The 30-day ceasefire deal included a US-Ukraine agreement on rare earth minerals, which Umerov said was a “positive signal for the long-term partnership” between the two countries.

President Zelensky said that a 30-day ceasefire proposal put forward by the United States went further than what Ukraine had been seeking.

In his daily evening address, Zelensky said that his officials had wanted three key objectives: an end to missile and drone strikes, the release of prisoners of war and the return of Ukrainian children who were forcibly removed to Russia.

“During today’s talks, the US side proposed taking an even bigger first step — a 30-day full interim ceasefire, stopping missile, drone and bomb attacks, not only in the Black Sea, but also along the entire front line,” Zelensky said.

He reiterated that Ukraine’s position has been to seek peace on terms that would prevent further violence since the very beginning of the war.

Thus far, there has been no official response from the Kremlin.

President Trump told reporters at the White House that he was hopeful that Putin would sign a 30-day pause in hostilities with Ukraine.

“Ukraine, ceasefire, just agreed to a little while ago,” he said. “Now we have to go to Russia and hopefully President Putin will agree to that also, and we can get this show on the road. We want to get that war over with.”

Trump added that he expected his next meeting with President Zelensky to go more smoothly, after an angry confrontation between the two leaders threatened to derail peace talks last month.

“I think it’s a big difference between the last visit you saw in the Oval Office, and this,” Trump said.
“That’s a total ceasefire — Ukraine has agreed to it, and hopefully Russia will agree to it.”

Hours after a ceasefire plan was signed in Jeddah, Ukrainian officials confirmed that military aid from the US was starting to flow.

“I have confirmation that the security assistance from the United States has been restored,”
Pavlo Palisa, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, wrote in a post on Facebook.

“Arrangements are starting to be fulfilled. The struggle is still on!” he added.

US officials said they would resume aid and intelligence sharing after Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire agreement.

Poland has welcomed a deal that will immediately restore US military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine.

“We are ready as Poland, with an airport, with a hub in Rzeszow, in Jasionka, to accept this aid,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, the Polish foreign minister, told the TVN24 news channel.

“We maintain operational capability all the time, and we are fully prepared to resume American support.”

Last week Poland announced plans to make all adult men undertake military training to increase the size of its army from 200,000 to 500,000 in the event of a war with Russia.

By Jack Clover in Dnipro

What seemed to be the dull boom of anti aircraft guns was audible in the centre of Dnipro on Tuesday night as Ukrainian Telegram channels warned of as many as ten drones heading for the city.

Young Ukrainians rolled out of bars laughing and eager to return home before the midnight curfew as above them, imperceptible in the night’s sky, Russian projectiles raced over the city.

Serhiy Lysak, the region’s governor, confirmed that two private buildings and several infrastructure targets had been hit by the drones. “Under the rubble there are probably people. We are clarifying the information,” he said.

Spring has arrived in Ukraine, the air is warm and the last of the sheet ice that blankets the vast Dnipro river lingered in patches on the water’s surface.

Both Washington and Jeddah, and the words spoken there, feel very distant.

Andriy Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, described a 30-day ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and the US as a “serious step forward”.

In a post on X, he wrote that the deal was important “both on the path to peace and in developing the strategic Ukraine-US partnership”.

“This is what a frank, open, and constructive dialogue brings,” Sybiha added.

Sybiha also thanked Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and Mike Waltz, the national security adviser.

President Macron of France has joined fellow European leaders in welcoming the 30-day ceasefire plan drawn up between the US and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia.

“The ball is now clearly in Russia’s court,” Macron wrote in a post on X.

“France and its partners remain committed to a solid and lasting peace, which is backed by robust security guarantees for Ukraine.”

By Steven Swinford

Sir Keir Starmer has congratulated President Trump and President Zelensky of Ukraine on a “remarkable breakthrough” after the countries agreed a plan for a 30-day ceasefire.

He said: “I warmly welcome the agreement today in Jeddah and congratulate President Trump and President Zelensky for this remarkable breakthrough.

