bill in recent weeks.

Administration officials have gone through the legislation in depth, offering line edits and requesting technical changes, according to two officials with knowledge of the discussions between the White House and the Senate. That has been interpreted on Capitol Hill as a sign that Trump is getting more serious about the legislation, sponsored by close ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

A White House official said the administration is working with lawmakers to make sure that “introduced bills advance the president’s foreign policy objectives and authorities.” The official, who was granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said any sanctions package needs to give the president “complete flexibility.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the administration is waiting for greater buy-in from Europe, which he noted faces a bigger threat from Russian aggression than the U.S. does.

“So all I hear from the Europeans is that Putin is coming to Warsaw,” Bessent said. “There are very few things in life I’m sure about. I’m sure he’s not coming to Boston. So, we will respond … if our European partners will join us.”

Madhani and Kim write for the Associated Press. AP writers Fatima Hussein, Chris Megerian and Didi Tang contributed to this report.

The proposal, which forms part of the ‘European Drone Defence Initiative’, is one of several flagship EU projects to prepare the bloc for a potential attack from Moscow.

The European Commission is in discussions to adopt a new counter-drone initiative to protect European Union airspace from Russian violations, as it seeks to strengthen border security with its own advanced drone technology after a string of drone incursions were reported in a host of EU and NATO member countries over the past month.

The proposal, which was included in a defence policy “roadmap” presented on Thursday, will aim for the new anti-drone capabilities to reach initial capacity by the end of next year and become fully operational by the end of 2027, according to a draft of the document.

It will then be presented to EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, European Commission Executive Vice President for Security Henna Virkkunen, and European Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last month that it was time for Europe to build a “drone wall” to protect its eastern flank, hours after some 20 Russian drones reportedly entered the airspace of EU and NATO member Poland.

The concept has since morphed into a broader “European Drone Defence Initiative” including a continent-wide web of anti-drone systems in an effort to win support from EU capitals.

The drone initiative is one of several flagship EU projects aiming to prepare the bloc for a potential attack from Russia as its more than three-year-long war in Ukraine grinds on.

In the meantime, as a counterpoint, Russia’s federal security chief said on Thursday that Moscow has no doubt about NATO’s security services’ involvement in incidents with alleged Russian drones over EU territory, Russian news agency RIA Novosti cited him as saying.

Following the drone incursion into Poland, other incidents were reported at airports and military installations in several other countries further west, including Denmark, Estonia and Germany, although there has not been confirmation that the drones were sent by the Kremlin.

For its part, NATO has launched a new mission and beefed up forces on its eastern border, but it is playing catch-up as it tries to tap Ukraine’s experience and get to grips with the drone threat from Moscow.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that NATO was now “testing integrated systems that will help us detect, track and neutralise aerial threats” for use on the bloc’s eastern flank.

Ukrainian officials say Russia’s incursions into other countries’ airspace are deliberate.

“Putin just keeps escalating, expanding his war, and testing the West,” Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said last month after the drones were spotted in Poland.

Other NATO allies have also claimed the incursions were deliberate.

However, experts in drone warfare say it is still possible that the incursions were not deliberate.

Russia has denied deliberately attacking any of the European countries, instead accusing them of making false allegations to cause tensions.

While Brussels wants to have the drone project fully up and running by the end of 2027, there is scepticism from some EU countries and fears that the bloc is treading on NATO’s toes.

“We are not doubling the work that NATO is doing; actually, we are complementing each other,” said Kallas.

Ukraine says it will need $120bn in defence funding in 2026 to stave off Russia’s more than three-year war.

Germany has pledged more than $2bn in military aid for Ukraine, as the government in Kyiv signalled that it would need $120bn in 2026 to stave off Russia’s nearly four-year all-out war.

Speaking on Wednesday at a Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting in Brussels, German Foreign Minister Boris Pistorius said that Western allies must maintain their resolve and provide more weapons to Ukraine.

“You can count on Germany. We will continue and expand our support for Ukraine. With new contracts, Germany will provide additional support amounting to over 2 billion euros [$2.3bn],” Pistorius told the meeting in Brussels, which was also attended by US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Ukrainian Defence Minister Denys Shmyhal.

“The package addresses a number of urgent requirements of Ukraine. It provides air defence systems, Patriot interceptors, radar systems and precision guided artillery, rockets and ammunition,” Pistorius said, adding that Germany will also deliver two additional IRIS-T air defence systems to Ukraine, including a large number of guided missiles and shoulder-fired air defence missiles.

