Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump says Putin is ‘doing what anybody would do’

Around 3.5 million Russian passports have been issued to Ukrainians, Moscow’s interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said. This means around 700,000 have been issued since March 2024, when 2.8 million had been handed out.

Holding a Russian passport in the occupied territories has been made necessary for Ukrainians who want to access healthcare, retirement income, social services, or prove property ownership. A Russian law stipulated that anyone in the occupied territories who did not have a Russian passport by 1 July 2024 was subject to imprisonment as a “foreign citizen”.

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Higher European defence budgets are the first step to building a secure Europe, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte has said.

“We will need to spend more to keep ourselves safe,” Mr Rutte told German Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag (WamS).

“But we also need to quickly ramp up our defence production on both sides of the Atlantic…for far too long, we have produced far too little.”

Ammunition, ships, tanks, jets, but also satellites and drones were needed, Rutte said.

European countries are scrambling to boost defence spending and maintain support for Ukraine after US president Donald Trump froze U.S. military aid to Kyiv and raised doubts about Washington’s commitment to European allies.

Sir Keir Starmer has welcomed Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese’s support for his ‘Coalition of the Willing’ peacekeeping plan in Ukraine.

After the two held a phone call on Saturday, Downing Street said Sir Keir welcomed Mr Albanese’s “commitment to consider contributing to a Coalition of the Willing for Ukraine”.

Sir Keir “reiterated the UK’s commitment to the Aukus programme”, the statement added.

Mr Albanese wrote on X: “Good to talk with @Keir_Starmer tonight reaffirming our support for AUKUS, our commitment to the brave people of Ukraine in defence of their sovereignty and international law.”

Around 3.5 million Russian passports have been issued to Ukrainians, Moscow’s interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said. This means around 700,000 have been issued since March 2024, when 2.8 million had been handed out.

Holding a Russian passport in the occupied territories has been made necessary for Ukrainians who want to access healthcare, retirement income, social services, or prove property ownership. A Russian law stipulated that anyone in the occupied territories who did not have a Russian passport by 1 July 2024 was subject to imprisonment as a “foreign citizen”.

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Russia has retaken three villages in its western Kursk region, Moscow’s Defence Ministry has said.

Russian troops claim to have retaken the villages of Viktorovka, Nikolaevka and Staraya Sorochina back from Ukrainian forces, who staged a surprise incursion into the southeastern Russian region last August.

The battlefield report has not been independently verified.

Open source maps showed this week tha Ukraine’s positions have deteriorated sharply in Kursk, where its troops are nearly surrounded by Russian forces.

World affairs editor Sam Kiley is in Rymachi, Ukraine:

Donald Trump’s offhand description of how Russia is taking advantage of his suspension of intelligence and military aid to Ukraine as “what anybody would do” shows reveals his genuine indifference to the plight of Ukraine.

At least 14 people have been killed in drone and missile strikes while Russian forces have launched a massive assault on Ukrainian troops in Kursk.

Trump’s verbal shrug is a sign that this is exactly what he expected and wanted Ukraine to suffer as a direct consequence of his abandonment of a former ally.

He has done everything he can to try to hasten a Russian victory not to advance peace talks. Without the early warning systems that the US once supplied dangers to civilians shoot up – making the train journey to Kyiv more dicey.

The theme of “hope” was chosen long before this year’s deterioration of Washington-Kyiv relations, but participants at an international Ukrainian studies conference said that hope is needed more than ever — not only in Ukraine but in the United States itself.

Religious leaders, scholars, artists and diplomats have been gathering at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana since Thursday for a three-day conference focused on “Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine.”

But hope may be hard to summon at a conference that brought together supporters of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s ongoing military assaults.

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Russia’s deadly strikes on Ukraine this morning show Moscow’s goal is unchanged despite supposed efforts towards peace, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Speaking on Telegram after Russian missile, drone and rocket strikes killed at least 14 people in Ukraine’s eastern city of Dobropillia, Mr Zelensky called on tighter sanctions for Russia.

“Such strikes show that Russia’s goals are unchanged,” he wrote.

“Therefore, it is very important to continue to do everything to protect life, strengthen our air defence, and tighten sanctions against Russia. Everything that helps Putin finance the war must break down.”

A tank at Russia’s Kirishi refinery, one of the country’s largest, was damaged by falling debris during a Ukrainian drone attack, the governor of the northwestern Leningrad region said on Saturday.

Surgutneftegaz’s Kirishinefteorgsintez (KINEF) refinery is one of the top two refineries in Russia. It refines about 17.7 million tons per year (355,000 barrels per day) of Russian crude, or 6.4 per cent of the total, according to industry sources.

“Air defences shot down one drone on approach, the other was destroyed over the territory of the enterprise,” Alexander Drozdenko, governor of the Leningrad region, said on Telegram.

“When the debris fell, the external structure of one of the tanks was damaged,” he said.

No one was injured, he said.

The refinery produces about 2.3 million tons of gasoline – 5.3 per cent of Russia’s total – 7.6 per cent of its diesel fuel, 16.3 per cent of its fuel oil and 3.4 per cent of the country’s aviation fuel, according to industry sources.

Ukraine’s military has said it shot down 79 of 145 drones launched by Russia overnight.