Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump to send Patriot missiles to Kyiv because Putin ‘bombs everybody’ – UK Times

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.

US president Donald Trump said he will send Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine, saying they are necessary to defend the country because Russian President Vladimir Putin “talks nice but then he bombs everybody in the evening”.

Mr Trump did not give a number of Patriots he plans to send to Ukraine, but he said the United States would be reimbursed for their cost by the European Union.

The US president has grown increasingly disenchanted with Putin because the Russian leader has resisted Mr Trump’s attempts to negotiate a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has asked for more defensive capabilities to fend off a daily barrage of missile and drone attacks from Russia.

“We will send them Patriots, which they desperately need, because Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then bombs everybody in the evening. But there’s a little bit of a problem there. I don’t like it,” Mr Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington.

“We basically are going to send them various pieces of very sophisticated military equipment. They are going to pay us 100 per cent for that, and that’s the way we want it,” Mr Trump said.