- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does” while Russian President Vladimir Putin has “gone absolutely CRAZY”, Donald Trump said in his latest comments about the conflict. In a post on Truth Social, the US leader said “Everything out of his [Zelenskyy’s] mouth causes problems, I don’t like it, and it better stop.” He also claimed that “something has happened to” Putin and that if he took all of Ukraine it would lead to “the downfall of Russia”. “He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I’m not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever. I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia!”
- Speaking to reporters at an airport in New Jersey, shortly before the post went online, Trump also said “I’m not happy with Putin.”Asked if he was considering more sanctions on Russia, Trump replied: “Absolutely.”
- The comments came after Zelenskyy criticised the US for not saying anything after Russia carried out its largest air raid in three years of the war. “The silence of America, the silence of others in the world only encourages Putin,” Ukraine’s president wrote on Telegram. “Every such terrorist Russian strike is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia.”
- Keith Kellogg, the US’s special envoy for Ukraine, condemned the attacks but without any mention of Russia or Putin. “The indiscriminate killing of women and children at night in their homes is a clear violation of the 1977 Geneva peace protocols designed to protect innocents. These attacks are shameful. Stop the killing. Ceasefire now,” he wrote on X.
- Interior minister Ihor Klymenko said 12 people had been killed and 60 more wounded in thewave of drone and ballistic missile strikes on Saturday night into Sunday, the second consecutive night of heavy attacks across the country. Earlier death tolls given separately by regional authorities and rescuers had put the number of dead at 13. Ukrainian officials confirmed Moscow had launched 298 drones and 69 missiles in multiple waves.
- The latest attacks should be met with additional western sanctions, Germany’s foreign minister Johann Wadephul told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday. “Putin is not interested in peace, he wants to continue this war, and we must not allow this, which is why the European Union will agree additional sanctions,” he said in a live interview on ARD’s Bericht aus Berlin.
- The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, also called for “the strongest international pressure on Russia to stop this war”. She said on X: “Last night’s attacks again show Russia bent on more suffering and the annihilation of Ukraine. Devastating to see children among innocent victims harmed and killed … We need the strongest international pressure on Russia to stop this war.”
- The attacks came as the two countries completed their biggest prisoner swap since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, with 1,000 captured soldiers and civilian prisoners exchanged by each side.Images of the release, which the two sides agreed on in Istanbul just over a week ago, showed returned prisoners with shaved heads, many wrapped in flags, being reunited with loved ones in Ukraine. The exchange was the latest of dozens of swaps since the war began and the biggest involving Ukrainian civilians.
- The Netherlands will send the last one of 24 promised F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine on Monday, defence minister Ruben Brekelmans said on Sunday on a Dutch television talkshow.The first 23 Dutch F-16 jets were delivered from last summer. The Netherlands has also provided fighter jets to a training centre in Romania for Ukrainian pilots and crew.
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