In recent months, the transatlantic alliance started to coordinate regular deliveries of large weapons packages to Ukraine to help fend off Russia’s war.

Spare weapons stocks in European arsenals have all but dried up, and only the United States has a sufficient store of ready weapons that Ukraine most needs.

Under the financial arrangement – known as the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) – European allies and Canada are buying US weapons to help Kyiv keep Russian forces at bay. About $2bn worth had previously been allocated since August.

Germany’s pledge came as Ukraine’s Western backers gathered to drum up more military support for their beleaguered partner.

Shmyhal put his country’s defence needs next year at $120bn. “Ukraine will cover half, $60bn, from our national resources. We are asking partners to join us in covering the other half,” he said.

Air defence systems are most in need. Shmyhal said that last month alone, Russia “launched over 5,600 strike drones and more than 180 missiles targeting our civilian infrastructure and people”.

The new pledges of support came a day after new data showed that foreign military aid to Ukraine had declined sharply recently. Despite the PURL programme, support plunged by 43 percent in July and August compared to the first half of the year, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute, which tracks such deliveries and funding.

Hegseth said that “all countries need to translate goals into guns, commitments into capabilities and pledges into power. That’s all that matters. Hard power. It’s the only thing belligerents actually respect.”

The administration of US President Donald Trump hasn’t donated military equipment to Ukraine. It has been weighing whether to send Tomahawk long-range missiles if Russia doesn’t wind down its war soon, but it remains unclear who will pay for those weapons, should they be approved.

Gennadiy Trukhanov is alleged to have Russian citizenship, which is prohibited in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stripped the mayor of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, of Ukrainian citizenship over allegations that he possesses a Russian passport.

The Ukrainian leader has instead appointed a military administration to run the country’s biggest port city on the Black Sea, with a population of about 1 million.

“The Ukrainian citizenship of the mayor of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, has been suspended,” Ukraine’s SBU security service announced on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday, citing a decree signed by Zelenskyy.

The SBU accused the mayor of “possessing a valid international passport from the aggressor country”.

Ukraine prohibits its citizens from also holding citizenship in Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the move against Trukhanov could see him deported from the country.

In a post on social media, Zelenskyy said he had held a meeting with the head of the SBU, which had reported on “countering Russian agent networks and collaborators in the front-line and border regions, as well as in the south of our country”.

The SBU chief “confirmed… the fact that certain individuals hold Russian citizenship – relevant decisions regarding them have been prepared. I have signed the decree”, Zelenskyy said.

I held a meeting on the security situation in some of our regions – these are matters of principle.

Head of the Security Service of Ukraine Vasyl Maliuk reported on countering Russian agent networks and collaborators in the frontline and border regions, as well as in the south… pic.twitter.com/MxKyKjPYc9

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 14, 2025

“Far too many security issues in Odesa have remained unanswered for far too long,” the president also said, according to reports, without providing specific details.

A former member of parliament, Trukhanov has been the mayor of Odesa since 2014. He has consistently denied accusations of holding Russian citizenship, an allegation that has dogged him throughout his political career.

“I have never received a Russian passport. I am a Ukrainian citizen,” Trukhanov stressed in a video message posted on Telegram following the announcement of his citizenship revocation.

Trukhanov said he would “continue to perform the duties of elected mayor” as long as possible and that he would take the case to court.

Images of a Russian passport allegedly belonging to Trukhanov have been shared widely on social media in Ukraine.

SBU says: pic.twitter.com/fcRe8acOgo

— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) October 14, 2025

Once considered a politician with pro-Russian leanings, Trukhanov pivoted after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and has publicly condemned Moscow while focusing on defending Odesa and aiding the Ukrainian army.

A source familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency that Zelenskyy had also removed the Ukrainian citizenships of two other people.

Local media outlet The Kyiv Independent identified the two as Ukrainian ballet dancer Sergei Polunin, a vocal supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and former Ukrainian politician and now alleged Russian collaborator Oleg Tsaryov.

Polunin, who sports a large tattoo of Putin on his chest, was born in southern Ukraine but obtained Russian citizenship in 2018. He supported Russia’s 2022 invasion and, earlier in 2014, backed Russia’s annexation of Crimea, where he lived and worked.

