Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump falsely accuses Kyiv of starting war

Ukrainian forces have struck and knocked out a North Korean self-propelled howitzer on the eastern front on the battlefield, Ukraine’s military said yesterday.

A statement by the Khortytsia, or East, group of forces said it was the first time since the start of the war that a North Korean M-1978 Koksan howitzer had been hit by a Ukrainian drone.

“In Luhansk region, fighters of the 412th separate regiment of Nemesis drones struck a very rare M-1978 North Korean self-propelled artillery vehicle with a gun caliber of 170 mm,” the statement posted on Telegram said.

The post was accompanied by a video showing a military target being blown up, and said the Koksan had first been observed in the war in October 2024.

North Korea’s military aid to Russia has included about 200 long-range artillery pieces and a significant amount of ammunition, South Korea’s defence ministry told a parliament committee last week.

Russian officials meeting with their American counterparts to discuss the future of Ukraine can rationally expect to get pretty much everything they want from “peace talks” in Saudi Arabia.

They hope to emerge with a deal that cedes at least 20 per cent of Ukraine to Moscow, turns Ukraine into a neutral state with no Nato membership, and that a toothless multinational force will patrol Ukraine’s new borders with Russia.

It is almost certain a Trump-Putin deal would be rejected by Ukraine and its allies. So they will have to take over future negotiations and threaten to put troops into Ukraine.

How close is Russia’s economy to collapse? As Donald Trump’s negotiators open direct talks with the Kremlin, Kyiv’s European allies hope that a final push on sanctions against Russia could be Ukraine’s last – and best – hope of victory. Time is running out before Ukraine stands to lose all the territory currently held by Russia.

Almost three years ago to the day, Putin intended his full-scale invasion of Ukraine to be a three-day operation that would force regime change in Kyiv. Neither Putin nor his military or economic planners anticipated a grinding war that now soaks up more than 40 per cent of Kremlin spending.

Nor did they expect Europe to impose serious sanctions, and even less did they anticipate the destruction of three of the four Gazprom gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea that before the war supplied more than 30 per cent of Europe’s gas.

The Trump administration has put a pause on all immigration applications filed by migrants from Ukraine and Latin America who were allowed into the United States under some Biden-era programs, CBS News reported today.

Concerns over fraud and security were cited for the halt, it added, citing two US officials and an internal memo.

US president Donald Trump has said he would not be opposed if European nations want to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine to provide security guarantees in the event of a peace deal.

“Having troops over there would be fine, I wouldn’t object to it at all,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday.

Europe has been discussing sending a peacekeeping force to Ukraine to prevent future Russian attacks after Mr Trump said no US troops would be involved.

Mr Zelensky and Sir Keir Starmer have warned that a US security guarantee against future Russian aggression is vital.

However, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has said that it would be “completely unacceptable” for Nato troops to be positioned in Ukraine.

US national security adviser Mike Waltz told reporters in Riyadh that the war must come to a permanent end, and this would involve negotiations over territory.

“Just a practical reality is that there is going to be some discussion of territory and there’s going to be discussion of security guarantees,” he said.

High-level teams would begin talks on ending the conflict and would separately work to restore the countries’ respective diplomatic missions in Washington and Moscow to ease the talks going forward, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said.

Mr Rubio said he came away from the initial talks convinced that Russia was “willing to begin to engage in a serious process” but that reaching peace would involve concessions from all sides.

Kyiv will not accept the results of US-Russia talks held “behind Ukraine’s back”, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

“It feels like the US is now discussing the ultimatum that Putin set at the start of the full-scale war,” Mr Zelensky told reporters in Turkey after a meeting with president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Once again, decisions about Ukraine are being made without Ukraine. I wonder why they believe Ukraine would accept all these ultimatums now if we refused them at the most difficult moment?” Mr Zelensky asked.

The Ukrainian war-time president said that the country will keep demanding the return of occupied eastern and southern towns and villages via diplomatic means. “They will be Ukrainian. There can be no compromise,” he said.

Donald Trump has falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war with Russia, comments that come after an initial meeting between US and Russian officials in Riyadh yesterday which did not include Kyiv.

“I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat, well, they’ve had a seat for three years and a long time before that. This could have been settled very easily,” he said, when asked what his message was to Ukrainians who might feel betrayed.

“You should have never started it. You could have made a deal,” he told BBC News.

He described the first day of talks in Saudi Arabia as “very good” and said Russia wants “to stop the savage barbarianism”.

Russia unilaterally invaded Ukraine in February 2022, eight years after occupying and illegally annexing the Crimean Peninsula.

On being asked about the prospect of European countries sending troops to Ukraine, Mr Trump said: “If they want to do that, that’s great. I’m all for it.”