“This is an important moment for peace in Ukraine and we now all need to redouble our efforts to get to a lasting and secure peace as soon as possible.

“As both American and Ukrainian delegations have said, the ball is now in the Russian court. Russia must now agree to a ceasefire and an end to the fighting too.

“I will be convening leaders this Saturday to discuss next steps. We are ready to help bring an end to this war in a just and permanent way that allows Ukraine to enjoy its freedom.”

Air alerts rang out in 12 Ukrainian regions, around half of the country, minutes after Ukraine agreed to an American proposal for a 30-day ceasefire with Russia.

Over a dozen Russian drones flew into Ukraine as President Trump said that he wished for a ceasefire as soon as possible, and that he would speak with President Putin in the coming days.

Fighting also continued in Russia’s Kursk region amid reports that Russian forces were pushing into the town of Sudzha.

European Union leaders have called the developments in Saudi Arabia “positive”, saying they could “be a step towards a comprehensive, just and lasting peace for Ukraine”.

Antonio Costa, the European Council president, and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, issued a joint statement which also claimed that “the ball is now in Russia’s court”.

“The EU is ready to play its full part, together with its partners, in the upcoming peace negotiations,” the statement added.

Andriy Yermak, President Zelensky’s chief of staff, has said that Russia must show “very clearly” it wants peace in Ukraine after talks with the US in Saudi Arabia.

“Russia needs to say, very clearly, they want peace or not, they want to end this war, which they started, or no,” Yermak told reporters. “Today, we demonstrated to all the world that we wanted peace.”

President Trump has said that he thinks he will talk to President Putin of Russia this week.

He added that he wanted to secure a total ceasefire in the coming days.

President Trump has said he hopes Russia will agree to a ceasefire plan drawn up by American and Ukrainian officials and that there will be a meeting with Russia on Tuesday or Wednesday.

In remarks to reporters, Trump said he would also invite President Zelensky of Ukraine back to the White House.

The two leaders clashed in an Oval Office meeting last month and Zelensky left Washington without signing a critical minerals deal with the United States.

Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said that Ukraine and the US “have taken an important step towards peace” in the talks in Saudi Arabia.

He is among the first international leaders to respond to the outcome of the negotiations.

President Zelensky has called the 30-day ceasefire suggestion “positive”.

“Ukraine welcomes this proposal, we consider it positive, we are ready to take such a step,” he said in his daily evening address. “The United States of America has to convince Russia to do this. The American side understands our arguments.”

His chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, who took part in the talks in Saudi Arabia, said that the important thing was securing a “just peace”.

Yermak also thanked US and Saudi officials for a “constructive meeting”.

Mike Waltz, President Trump’s national security adviser, said the success of the talks in Jeddah meant that the question was “how” not “if” the war will end.

Speaking at a press briefing alongside Marco Rubio, he said officials had discussed what guarantees Ukraine would receive for its long-term security.

The minerals deal with Ukraine was not signed, although Rubio added that that both sides would try to bring the deal to “finality”.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said the talks were “serious stuff”.

“This is not Mean Girls. Today people will die, this is not some episode of some television show … and this is what the president wants to stop,” he said.

“We are leaving with a commitment that the Ukrainians are ready to stop fighting.”

Rubio said he hoped that Russia would agree to the offer of an immediate ceasefire.

“It’s going to be up to them to say yes or no. Our hope is the Russians will say yes,” Rubio said after the talks with Ukraine.

The proposed deal is to “stop the shooting” on both sides, he said, and agreeing to a ceasefire would be the “best goodwill gesture the Russians could provide”.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said the “ball is now in Russia’s court” on securing peace after a day of negotiations with Ukraine.

He said “the only way to end this war is to negotiate” and added: “There’s no military solution to this war.”

Ukraine has agreed to accept an American proposal for an immediate 30-day ceasefire and to take steps toward restoring a durable peace after Russia’s invasion, according to the joint US-Ukraine statement.