In July, Zelenskyy revoked the citizenship of Metropolitan Onufriy, the head of the formerly Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Here are the key events from day 1,329 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, October 15, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched powerful glide bombs and drones against Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in overnight attacks, hitting the city’s main hospital, wounding seven people, and forcing the evacuation of 50 patients, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said that its forces have taken control of the village of Balahan in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
• A convoy of United Nations vehicles carrying aid supplies came under fire from Russian forces near the town of Bilozerka in the Kherson region, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said, describing the attack as “utterly unacceptable”. There were no injuries in the attack on four UN trucks, two of which were set on fire by remote-controlled drones.
• Local authorities have ordered the evacuation of families from dozens of villages near the all-but-destroyed northeastern Ukrainian city of Kupiansk, citing the “worsening security situation”.
• Oleh Syniehubov, governor of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, said that a total of 409 families with 601 children were told to leave 27 localities. Another official in the affected area later told public broadcaster Suspilne that the list of localities to be evacuated by families had been expanded to 40.
• Russia will be able to deploy about 2 million military reservists to fight in Ukraine if needed under amendments to a law likely to be backed by the Russian parliament, according to reports.
• Power outages were reported in the Ukrainian capital and other regions late on Tuesday due to a network overload and the aftermath of Russian attacks, the Kyiv City State Administration said. Power was cut in three central Kyiv districts on the west bank of the Dnipro River running through the city. Ukrenergo, which operates Ukraine’s high-voltage lines, said that lingering problems from Russian attacks on the country’s energy system had triggered outages in regions across northern, central and southeastern Ukraine.
• Work is to begin this week to restore external power links to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, which has been running on emergency diesel generators for three weeks. Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s permanent representative to international organisation based in Vienna, told the Russian state news agency RIA that it was “vital to agree on a local ceasefire in areas where the repair work is to be carried out”.

Military aid

• NATO defence ministers will meet on Wednesday to try to drum up more military support for Ukraine amid a sharp drop in deliveries of weapons and ammunition to the war-ravaged country in recent months.
• European military aid to Ukraine declined sharply this summer, despite a recent NATO initiative in which member countries bought US weapons and transferred them to Kyiv, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy said.
• The United Kingdom has delivered more than 85,000 military drones to Ukraine over the last six months, Secretary of State for Defence John Healey has said, according to the Press Association.
• German Federal Minister of Finance Lars Klingbeil said his country would continue to “financially secure Ukraine’s defence capabilities for the next few years”, while also working with the US to “massively increase pressure on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to end his brutal war of aggression”.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stripped the mayor of the port city of Odesa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, of his Ukrainian citizenship after it was discovered he held Russian citizenship. Trukhanov could now face deportation. Trukhanov denied the claim, saying, “I am a citizen of Ukraine”, and said he would challenge the decision in Ukraine’s Supreme Court and, if necessary, the European Court of Human Rights.
• Zelenskyy said he would appoint a military administration to govern Odesa, citing unresolved security concerns. Ukraine prohibits dual citizenship with Russia, and Trukhanov has long faced allegations of holding both.
• A Kyiv government source told the AFP news agency that Ukrainian ballet dancer Sergei Polunin had also been stripped of citizenship. Polunin has been a vocal supporter of the Russian president. Pro-Kremlin politician Oleg Tsaryov, who survived an assassination attempt in 2023, was also among those who had their Ukrainian citizenship revoked, according to AFP.
• United States President Donald Trump said he was “very disappointed” with Russian leader Putin in advance of a planned visit by Zelenskyy to Washington, DC, later this week. “I don’t know why he continues with this war,” Trump said of Putin.
• Zelenskyy is set to meet Trump in Washington, DC, on Friday, where the two will discuss Ukraine’s air defence and long-range strike capabilities.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said she was focusing on Russian attacks on her country’s energy grid in talks this week with US officials.
• Svyrydenko described the priorities of her visit to Washington, DC, as “energy, sanctions and the development of cooperation with the USA in new ways that can strengthen both our countries”.
• Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had opened a criminal case against exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other prominent Kremlin critics, accusing them of plotting to violently seize power. The FSB said it was investigating all 22 members of the Russian Antiwar Committee – a group of Russian politicians, businesspeople, journalists, lawyers, artists and academics all based outside the country, who oppose Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Regional security

• Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski warned that Europe must be prepared for Russia to strike deep into the region, calling it “irresponsible” not to build defences such as a “drone wall” on its eastern flank.
• German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has accused China of undermining the international rules-based order through its increasingly aggressive policies in Asia and its support for Russia.
• Wadephul also criticised Russia, saying Moscow is testing NATO’s resolve, violating European Union and NATO airspace, spying on Germany’s critical infrastructure and seeking to influence public discourse with propaganda and disinformation.
• Trump threatened trade penalties, including tariffs, against Spain, saying he was unhappy with its refusal to raise defence spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and calling the move disrespectful to NATO.
• Pro-Russian hackers brought down the German government’s public procurement portal, the Sddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) newspaper reported on Tuesday. The cyberattack rendered this important interface between the state and businesses inaccessible for almost a week, the report said.
• Sweden will set up its first emergency grain stocks in the north of the country, a region that risks being isolated in a conflict, the government said. In its 2026 budget, Stockholm plans to invest 575 million kronor ($60m) to set up the grain reserves. Sweden revived its “total defence” strategy in 2015 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and more measures were introduced after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Trade

• Russia’s war in Ukraine is bad for US businesses, which have heavily invested in Europe and whose profits are affected by the uncertainty that Moscow’s aggression creates, European Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said. Dombrovskis said that in 2023, US-owned assets in Europe were worth an estimated $19.2 trillion, or roughly 64 percent of all US corporate foreign assets globally.

Oct. 13 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Monday that he may supply Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine for its fight against Russia.

Trump, on Air Force One, told reporters that he might issue an ultimatum to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I might say ‘Look: if this war is not going to get settled, I’m going to send them Tomahawks.’ The Tomahawk is an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon. And honestly, Russia does not need that,” NBC reported he said.

Trump was flying to the Middle East Monday, to Israel and Egypt for talks on the Gaza peace deal.

Supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks would allow the country to hit targets more than 1,000 miles away, striking deeper into Russian territory.

A Russian lawmaker last week said if Ukraine fires Tomahawks, Russia will shoot them down, bomb their sites and retaliate against the United States, The Hill reported.

Ukraine President Volodymir Zelensky said on X that Russia “continues its aerial terror against our cities and communities, intensifying strikes on our energy infrastructure. The immorality of these crimes is such that every day Russians kill our people. Yesterday in Kostiantynivka, a child was killed in a church by an aerial bomb. In total, just this week alone, more than 3,100 drones, 92 missiles, and around 1,360 glide bombs have been used against Ukraine.”

Zelensky and Trump spoke on Sunday for 40 minutes, discussing Ukraine’s weapons, supply status and the energy sector ahead of Ukraine’s harsh winter, Axios reported. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top officials were on the call.

“We agreed on a set of topics to discuss today, and we covered all the aspects of the situation: defense of life in our country, strengthening our capabilities — in air defense, resilience, and long-range capabilities. We also discussed many details related to the energy sector. President Trump is well informed about everything that is happening,” Zelensky wrote on X.

Trump said he had “sort of made a decision” to sell Tomahawks to NATO countries, which would then be sent to Ukraine, Axios reported.

Putin said on Sunday that sending Tomahawks to Ukraine would be a “completely new, qualitatively new stage of escalation,” Axios reported.

Tomahawk missiles are subsonic cruise missiles that can precisely hit targets 1,000 miles away, even in heavily defended airspace, according to manufacturer Raytheon. They can be fired from land or ships and can have conventional or nuclear warheads. They cost an average of $1.3 million each.

The latest version, called the Block IV Tactical Tomahawk or TACTOM, has a data link that allows it to switch targets while in flight. It can loiter for hours and change course instantly on command, Raytheon said.

Kyiv has announced that it is sending a delegation to Washington for talks on strengthening its defence and energy resilience as Russian forces continue targeting Ukraine’s power infrastructure ahead of the cold winter months.

The departure of a senior delegation, led by Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, was announced on Monday, just as Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said it had imposed power outages across the country in a bid to reduce pressure on the grid in the wake of damaging Russian attacks.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that he would meet with his US counterpart, President Donald Trump, in Washington on Friday to discuss Ukraine’s air defence and long-range strike capabilities.

Speaking to reporters in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said that he had shared with Trump a “vision” of how many US Tomahawk missiles Ukraine needs for its war effort against Russia and that the two leaders would further discuss the matter on Friday.

