Ukraine war latest: Trump envoy suggests dividing up Ukraine like post-war Berlin

Kyiv’s domestic production of cruise missiles has increased eightfold in 2024, Ukraine’s strategic industries minister has said.

According to the Kyiv Independent, Herman Smetanin said Ukraine had only able to manufacture a single type of cruise missile, the Neptune, back in 2022. “Last year, we introduced many new models, allowing us to grow production eightfold compared to 2023,” he said. A total of 324 new types of weapons had been developed in Ukraine by the end of 2024.

Ukraine also more than doubled its production of long-range drones in 2024 compared to the previous year, which marks a 22-fold increase compared to 2022.

In total, Ukraine produced $9bn worth of arms in 2024, and the defence industry is on track to nearly quadruple that amount by the end of 2025, said Mr Smetanin. “By the end of 2025, we will have the capacity to produce $35bn worth of military equipment domestically.”

Ukraine’s military has reported nearly 150 clashes along the frontline on Friday, as it claimed that Russia had carried out more than 100 air strikes in multiple regions and suffered 1,240 casualties.

The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said Russia had fired more than 6,400 artillery shells and deployed 2,789 kamikaze drones over the same period.

Romanian hard-right opposition leader George Simion, who is the favourite to win a presidential election re-run, has claimed he is the only candidate who could stop a potential withdrawal of US troops from the country.

Romania will repeat the two-round election on 4 and 18 May after the Constitutional Court voided the initial ballot in December over accusations of Russian interference, which Moscow denied.

There are wider concerns in Romania over a potential cut in US troop numbers in Europe and the future of Nato, amid reports that Washington is drawing up plans to cut troops in eastern Europe.

“No longer having American troops in Romania seems dangerous to me and I am the only candidate who can stop that,” said Mr Simion, leader of the opposition Alliance for Uniting Romanians (AUR), during a marathon news conference late on Friday which lasted more than five hours.

“We are the natural allies, we are ideologically aligned with the Republican Party, the Maga movement.”

A critic of the current European Union leadership, Mr Simion has also said he would stop military aid to Ukraine, which borders Romania. He has opposed Holocaust education and gay marriage. On Friday, he said he backed increasing defence spending provided it boosted Romanian industry.

Ukraine could be partitioned like Berlin after the Second World War as part of a peace deal, US president Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia has suggested.

Retired lieutenant general Keith Kellogg said in an interview with The Times that UK and French troops could adopt zones of control in the west of the country, forming a “reassurance force”.

Russia’s army could remain in the occupied east, and between the two would be Ukrainian forces and a demilitarised zone, said Gen Kellogg, who was previously national security adviser to vice-president Mike Pence.

At least four people were injured and multiple buildings damaged in an overnight Russian drone attack on Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air defences shot down 56 of the 88 Russian drones, its air force said, adding that 24 drones were “lost” as the military used electronic warfare to redirect them.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitchko said that three people were injured in the capital as a result of the drone attack.

Drone debris also destroyed a private house and damaged several commercial buildings, causing large fires in different parts of the capital, city officials said.

One more person was wounded in the city of Kharkiv in the northeast, mayor Ihor Terekhov said.

Poland’s outgoing president Andrzej Duda said Donald Trump has the best chance of ending the war, but any peace must be “fair and lasting”.

“If anyone is able to force the end of Russia’s war, it is most likely only the President of the United States,” he told Sky News.

“The question is whether he will be determined enough to do that in a way – because it is also very important here in Europe being a neighbour of Russian aggression against Ukraine – that the peace is fair and lasting.”

Ukraine’s air defences shot down 56 of 88 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack, Ukraine’s air force said this morning.

At least 24 drones were “lost” as the military used electronic warfare to redirect them, the air force said.

Damage was reported in five Ukrainian regions in the centre, east and south of the country.

Russia’s delay in accepting Washington’s proposal has frustrated Donald Trump and fueled doubts about whether Vladimir Putin really wants to stop the fighting while his bigger army has momentum on the battlefield.

“Russia continues to use bilateral talks with the United States to delay negotiations about the war in Ukraine, suggesting that the Kremlin remains uninterested in serious peace negotiations to end the war,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in an assessment.

Washington remains committed to securing a peace deal, even though four weeks have passed since it made its ceasefire proposals, state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.

“It is a dynamic that will not be solved militarily. It is a meat grinder,” Ms Bruce said about the war, adding that “nothing else can be discussed … until the shooting and the killing stops.”

Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky has imposed 10-year sanctions on 18 companies and 130 people, including Russian journalists.

Alexander Sladkov, a military correspondent for the Rossiya-1 TV channel; Arina Sharapova, a TV host on Channel One; Andrey Norkin, a talk show host on NTV; Iskander Khisamov; editor-in-chief of the Ukraine.ru website, are among the journalists targeted, Russian news agency TASS reported.

The list includes 59 people from the alleged shadow fleet, a network of ships that Moscow allegedly uses to circumvent Western sanctions to export oil and gas.

“We are increasing pressure on war propagandists and those who justify Russia,” Mr Zelensky said. He added that more sanctions were expected soon.