31m ago
20.58 BST
Summary
Here’s a
wrap-up of the day’s key events:
Trump
showed hesitance on supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles. He said: “One of
the reasons we want to get this war over is…that it’s not easy for us to give
you … massive numbers of very powerful weapons … Hopefully they won’t need it.
Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over with without thinking about
Tomahawks.”
Zelenskyy
emphasized Nato and security guarantees as part of any peace deal with Russia.
“First of all, I think we need to sit and speak. The second point, we need
ceasefire… We are ready to speak in any kind of format,” he said, adding:
“Nato, for Ukrainians, is very important… But the most important thing…for
people in Ukraine, which are under each day’s attacks, to have really strong
security guarantees.”
Trump
said that Melania Trump’s push to help return displaced Ukrainian children in
the war was her own decision. “She wanted to do it. She just felt very strongly
about the children. And she’s done a really good job,” Trump said. Last week,
the first lady announced the return of the children followed an “open channel
of communication” she had with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Trump
called himself the “mediator president,” adding: “I love solving wars.” Talking
about his mediating efforts around the world, he said: “This is number nine.
Okay, this will be number nine for me. I’ve solved eight, including the Middle
East… I didn’t get a Nobel Prize…so I don’t care about all that stuff. I just
care about saving lives. But this will be number nine.”
Zelenksyy
said that he believes Trump has a “big chance to finish this war.” Speaking to
reporters, Zelenskyy added: “President Trump really showed for the world that
he can manage [a] ceasefire in [the] Middle East and that’s why I hope that he
will do this and we will hve a big success for Ukraine… I hope that President
Trump can manage it.”
Trump
also said that there is a lot of “bad blood” between Zelenskyyy and Putin.
‘These two leaders do not like each other, and we want to make it comfortable
for everybody. So one way or the other we’ll be involved in threes, but it may
be separated,” Trump said.
Hungary’s
government has made clear it will not arrest Vladimir Putin, who is wanted by
the International Criminal Court, if he arrives in Budapest for peace talks.
Speaking to state radio on Friday, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán hailed
the fact his country would host the meeting.
The US is
supportive of a new IMF lending programme for Ukraine and the European Union
initiative to extend a loan to Kyiv based on Russian central bank assets
immobilised in the west, European economic commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said
on Friday. Dombrovskis, who is in charge of the 27-nation EU’s economic policy,
met with US treasury secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday to discuss support for
Ukraine.
Russia
and the United States should build a ‘Putin-Trump’ rail tunnel under the Bering
Strait to link their countries, unlock joint exploration of natural resources
and “symbolise unity”, a Kremlin envoy has suggested. The proposal by Kirill
Dmitriev, President Vladimir Putin’s investment envoy and head of Russia’s RDIF
sovereign wealth fund, envisages a construction project costing $8 billion,
funded by Moscow and “international partners”, to build a 70 mile (112 km) rail
and cargo link in under eight years.
Fifteen
members of a Ukrainian militia group were convicted by a Russian military court
on Friday of taking part in “a terrorist organisation” and sentenced to between
15 and 21 years in a maximum security penal colony, Russia’s prosecutor general
said. The men were members of Ukraine’s Aidar Battalion who were captured in
2022.
Pjotr
Sauer Russian affairs reporter and Andrew Roth in Washington:
Donald
Trump has played down hopes that he will supply Ukraine with Tomahawk cruise
missiles, saying during a White House meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the
US may need them for a future conflict.
Responding
to a question on whether the US would send the cruise missiles requested by
Ukraine, Trump said: “We need Tomahawks and we need a lot of other things that
we’ve been sending over the last four years to Ukraine.”
“It’s not
easy for us to give [Ukraine] … massive numbers of very powerful weapons,” he
said. “Hopefully they won’t need it. Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war
over without thinking about Tomahawks.”
Trump’s
doubtful tone on the cruise missiles follows a surprise phone call with
Vladimir Putin on Friday during which the Russian leader told Trump that
supplying the Tomahawks would damage US-Russian relations. His position on
supplying Ukraine with weapons has changed a number of times since he returned
to office in January, often following negotiations with Putin or European
backers of Ukraine.
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