The two sides, meeting in Saudi Arabia, also agreed to conclude as soon as possible a comprehensive agreement for developing Ukraine’s mineral resources, the statement said.

Officials in Saudi Arabia have announced that talks between the US secretary of state and Ukrainian officials have ended after nine hours.

In a joint statement they said both sides would begin negotiations towards an “enduring peace”.

The US state department has said in a joint statement with the Ukrainians that Washington will “immediately” lift the pause on intelligence-sharing and resume security assistance to Ukraine.

The US ban on intelligence-sharing was announced last week by the White House. At the time, US officials said the pause could be lifted if peace talks made progress.

The meeting between US and Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia has been “positive”, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, has said.

She told reporters at the daily news briefing that the negotiations had been “productive”.

Leavitt added that Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state who is leading the talks, would make a statement soon.

The Russian foreign ministry has said that Ukraine’s overnight drone attack, the biggest of the war, was deliberately timed to coincide with the talks in Saudi Arabia.

“The Zelensky regime has shown a total lack of political will towards peace and settling the conflict via diplomatic means,” it said in a statement.

Officials said at least three employees of a meat warehouse were killed and 17 others hurt in the Moscow area. The attack also briefly shut the capital’s four airports.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed a total of 343 drones were downed by its air defences, including 91 over the Moscow region and 126 over the western region of Kursk where Ukrainian forces have been pulling back, as well as near the Kursk nuclear power plant.

President Macron has spoken of the “geopolitical threats” that France faces in an apparent response to Marine Le Pen, the hard-right leader who accused him last week of exaggerating the danger from Russia. She claimed the real threats were Islamist terrorism and immigration.

Without naming her, Macron said it was obvious that Russia posed a threat and those who were playing it down “have clearly not been following the news”.

He said France had to respond to both external and internal threats. “A great nation … does not have to choose between combatting the geopolitical threats it faces or the threats on its soil posed by terrorists. It has to do both at the same time,” he said.

Le Pen hit back by repeating her claim that Macron was “stoking fear”.

A statement from the US delegation in Jeddah is expected shortly, the BBC reports.

American and Ukrainian officials are thought to have been locked in talks since about 9am.

Military chiefs from 30 countries have gathered in Paris, where President Macron is expected to prepare an outline of how a “coalition of the willing” could help guarantee Ukrainian security in the event of a peace deal with Russia.

President Macron greets Colonel General Ruslan Khomchak of Ukraine

SARAH MEYSSONNIER/POOL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Macron and Thierry Burkhard, Chief of Staff of the French Armed Forces, hosted the meeting in Paris

SARAH MEYSSONNIER/REUTERS

Russian strikes have killed six people, two of them children, in the eastern Ukraine region of Donetsk.

“Two brothers aged 11 and 13 were killed,” Vadym Filashkin, the regional governor, wrote on social media. A further four people had been killed that day and seven were wounded, he said.

The death toll from a Ukrainian attack on the Kursk region of Russia has risen to five, the governor has said.

Alexander Khinshtein had previously said that three people were killed by strikes on a shopping centre on Monday evening.

Robert Wilkie, a lawyer who ran President Trump’s military transition team, has defended his administration against claims it is too close to Putin. He described its position as “definitely not a pro-Russian”.

He told Times Radio: “Some in Europe have forgotten the effects of the first Trump administration, with sanctions on Russian banks, sanctions on Russian sales of oil and the fact that President Trump ordered the deaths of 300 Russian soldiers in the Syrian desert when they refused to remove themselves from the vicinity of American soldiers.”

He added: “European nations have prospered for too long under the protection of the American eagle and it is time that they provide for their own defence.”

A ceasefire “never seemed closer”but peace would “not come through diplomatic gestures alone”, President Zelensky’s chief of staff has said.

Andriy Yermak said it was vital to put “political and financial pressure on Russia to raise the cost of renewed conflict”.

