Ukraine war latest: Zelensky warns Putin will attack Nato next year as Chernobyl hit

Ukraine’s nuclear ghosts were raised again on Friday after a drone armed with a warhead hit the protective outer shell of the plant at Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident.

The strike, which Kyiv blamed on Moscow, did not breach the plant’s inner containment shell and radiation levels did not increase, according to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Russia denied involvement, and accused Ukraine of waging a false flag attack. Their competing claims could not be independently verified.

Before his meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, the US vice president JD Vance lectured European officials on free speech and illegal migration on the continent, warning that they risk losing public support if they don’t quickly change course.

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia. It’s not China. It’s not any other external actor,” Mr Vance said in an address to the Munich Security Conference.

“What I worry about is the threat from within – the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America,” Mr Vance said.

He further warned European officials: “If you’re running in fear of your own voters there’s nothing America can do for you.”

The speech and Donald Trump’s push for a quick way out of Ukraine have been met with intense concern and uncertainty at the annual gathering of world leaders and national security officials.

The vice president also warned the European officials against illegal migration, saying Europeans didn’t vote to open “floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants” and referencing an attack on Thursday in Munich where the suspect is a 24-year-old Afghan who arrived in Germany as an asylum-seeker in 2016.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said that his country wants “security guarantees” before any talks with Russia, as the Trump administration presses both countries to find a quick endgame to the three-year war.

Shortly before sitting down with vice president JD Vance for highly anticipated talks at the Munich Security Conference, Mr Zelensky said he will only agree to meet in-person with Russian leader Vladimir Putin after a common plan is negotiated with US president Donald Trump.

The roughly 40-minute meeting between Mr Vance and Mr Zelensky produced no major announcements detailing the way out of the deadliest war in Europe since the Second World War.

Mr Zelensky made a plaintive statement about the state of play.

“We want peace very much,” Mr Zelensky said. “But we need real security guarantees.”

Ukraine‘s nuclear ghosts were raised again yesterday after a drone armed with a warhead hit the protective outer shell of the plant at Chernobyl, the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident.

The strike, which Kyiv blamed on Moscow, did not breach the plant’s inner containment shell and radiation levels did not increase, according to the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Russia denied involvement, and accused Ukraine of waging a false flag attack. Their competing claims could not be independently verified.

Ukraine has a low chance of surviving Russia’s assault without U.S. support, president Volodymyr Zelensky said in a interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” program.

“Probably it will be very, very, very difficult. And of course, in all the difficult situations, you have a chance. But we will have low chance — low chance to survive without support of the United States,” Mr Zelensky said in the interview.

An excerpt from the program was released on Friday and the full show will be broadcast on Sunday.

His comments come after phone calls held earlier in the week by US president Donald Trump with Mr Zelensky and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Russia has detained another US citizen after customs officials found cannabis-laced marmalade in his luggage, Russian state media has reported, days after a Moscow-Washington prisoner swap that the White House called a diplomatic thaw and a step toward ending the fighting in Ukraine.

Russian police said the 28-year-old American had attempted to smuggle a “significant amount” of drugs into the country, the Interfax agency reported, citing Russia’s Federal Customs Service. The agency said the American was detained at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport after flying in from Istanbul last Friday.

Mash, a Russian Telegram channel with links to the security services, said the US citizen, identified only as K. Byers, faced up to seven years in prison if convicted.

The Washington-Moscow prisoner exchange this month saw Alexander Vinnik, a Russian cryptocurrency expert who faced Bitcoin fraud charges in the United States, returned to Russia after being freed for American Marc Fogel, a teacher from Pennsylvania who was detained in 2021 when traveling to Russia to work at a school.

Russian forces have taken control of two frontline settlements in eastern Donetsk region, the Russian defence ministry said this morning.

A ministry report said Russian forces had captured the village of Zelene Pole located between Pokrovsk, the focal point of Russian attacks in the region, and Velyuka Novosilka, a settlement that Russia’s military said it captured late last month.

Also captured, according to the Russian report, was the village of Dachne, west of the town of Kurakhove, which Russia’s military said it also captured last month.

The town had been subjected to weeks of heavy fighting.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s military, in a late evening report, said both villages were among 11 settlements that had come under Russian attack in the Pokrovsk sector.

But it made no mention of them coming under Russian control.

In his keynote address at the Munich Security Conference, delivered to an auditorium packed with ministers of defence, generals and leaders from across Europe and beyond, JD Vance said: “The threat that I worry the most about vis-a-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor.”

“What I worry about is the threat from within,” he announced to the assembled securocrats.

They would have walked into the hall pretty sure that it’s Russia’s open military and violent designs on Ukraine, the Baltic nations, Poland, and much of the rest of eastern Europe, that’s been keeping them up at night.