Ukraine-Russia war live updates: Putin to send top negotiator to Washington as US anger grows – UK Times

The Trump administration has not included Russia on its expansive list of countries that will face major new tariffs.

The White House has not explained why Russia will not face tariffs.

President Donald Trump announced plans for sweeping tariffs last night, saying “our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, plundered” by other nations.

Ukraine was slapped with a 10 per cent levy, according to a fact sheet released by the White House.

This comes as Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev met with US officials in Washington yesterday as the Trump administration continues to press Russia and Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire, two US officials familiar with the matter said.

At least 11 more Ukrainian children have been brought home from parts of Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine where they had been taken without permission, Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff said yesterday.

“Today we have one more piece of good news,” Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff, wrote on his Telegram channel.

“Within the framework of the president of Ukraine’s Bring Kids Back UA initiative, another 11 Ukrainian children were brought back from temporarily occupied areas (of Ukraine) and the territory of the Russian Federation,” he said.

Among the children, Mr Yermak said, were brothers aged 10 and 12 whose father died after being tortured for expressing pro-Ukrainian views.

Also brought home, Mr Yermak wrote, was a pregnant mother who had been prevented from leaving occupied Ukraine because she had refused to take out Russian identity papers, and her two-year-old toddler.

The mother gave birth to another child in Ukrainian-held territory.

Mr Yermak thanked the office of Ukraine’s ombudsman for its help in arranging the return of the children.

Russia has not issued a statement on returning Ukrainian citizens.

Half of the US Senate, including 25 Republicans and 25 Democrats, banded together to introduce prospective sanctions on Russia which would be imposed if it refuses to engage in good faith negotiations with Ukraine.

Led by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, the group said it would impose primary and secondary sanctions against Russia if Moscow does not engage in talks or initiated another attempt to undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty.

“The sanctions against Russia require tariffs on countries who purchase Russian oil, gas, uranium and other products. They are hard hitting for a reason,” the two senators said in a statement, a rare moment of bipartisanship in a divided Congress.

“The dominating view in the United States Senate is that Russia is the aggressor, and that this horrific war and Putin’s aggression must end now and be deterred in the future,” they said.

Donald Trump has hailed “good cooperation” between Russia and Ukraine as he underlined his desire to stop the war.

Speaking from the White House as he announced tariffs on US imports of goods from around the world, Mr Trump said: “We’re going to get it stopped.”

He added: “It’s a senseless war that would have never happened if I was president and it shouldn’t be allowed to go on.

“And I think we’ve been given good cooperation by Russia and by Ukraine, but we have to get it stopped.

“It’s humanity. It’s humanity. It’s a terrible thing.”

A US visit by Vladimir Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev is “possible”, the Kremlin said on Wednesday.

Contacts between Moscow and Washington are continuing, a Kremlin spokesperson added.

Reuters reported that Dmitriev is expected in Washington this week for talks with Donald Trump’s administration.

Ukrainian women are taking jobs once reserved for men, who are being drafted to the front lines in the war with Russia – from driving tractors to working in coal mines.

Kateryna Koliadiuk – a 19-year-old Ukrainian agronomy student – spotted an ad seeking women to enrol in a tractor driving course and decided to try.

But the industrial vehicle was huge and complex, and she wasn’t sure she could operate it.

“In the beginning I was so scared. In the beginning I couldn’t do this,” she said. She now drives with authority, her manicured fingers resting at the wheel.

At least one person was killed and several injured, including an infant and a 7-year-old boy, in Russia’s overnight drone attacks on Ukraine, regional officials said early today.

A 45-year-old civilian was killed and two injured in a strike on a settlement near the frontline in the Zaporizhzhia region, the governor of the southeastern Ukrainian region said on his Telegram channel.

An infant, a child and six other civilians were injured in a Russian drone attack on Kharkiv, regional officials there said, in what seemed to be the latest in a series of bombings of the city not far from Russia’s border.

Russian forces unleashed an hour-long barrage of drones on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, late on Wednesday, triggering a number of fires but causing no casualties in the second such attack in the course of the day, the regional governor said.

“In the space of just one hour, the enemy deployed 17 (Iranian-designed) Shahed drones,” Oleh Syniehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

“Most of the strikes were in the Kyiv district. Local fires broke out. Fortunately, there were no casualties,”

The same district had come under attack earlier in the day, with officials reporting five people injured.

Kharkiv withstood Russian assaults in the first weeks of Moscow’s February 2022 full-scale invasion, but did not fall into Russian hands.

Deputy Head of the Ukrainian President’s Office, Ihor Brusylo, spoke on national television to say they have handed evidence to the US about Russia violating a

“The energy ceasefire… which Ukraine and the United States agreed upon, was violated by the Russian side. All the necessary information was transferred to the American side. I think the reaction will not be long in coming, because even American partners who were diplomatically disposed towards the possibility of ensuring such a ceasefire are running out of patience,” he said.

According to the official, all evidence confirms that Russia is not interested in a ceasefire or in bringing the war to an end.

“I hope international partners will not delay anything, and more resolute measures will still be taken against the aggressor state, which pursues its insidious policy despite the agreements reached during the negotiations,” Brusylo stressed.