“First, Ukraine must be given security guarantees that lend credibility to a future ceasefire agreement,” he wrote in The Guardian. “Second, Europe must act decisively to strengthen and increase the sanctions against Russia. And third, Europe should take control of the frozen Russian assets to enable continued and increased support for Ukraine.”

It is a “sign of hope” that negotiations in Saudi Arabia have run on for several hours, according to Yuriy Sak, an adviser in Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries.

Ukrainian officials had travelled to Jeddah “in the hopes that this will bring us closer to ending the war”, he said, telling the BBC it demonstrated “to our American partners we are serious”.

Hungary’s foreign minister said that crude oil shipment via the Druzhba pipeline had been suspended after Ukraine claimed to have struck oil refineries in Russia overnight that service the pipeline.

“I have just talked to the deputy energy minister of Russia who told me that due to the attack shipments are not possible now but works are underway,” Peter Szijjarto said.

Hungary imports most of its crude oil via the Druzhba pipeline, which transports Russian crude through Belarus and Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia.

Mike Waltz, the US national security adviser, has said negotiations with Ukraine are “nearing completion”, Ukrainian news media reports.

Mike Waltz with the secretary of state Marco Rubio

SAUL LOEB/REUTERS

As talks in Saudi Arabia near their sixth hour, officials are believed to be taking a short break.

Poland will purchase an additional 5,000 Starlink terminals, according to its minister for digitalisation, to help fortify Ukraine’s internet access.

Over the weekend, Elon Musk said that Ukraine’s “entire front line” would collapse if he turned his Starlink satellite system off. Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski replied that his country paid for Starlink’s use in Ukraine, with Musk then calling him a “small man” who should “say thank you”.

There had been fears Musk, a close Trump ally, would refuse Ukraine access to Starlink after Washington paused intelligence sharing with Kyiv. Musk responded to the concerns and said: “No one has made any threats about cutting Ukraine off from Starlink.”

Peace will only be achieved through the demilitarisation of Ukraine and “elimination of the Zelensky regime”, a Kremlin-friendly Russian opposition leader has said.

Sergei Mironov, leader of the Just Russia party, added: “The only force capable of achieving sustainable peace is the Russian army. It makes sense to stop a special military operation now only if the Kyiv regime surrenders.”

HTTPS://WWW.THETIMES.COM/UK/SCIENCE/ARTICLE/ELON-MUSK-STARLINK-SATELLITES-OBSCURE-OUR-VIEW-OF-THE-UNIVERSE-8N9Z5MR29/REUTERS

Having twice run against Putin in presidential elections, Mironov, 72, has become one of the most zealous supporters of the war in Ukraine. A BBC investigation found that in 2022 he and his wife had adopted a ten-month-old Ukrainian girl who was abducted from the town of Kherson during Russian occupation.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russia’s foreign minister, said that initiatives to install peacekeepers in Ukraine after a potential ceasefire deal was an attempt to save the Ukrainian government from the “wrath of the people”.

Poland will seek to offer military training to 100,000 civilians per year beginning in 2027, Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, said.

Outlining the scheme to expand the country’s army reserves, first announced on Friday, Tusk told reporters today: “Anyone who is interested and is between 18 and 60 will receive detailed information on how to complete the training course.” The programme will be voluntary, he added, but the government hopes to maximise participation by offering “motivations and incentives”.

Poland, which shares a border with the Russian exclave Kaliningrad, has been heavily arming itself amid pressure from President Trump for Europe to take more responsibility for its own defence.

Elon Musk called Mark Kelly, a senator, a “traitor” after he visited Ukraine.

Kelly, a former Nasa astronaut who had reportedly been a front runner to be Kamala Harris’s running mate last year, posted on X: “Just left Ukraine. What I saw proved to me we can’t give up on the Ukrainian people. Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine’s security and can’t be a giveaway to Putin.”

“You are a traitor,” Musk replied. The senator from Arizona hit back: “Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do.”

