Ukraine-Russia war live: Trump says Putin call ended in ‘no progress at all’ and defends weapon supply halt – UK Times

Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken out on Russia’s overnight drone attack, which he says was one of the largest yet.

Russia will not stop its strikes without large-scale pressure, Mr Zelensky said on Friday.

“For every such strike against people and human life, they must feel appropriate sanctions and other blows to their economy, their revenues, and their infrastructure,” he said on X, calling the attack “deliberately massive and cynical”.

“Yet again, Russia is showing it has no intention of ending the war and terror,” he added.

The injury toll of Russia’s huge air attack on Kyiv has now risen to 23, in strikes which came just hours after Donald Trump spoke with Vladimir Putin.

A total of 14 of the injured were hospitalised. Ukrainian authorities said.

Russian forces fired 550 drones and missiles at Ukrainian territory, the majority of which at the nation’s capital, according to the Air Force.

Railway infrastructure, buildings, and cars have been damaged or erupted in blazes throughout Kyiv, the city’s authorities said.

A photo shared by Oliver Carroll, foreign correspondent for The Economist, showed the dawn skies filled with huge clouds of grey smoke.

“Another air raid alert in Kyiv. It’s been pretty unrelenting since 1am, so 4 hrs now. Part of this is about Russian launch capacities: they can’t do everything in one go. But part is about tactics of exhaustion: of air defence workers; and of the population as a whole,” he wrote in a post on X.

A Ukrainian drone attack on the Rostov region killed at least one woman and forced the evacuation of scores of people from their homes, acting governor of the region in Russia’s south said this morning.

The most serious damage in the Ukrainian aerial attack on its neighbour was reported in the Azov district of the Rostov region, acting governor Yuri Slyusar, where the roof of a 40-apartment building was destroyed.

Some 120 residents were being evacuated, Mr Slyusar said on Telegram in the early hours today.

The defence ministry said that it destroyed 26 Ukrainian drones over the region. There was no comment from Ukraine.

Ukraine launched a drone attack on the Sergiyev Posad district near Moscow in the early hours today, injuring one person and leaving parts of the religiously significant centre without power, the head of the district said.

At least four explosions were recorded in the district – some 75km (47 miles) from the Kremlin – and that a power substation was damaged, leaving swaths of the district without electricity, local official Oksana Yerokhanova said.

Russia has launched 539 drones and 11 missiles at Ukraine overnight, the Ukraine air force said this morning.

This is a record high for the number of aerial weapons used by Russia in an overnight onslaught in its more than three year old war, and the first time the combined total has crossed 500.

The military said its air defence units shot down 270 drones while 208 more were lost – referring to electronic warfare the Ukrainian military uses to redirect them – or they were drone simulators lacking warheads.

Air defence also downed two cruise missiles, it added.

Ukraine launched a drone attack on the Sergiyev Posad district near Moscow in the early hours today, injuring one person and leaving parts of the religiously significant centre without power, the head of the district said.

“I ask everyone to remain calm, not to approach the windows, not to photograph the work of the air defence,” Oksana Yerokhanova said.

She said that at least four explosions were recorded in the district – some 75km (47 miles) from the Kremlin – and that a power substation was damaged, leaving swaths of the district without electricity.

The district’s administrative centre, the town of Sergiyev Posad, is considered the religious centre of the Moscow Region and a spiritual heart of Russia’s Orthodox Church.

The city’s monastery, the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius that was founded in the 14th century, is a Unesco World Heritage site.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Telegram that its air defence units destroyed 48 Ukrainian drones overnight over five Russian regions.

The ministry, which only reports how many drones its forces destroy, not how many Ukraine launches, did not list the Moscow region as one where drones were downed.

President Donald Trump told reporters early on Friday he is “disappointed” with Vladimir Putin and does not think the Russian president will stop the war in Ukraine.

Mr Trump also said he will speak to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky today.

Earlier yesterday, Mr Trump said that a phone call with Mr Putin resulted in no progress at all on efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will speak to Donald Trump in the coming days about the suspension of weapons supply.

In his comments after meeting with major European Union backers in Denmark, the Ukrainian leader said: “I hope that maybe tomorrow, or close days, these days, I will speak about it with president Trump.”

The US has paused some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine due to low stockpiles, according to the US officials.

That decision led to Ukraine summoning the acting US envoy to Kyiv on Wednesday to underline the importance of military aid from Washington continuing, and caution that the move would weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend against intensifying Russian airstrikes and battlefield advances.

The Pentagon’s move led in part to a cut in deliveries of Patriot air defence missiles that Ukraine relies on to destroy fast-moving ballistic missiles.

The Kremlin has said Russian president Vladimir Putin’s phone call with his US counterpart Donald Trump was “frank and constructive”, even as the US president said he made “no progress at all”.

This is the sixth publicly disclosed call between the two leaders since Mr Trump returned to the White House. The two discussed the Ukraine war, the situation around Iran and in the broader Middle East.

Their chat was “businesslike and straight-to-the-point,” said Yuri Ushakov, Mr Putin’s foreign affairs adviser. He added that Mr Trump and Mr Putin were “on the same wavelength”.

While discussing the Middle East, Mr Putin emphasised the need to resolve all differences “exclusively by political and diplomatic means,” the Russian official said.

The leaders agreed that Russian and US officials will maintain contact on the issue, he added.