Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin open to talking with Trump as US president says he is ‘very angry’ at Moscow – UK Times

Vladimir Putin has signed a decree on the spring conscription for military service to boost his army.

The Russian president has ordered at least 160,000 men between 18 to 30-year-old to be drafted into the army by mid-summer this year, even as he drags on peace talks with Ukraine and the US.

“To carry out the conscription for military service of Russian citizens aged 18 to 30 who are not in the reserve and subject to conscription for military service, in the amount of 160,000 people, from April 1 to July 15, 2025,” the decree, quoted by TASS, says.

Last year, the spring conscription was extended to 150,000, in 2023 – to 147,000 and in 2022 –134,500.

Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer spoke to Donald Trump last night to agree on the need to “keep up the collective pressure on Putin” after the US president said he was “p***ed off” with his Russian counterpart for questioning the credibility of Volodymyr Zelensky.

Mr Trump, who has previously called the Ukrainian president a dictator, suggested he was considering putting “secondary sanctions” on Russian oil in an interview with NBC News.

Donald Trump has suggested he could impose secondary tariffs of 25-50 per cent on buyers of Russian oil if Vladimir Putin does not cooperate on ceasefire talks.

“I want to see him make a deal so that we stop Russian soldiers and Ukrainian soldiers and other people from being killed,” Mr Trump said in the Oval Office. “I want to make sure that he follows through, and I think he will.”

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault… I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Mr Trump told NBC.

“That would be, that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States,” he said. “There will be a 25 per cent tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil.”

Oil prices were little changed yesterday as traders tried to work out how Mr Trump’s threat of secondary tariffs against the world’s second largest oil exporter might look.

China and India buy about 80 per cent of Russian crude exports. Chinese traders said they were unfazed by the threat, while Beijing said its cooperation with Russia was neither directed against, nor affected by, third parties.

Russian forces shelled a frontline settlement in Ukraine’s southeast Zaporizhzhia region on Monday, killing one person and injuring five, the regional governor said.

Ivan Fedorov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, did not identify the settlement, but posted pictures of heavily damaged homes and other buildings alongside piles of rubble.

He said a 66-year-old woman had died in the attack.

Zaporizhzhia is one of four regions partly occupied by Russian forces. All four were formally annexed by Moscow seven months after the Kremlin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine and Western nations denounce the annexations as illegal.

The Kremlin has offered to arrange another call between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump after the US president said was “pissed off” with Russia.

Mr Trump told NBC News he was very angry after the Russian leader criticised the credibility of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and the US president suggested he could impose secondary tariffs of 25-50 per cent on buyers of Russian oil.

Mr Trump later reiterated to reporters he was disappointed with Mr Putin but added: “I think we are making progress, step by step.”

Asked about Mr Trump’s comments, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was continuing to work with Washington and that Mr Putin remained open to contacts with Mr Trump.

“We are continuing to work with the American side, first of all to build our bilateral relations, which were badly damaged during the previous (US) administration,” Mr Peskov said.

“And we are also working on the implementation of some ideas related to the Ukrainian settlement. This work is underway, but so far there are no specifics that we could or should tell you about. This is a time-consuming process, probably due to its complexity.”

A call between both the presidents, he said, could be arranged at short notice if necessary, though none was scheduled for this week.

A peace agreement on ending the conflict in Ukraine should be fair, binding and acceptable to all parties involved, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said in remarks published this morning.

“We advocate eradicating the causes of the crisis through dialogue and negotiations, ultimately achieving a fair, long-term, binding peace agreement acceptable to all parties involved, which would make it possible to achieve truly lasting peace and stability in Eurasia and throughout the world,” Mr Wang told the Russian RIA state news agency in an interview.

The US president called up NBC’s Kristen Welker prior to her Sunday appearance as host of Meet the Press, according to Welker. He told her that he was “p***ed off” after the Russian president called for elections in Ukraine and once again questioned the legitimacy of Volodymyr Zelensky’s government — comments the U.S. president said were unhelpful.

Vladimir Putin has signed a decree on the spring conscription for military service to boost his army.

“To carry out the conscription for military service of Russian citizens aged 18 to 30 who are not in the reserve and subject to conscription for military service, in the amount of 160,000 people, from April 1 to July 15, 2025,” the decree, quoted by TASS, says.

Last year, the spring conscription was extended to 150,000, in 2023 – to 147,000 and in 2022 – 134,500.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has honoured another 353 defenders of Ukraine with state awards, 184 of them posthumously.

The defenders were awarded the Orders of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, Danylo Halytskyi “For Courage”, and medals “For Military Service to Ukraine”, and “To the Defender of the Fatherland” and “For Saved Life.”

The full list can be seen here.

Russian forces shelled a frontline settlement in Ukraine’s southeast Zaporizhzhia region on Monday, killing one person and injuring five, the regional governor said.

Ivan Fedorov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, did not identify the settlement, but posted pictures of heavily damaged homes and other buildings alongside piles of rubble.

He said a 66-year-old woman had died in the attack.

Zaporizhzhia is one of four regions partly occupied by Russian forces. All four were formally annexed by Moscow seven months after the Kremlin sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.