Russians living near buildings struck by drones have reacted to the overnight attacks. A pensioner named Tatyana asked: “How can this happen in Moscow? What about our air defences? We need to do something. But what?”

A man called Mikhail interjected, saying “put more pressure on the scum,” referring to the Ukrainian army.

“No, this should be decided on a political level,” Tatyana told the BBC. “Not politicians,” Mikhail said, “but our army.”

SERGEI ILNITSKY/EPA

Despite increasingly tense relations between US and Ukrainian leaders since a calamitous meeting in the White House a few weeks ago, President Zelensky’s popularity at home has been given a boost, according to the most recent opinion polls.

Zelensky’s approval rating now stands at 68 per cent, according to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, pushing his net approval rating up from 20 to 38 per cent. Before the diplomatic spat, 57 per cent approved of the president.

Despite being overwhelmingly popular among Ukrainians immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion, as the war went on Zelensky’s polling numbers were dragged down by issues including a flagging economy, corruption allegations linked to government ministers and controversies over conscription.

Oil facilities in Russia’s Moscow and Oryol regions were among the targets struck during a large-scale drone attack overnight, Ukraine’s general staff said in a statement.

According to Russian officials, the attacks killed at least three people and caused a short shutdown at the capital’s four airports.

A man removes what is thought to be the remains of a downed drone from a car

TATYANA MAKEYEVA/AFP

Britain must immediately spend billions of pounds on drones, shells and armoured vehicles to ready the country for war, ministers have been warned.

Sir Keir Starmer’s strategic defence review will set out plans to modernise the army, navy and RAF over the next decade. The prime minister has promised to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027, equating to £6 billion a year of extra investment.

However, President Trump’s ambivalent remarks about Nato’s Article 5 — which states that members will come to the defence of an ally which comes under attack — have raised concerns in Whitehall about the timeline for Britain’s rearmament.

• Read in full: Drones, shells and armoured vehicles must be bought off the shelf

The UN human rights office has received termination notices from Washington for five of its projects, including its work in Ukraine.

Ravina Shamdasani, the UN human rights spokesperson, said that the notices were also for projects in Equatorial Guinea, Iraq and Colombia.

With the help of Elon Musk, President Trump is cutting billions of dollars in foreign aid programmes as part of a major spending overhaul.

Steve Witkoff, a key adviser to President Trump, appears not to be present at talks between US and Ukrainian officials currently underway in Saudi Arabia.

Witkoff had been expected in Jeddah, but seems instead to be being used as a main channel of communication between the US and Russia after Bloomberg reported he will travel to Moscow later this week for his second meeting with President Putin in two months.

THE MEGA AGENCY

As the president’s long-term friend and golfing partner, Witkoff has emerged as a decisive negotiator in Trump’s administration, with his duties expanding well beyond his official brief of US Middle East envoy.

Witkoff participated in the first high-level discussions in February between Russia and the US since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while Keith Kellogg, Trump’s Russia-Ukraine envoy, was notably absent. There has been no Ukrainian reaction yet to the significance of Witkoff skipping the talks in Saudi Arabia.

Germany’s military still has “too little of everything”, despite a costly overhaul that was launched after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“A lot has been improved and a lot has been achieved, but we are still not there and there is still a lot to do,” Eva Hoegl, Germany’s parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, told reporters on Tuesday.

Hoegl said that despite a recruitment drive personnel numbers in the armed forces had dipped to 181,200 in 2024 from 181,540 in 2023.

Germany met the Nato defence spending target of 2 per cent of gross domestic product for the first time in 2024, but about 82 per cent of a €100 billion special defence fund agreed in 2022 to overhaul the Bundeswehr has already been spent, according to the report.

President Putin has no intention to compromise and has deliberately made “maximalist” demands ahead of negotiations with Ukraine, which he knows Kyiv and European leaders will find unacceptable, security officials have told Bloomberg.

Their comments cast doubt on whether Russia is prepared to commit to serious peace negotiations.

