Russia Ukraine war latest: Kyiv joining Nato would be ‘great victory for Trump’, says Zelensky

Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine on Saturday, killing 15 people and damaging dozens of residential buildings as well as energy infrastructure across the country, Ukrainian officials said.

In the central city of Poltava, Ukraine’s Emergency Services said a Russian missile had struck a residential building, killing 11 people and wounding 16, including four children.

They said 22 people were rescued from rubble and emergency crews worked well into the night. Rescue teams carried out the dead on stretchers.

Reuters TV footage showed thick columns of smoke rising from mounds of rubble outside the building, part of which was reduced to a twisted mass of metal and building materials.

Firefighters and dozens of rescuers were searching through rubble.

One retired military veteran, certain his son, daughter-in law and granddaughter had died on the first floor of the building, waited outside the building all day, checking with rescue teams for them among the bodies pulled out.

In Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s northeast, one person was killed and four were wounded in a Russian drone attack, the mayor said.

Three police officers were killed during the attacks as they patrolled streets in a village in the northeastern region of Sumy, regional officials said.

Ukraine blamed Russia for a deadly missile strike yesterday that killed at least four people in the dormitory of a boarding school situated in a part of Russia’s Kursk region held by Ukrainian forces.

Some of the war’s fiercest battles in recent months have been taking place in the Kursk region that borders Ukraine, where Kyiv forces have held swathes of the land since staging a major cross-border incursion last August.

Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on its Telegram messaging app that Russia launched an aerial bomb from Russian territory that struck a boarding school in Sudzha, killing at least four. The boarding school housed people preparing for evacuation.

As of 10pm on Saturday, 84 people had been rescued or received medical assistance, the statement said. Four of the injured were in a serious condition. Rescue efforts to clear rubble were proceeding.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack on Sudzha, some 12km from the border with Ukraine, shows how Russia fights the war

.”They destroyed the building even though dozens of civilians were there,” Mr Zelensky wrote on X.

“This is how Russia waged war against Chechnya decades ago. They killed Syrians the same way. Russian bombs destroy Ukrainian homes the same way.”

Russia blamed Ukraine for the attack. Early this morning, Russia’s defence ministry said on Telegram that Ukraine’s forces launched “a targeted missile strike on a boarding school in the city of Sudzha” from the territory of Ukraine.

In the absence of Nato membership, other security guarantee proposals offered to Ukraine should be backed up by sufficient weapons from the US and Europe, and support for Kyiv to develop its own defense industry, said Volodymyr Zelensky.

He also said a French proposal to put European forces in Ukraine to act as a deterrent against Russian aggression is taking shape, but he expressed scepticism, saying many questions remained about the command-and-control structure and the number of troops and their positions.

The issue was raised by French president Emmanuel Macron and with US president Donald Trump, he said.

“I said in the presence of the two leaders that we are interested in this as a part of the security guarantee, but not as the only guarantee of safety,” he said. “That’s not enough.”

He added: “Imagine, there is a contingent. The question is who is in charge? Who is the main one? What will they do if there are Russian strikes? Missiles, disembarkation, attack from the sea, crossing of the land borderline, offensive. What will they do? What are their mandates?”

Asked if he put those questions directly to Mr Macron, he smiled and said: “We are still in the process of this dialogue.”

An Australian man who was feared dead after being captured by Russian forces is alive, foreign minister Penny Wong has announced.

Oscar Jenkins, 32, a teacher who signed up to fight for Ukraine against Russia, was taken captive in December last year. A video showed him being struck by a Russian interrogator, sparking fears for his life.

“The Australian government has received confirmation from Russia that Oscar Jenkins is alive and in custody,” Ms Wong said on Wednesday.

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Volodymyr Zelensky cautioned against allowing Vladimir Putin to take “control” over the war, an apparent reference to Russia’s repeated threats of escalation during president Joe Biden’s administration.

Without security guarantees from Ukraine’s allies, Mr Zelensky said, any deal struck with Russia would only serve as a precursor to future aggression. Membership in the Nato alliance, a longstanding wish for Kyiv that Moscow has categorically rejected, is still Mr Zelensky’s top choice.

Nato membership is the “cheapest” option for Ukraine’s allies, and it would also strengthen Donald Trump geopolitically, Mr Zelensky argued.

“I really believe that these are the cheapest security guarantees that Ukraine can get, the cheapest for everyone,” he said.

“It will be a signal that it is not for Russia to decide who should be in Nato and who should not, but for the United States of America to decide. I think this is a great victory for Mr Trump,” he said, evidently appealing to the president’s penchant for winners and business deals.

With president Donald Trump back in the White House, Ukraine’s relationship with the US, its largest and most important ally, is at a tipping point.

In an initial phone call with Mr Trump during the presidential campaign, Volodymyr Zelensky said, the two agreed that if he wins, they would meet to discuss the steps needed to end the war. But a planned visit by Mr Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, was postponed “for legal reasons”, Mr Zelensky said.

That was followed by a sudden foreign aid freeze that effectively caused Ukrainian organisations to halt projects.

“I believe that, first and foremost, we (must) hold a meeting with him, and that is important. And that is, by the way, something that everyone in Europe wants,” Mr Zelensky said, referring to “a common vision of a quick end to the war”.

After the conversation with Mr Trump, “we should move on to some kind of format of conversation with Russians. And I would like to see the United States of America, Ukraine and the Russians at the negotiating table. … And, to be honest, a European Union voice should also be there. I think it would be fair, effective. But how will it turn out? I don’t know.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky said his team has been in contact with the Trump administration, but those discussions are at a “general level,” and he believes in-person meetings will take place soon to develop more detailed agreements.

“We need to work more on this,” he said, adding that US president Donald Trump understandably appeared to be focused on domestic issues in the first weeks after his inauguration.

The nearly three-year war in Ukraine is at a crossroads. Mr Trump promised to end the fighting within six months of taking office, but the two sides are far apart, and it is unclear how a ceasefire deal would take shape.

Meanwhile, Russia continues to make slow but steady gains along the front, and Ukrainian forces are enduring severe manpower shortages.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that excluding his country from talks between the US and Russia about the war in Ukraine would be “very dangerous” and asked for more discussions between Kyiv and Washington to develop a plan for a ceasefire.

Mr Zelensky said Russia does not want to engage in ceasefire talks or to discuss any kind of concessions, which the Kremlin interprets as losing at a time when its troops have the upper hand on the battlefield.

He told the Associated Press that US president Donald Trump could bring Russian president Vladimir Putin to the table with the threat of sanctions targeting Russia’s energy and banking system, as well as continued support of the Ukrainian military.

“I think these are the closest and most important steps,” he said in the interview in the Ukrainian capital that lasted for more than an hour.

Mr Zelensky’s remarks followed comments on Friday by Mr Trump, who said American and Russian officials were “already talking” about ending the war. Mr Trump said his administration has had “very serious” discussions with Russia, but he did not elaborate.

“They may have their own relations, but talking about Ukraine without us — it is dangerous for everyone,” Mr Zelensky said.

Russian forces are intensifying their offensive around the strategically vital Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, threatening key supply lines and raising concerns about a potential encirclement.

The city, a crucial logistical hub in eastern Ukraine, has become a focal point in the nearly three-year-long conflict.

While Ukrainian defenders are fiercely resisting the Russian advance, the situation in Pokrovsk grows increasingly precarious. The city’s main supply routes are under constant threat, with Russian troops encroaching from multiple directions.

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