The comments came after recent remarks by Trump that he might consider giving Ukraine long-range precision strike Tomahawk missiles if Russia did not end the war soon, and as Zelenskyy has urged Trump to turn his attention to ending his country’s war with Russia, after having brokered a deal in Gaza.

Attacks on energy grid

The renewed talk of escalating pressure on Moscow comes in the wake of intensified Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities, prompting Ukraine’s Energy Ministry to announce that it was introducing restrictions across seven regions in an effort to reduce pressure on the damaged grid and preserve supply.

For the past three years, Russia has targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in a bid to demoralise the population, leaving millions without power amid brutally cold conditions.

“Due to the complicated situation in Ukraine’s Unified Energy System caused by previous Russian strikes, emergency power outages were implemented” across seven regions, the energy ministry said in a post on Telegram.

It listed territories mainly in the centre and east of the country, including the Donetsk region, where officials have encouraged civilians to leave due to the targeted attacks on power facilities.

“The emergency power cuts will be cancelled once the situation in the power grid has stabilised,” the statement said.

The escalating attacks left more than a million households and businesses temporarily without power in nine regions on Friday, while overnight attacks on Saturday night left two employees of Ukraine’s largest private energy company wounded.

“Russia has … made its attacks on our energy more vicious – to compensate for their failure on the ground,” Zelenskyy said on Sunday.

Delegation to Washington

In response to the attacks, Zelenskyy’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak said on Monday that a delegation, including Svyrydenko and National Security and Defence Council Secretary Rustem Umerov, had left for talks in Washington.

“We’re heading for high-level talks to strengthen Ukraine’s defence, secure our energy resilience, and intensify sanctions pressure on the aggressor,” he posted on X.

“The ultimate goal remains unchanged – a just and lasting peace.”

The delegation came after Zelenskyy said on Sunday that he had spoken to Trump for the second time in two days, in discussions that covered “defence of life in our country” and  “strengthening our capabilities – in air defence, resilience, and long-range capabilities”.

“We also discussed many details related to the energy sector. President Trump is well informed about everything that is happening,” he said, adding that their respective teams were preparing for the talks.

Tomahawks on the table

Following the conversation, Trump told reporters on board his flight to Israel that he might consider giving Ukraine long-range precision strike Tomahawk missiles if Russia did not end the war soon.

“They’d like to have Tomahawks. That’s a step up,” Trump said, referring to the Ukrainians.

“The Tomahawk is an incredible weapon, very offensive weapon. And honestly, Russia does not need that,” Trump added.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded to the suggestion that Washington could provide the missiles to Kyiv by saying such a move could have serious consequences.

Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev went even further, warning Trump on Monday that supplying Tomahawks to Ukraine could “end badly” for him.

Moscow has long expressed its concern over the prospect of advanced weapons transfers to Ukraine, saying such deliveries would entail direct US involvement in the conflict.

US President Donald Trump is considering sending Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, saying it would provide “a new step of aggression” in its war with Russia.

When asked on Air Force One if he would send Tomahawks to Ukraine, Trump replied “we’ll see… I may”.

It follows a second phone call at the weekend between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who pushed for stronger military capabilities to launch counter-attacks against Russia.

Moscow has previously warned Washington against providing long-range missiles to Kyiv, saying it would cause a major escalation in the conflict and strain US-Russian relations.

Tomahawk missiles have a range of 2,500 km (1,500 miles), which would put Moscow within reach for Ukraine.

Trump spoke to reporters as he flew to Israel. He said he would possibly speak to Russia about the Tomahawks requested by Ukraine.

“I might tell them [Russia] that if the war is not settled, that we may very well, we may not, but we may do it.”

“Do they [Russia] want Tomahawks going in their direction? I don’t think so,” the president said.

Kyiv has made multiple requests for long-range missiles, as it weighs up striking Russian cities far from the front lines of the grinding conflict.

In their phone calls Zelensky and Trump discussed Ukraine’s bid to strengthen its military capabilities, including boosting its air defences and long-range arms.

Ukrainian cities including Kyiv have come under repeated heavy Russian bombardment with drones and missiles. Russia has particularly targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing power cuts.

Last month, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg suggested the US president had authorised strikes deep into Russian territory, telling Fox News “there are no such things as sanctuaries” from attacks in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, downplayed the chances of Tomahawks changing the course of the war.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said last month: “Whether it’s Tomahawks or other missiles, they won’t be able to change the dynamic.”