Yesterday, the US secretary of state Marco Rubio said it was Ukraine that would have to make concessions ahead of today’s talks in Jeddah, saying it must be “prepared to do difficult things”.

A video of Claude Malhuret, a French lawmaker, has been viewed millions of times on social media after he told the Senate that Washington had become “Nero’s court with an incendiary emperor” and described Elon Musk as a “buffoon on ketamine in charge of purging the civil service”.

Malhuret has now told AFP that “Americans today feel that their politicians are unable to stand up to Trump”.

“The Republicans, of course, are afraid of reprisals and so are saying nothing, even those who disagree with him,” he said. “And the Democrats are still reeling from their presidential defeat and the party is not yet in working order.

“For my part, many of the messages I received asked: ‘How come it has to be a French politician who says this, when no one there is saying it?'”

A third person has died after a Ukrainian drone attack on the Moscow region, Evgeniya Khrustaleva, the head of the town of Domodedovo, said on Tuesday.

Damage to an apartment building after the strikes

MAXIM SHIPENKOV/EPA

Ukraine launched its biggest ever drone attack on Moscow overnight, killing at least two workers at a meat warehouse, injuring 18 others and causing a short shutdown at the Russian capital’s four airports, officials said.

American officials meeting with their Ukrainian counterparts will “find out the extent to which Kyiv is ready for peace”, the Kremlin has said in the aftermath of a large-scale drone attack on Moscow.

Responding to a question about Russia’s position in any future ceasefire talks, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said it was “absolutely impossible” to discuss positions now.

YURI KOCHETKOV/AFP

“Today only the Americans will find out, as they themselves say, to what extent Ukraine is ready for peace. Therefore it would be very foolish to discuss parts of the settlement plans now,” he said.

While talks are underway in Jeddah, dozens of military chiefs are due in Paris today to discuss potential peacekeeping forces in Ukraine.

Military officials from some 30 European and Nato countries — including the UK, France, Germany and Poland — are expected to discuss practicalities for a potential future peace operation along with Asian and Oceania nations. It is a sign of how far Sir Keir Starmer and President Macron are casting their net in order to build what the prime minister has described as “a coalition of the willing”.

On Saturday, Starmer will convene leaders of about 20 nations virtually.

Russian special forces have crept through a gas pipeline to attack Ukrainian units fighting in the Kursk region as Moscow seeks to recapture parts of its border province, “no matter the cost”, before ceasefire negotiations begin.

According to Ukrainian officials and military bloggers, the troops walked about 15km inside the pipeline, which Moscow had until recently used to send Russian gas to Europe. Some had spent several days in the pipe before striking Ukrainian units from the rear near the town of Sudzha.

Russian Telegram channels showed photographs of what were said to be special forces operatives wearing gas masks and moving along what looked like the inside of a large pipe.

• Read in full: Special forces soldiers walked 15km inside the disused pipes

Emergency services raced to contain a large fire in Odesa following a Russian drone attack last night.

“The enemy has once again conducted a large-scale drone attack on Odesa. A house, a warehouse containing children’s toys and a fuel tank caught fire as a result of the attack,” Oleh Kiper, the governor of the region, said.

Seven houses in the Kyiv region were damaged due to falling debris after Russian missiles were shot down, local authorities said.

Ukraine’s air force said that they had shot down a Russian Iskander ballistic missile and 79 drones overnight.

Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine‘s presidential office, has shared footage on X of Ukrainian officials walking into a meeting room to begin discussions with the US secretary of state Marco Rubio and the national security adviser Mike Waltz.

Posting on X in Ukrainian, he said that talks in Saudi Arabia had “started constructively”.

Two people have died and at least 20 injured in a “massive” drone attack on Moscow, the city’s governor has said.

MOSCOW REGION GOVERNOR ANDREI VOROBYEV OFFICIAL TELEGRAM CHANNEL/AP

A 38-year-old security guard for Miratorg, a meat production company, died after being struck by debris from a downed drone in a car park in Domodedovo, an area south of Moscow.

