Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump says he will send Patriot missiles to Kyiv ahead of ‘major statement on Russia’ – UK Times

Keith Kellogg, who is US president Donald Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, arrived in Ukraine on Monday to discuss security and sanctions against Russia, Kyiv has announced.

“Defence, strengthening security, weapons, sanctions, protecting our people, strengthening cooperation between Ukraine and the United States, there are many topics to discuss,” head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Andriy Yermak wrote on the Telegram.

It comes as Donald Trump is expected to announce an “aggressive” new plan for weapons transfers to Ukraine.

European Union envoys are on the verge of agreeing on an 18th package of sanctions against Russia for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine that would include a lower price cap on Russian oil, Reuters reported, citing EU sources.

Four EU sources said all the elements of the package had been agreed, although one member state still has a technical reservation on the new cap.

The sources said they expect to reach a full agreement today, ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels the following day that could formally approve the package.

Ukraine’s security agency tracked down and killed Russian agents on Sunday who were suspected of shooting dead one of its senior officers in the Ukrainian capital.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said the suspected Russian agents were killed in the Kyiv region after they offered resistance to arrest. A video released by the agency showed two bodies lying on the ground.

The agency said earlier that a man and a woman were suspected of being involved in the assassination of Ivan Voronych, an SBU colonel, in a bold daylight attack on Thursday.

Ukrainian drones attacked a training centre at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant last evening, the administration of the Russia-held plant in Ukraine said.

“The enemy used three unmanned aerial vehicles,” the administration said on Telegram. It added that “no critical” damage was recorded.

Germany will not transfer its Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine, the defence minister said.

Boris Pistorius told the Financial Times that Germany will instead supply Kyiv the Patriot air defence systems purchased from the US.”Industry needs to ramp up its capacities. That applies to ammunition, to drones, to tanks — really to almost every area,” Mr Pistorius said.

Earlier this month, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that the decision to supply Taurus missiles to Ukraine remained under consideration.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, in Beijing yesterday ahead of the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) foreign ministers in China.

“The parties also discussed relations with the US and prospects for resolving the Ukrainian crisis,” Russia’s foreign ministry said.

“The importance of strengthening close coordination between the two countries in the international arena, including in the United Nations and its Security Council, the SCO, BRICS, the G20 and APEC, was emphasised,” the ministry said.

China and Russia declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022 when Putin visited Beijing, days before he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.

Russia’s air defence units destroyed 11 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russian regions, the Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea, Russia’s defence ministry said today.

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte is set to meet president Donald Trump this week on the heels of the US leader announcing plans to sell Nato allies weaponry that they can then pass on to Ukraine.

Mr Rutte will be in Washington this week and plans to hold talks with Mr Trump, secretary of state Marco Rubio and defence secretary Pete Hegseth as well as members of Congress.

“I’m gonna have a meeting with the secretary general who’s coming in tomorrow,” Mr Trump told reporters as he arrived in Washington last night.

“But we basically are going to send them various pieces of very sophisticated (weapons) and they’re gonna pay us 100 per cent for them.”

US president Donald Trump is expected to announce a new plan to arm Ukraine with offensive weapons in a sharp departure from his earlier stance, Axios reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

The sources told the news website that they had reason to believe that Mr Trump would include long-range missiles that could reach targets deep inside Russian territory.

“Trump is really pissed at Putin. His announcement tomorrow is going to be very aggressive,” Senator Lindsey Graham told Axios.

A senior Ukrainian intelligence officer was gunned down in broad daylight in Kyiv, officials said on Friday as a maternity hospital was hit by a Russian drone barrage on the city of Kharkiv.

Surveillance footage published on social media showed the agent was executed in a car park by a gunman clad in dark clothing who fled the scene. Police said they were trying to identify the shooter and that “measures are being taken to detain him”.

The victim’s name has not been publicly disclosed and the identity of the suspect remains unclear. A Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) official said that the intelligence officer had been a colonel, according to Reuters.