Another Miratorg security guard, a 50-year-old man, died in hospital from head injuries. Both men were working on a night shift when the attack came in the early hours of the morning, Andrei Vorobyov, the Moscow region governor said. He promised to pay one million roubles (£9,000) to the families of those killed.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said that Ukraine will have to give up land seized by Russia as part of any peace deal as he flew to Saudi Arabia for make-or-break talks.

President Zelensky of Ukraine arrived in Jeddah on Monday before talks aimed at reviving Kyiv’s fractured relationship with Washington and persuading President Trump of a means to end the war with Russia without Ukraine’s all-out surrender.

At high-level talks in the Saudi coastal city on Tuesday, Ukraine is expected to lay out its proposal for a sea and air truce as an opening gambit in its pursuit of an equitable peace with Russia. In a post on X, Zelensky said that Ukraine’s position in the talks would be “fully constructive” and he hoped for “practical outcomes” on ending the war.

• Read in full: US secretary of state tells Zelensky he will have to let go of land seized by Russia

Russia should retaliate to Ukraine’s drone attack with an intermediate-range ballistic missile strike, the head of the Russian parliament defence committee has said.

Andrei Kartapolov called for the use of Oreshnik missiles, a newly developed Russian weapon capable of carrying multiple warheads and travelling at hypersonic speeds. It was first used to strike the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in November 2024 and is not thought to have been deployed since.

“The decision is up to the supreme commander-in-chief, but I think it would be a good idea to launch an Oreshnik, preferably more than one,” Kartapolov said on Telegram.

He called Ukraine’s drone attack “a pure propaganda move”. “They are showing that they are ‘cool’, that they can do something. So they need to be destroyed and put in order — nothing more,” Kartapolov concluded.

President Zelensky and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have issued a joint statement following their meeting yesterday.

The leaders said they discussed efforts to achieve “sustainable fair, and comprehensive” peace in Ukraine.

SAUDI PRESS AGENCY/REUTERS

Russia’s ministry of defence claims to have captured 12 settlements in the Kursk region.

“During offensive operations 12 population points were liberated,” the ministry of defence announced on their telegram channel. They also claimed they had seized 100 square kilometres of the region.

The ministry calculated that they had killed 270 Ukrainian soldiers in the past 24 hours, destroyed two Ukrainian tanks and two US-made Paladin artillery systems and several armoured vehicles.

The announcement followed Oleksandr Syrsky, the head of Ukraine’s army, last night stating that Ukraine had inflicted “heavy personnel and equipment losses” on Russian forces in the area.

• Read in full: Russia moves towards ‘encircling Ukrainian forces in Kursk’

Andrey Kartapolov, the Russian chairman of the Duma’s defence committee, said Ukraine’s overnight drone strikes were an attempt by Kyiv to show the American public “that it can still do something”.

He told Russian media the attack was linked to negotiations currently underway in Saudi Arabia.

The meeting in Jeddah between US and Ukrainian officials has now begun, according to Ukraine’s foreign ministry.

TATYANA MAKEYEVA/AFP

TATYANA MAKEYEVA/AFP

GOVERNOR ANDREI VOROBYOV/REUTERS

Russia’s claim to have shot down 337 Ukrainian drones would mark the largest single drone attack from either side of the war if confirmed.

The biggest attack until now came two weeks ago, when Russia launched 267 attack drones against various targets across Ukraine on the eve of the third anniversary of the full-scale invasion. Two people in Kherson were reportedly killed in the attacks.

While the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv is regularly targeted by massive Russian drone and missile strikes, attacks on Moscow are much less frequent.

The largest previous Ukrainian attack on Russia was last November when Russia said that it had downed a total of 70 drones in over six regions, including 34 over Moscow.

Kyiv said the overnight drone attack on Moscow should encourage President Putin to accept an aerial ceasefire proposed by Ukraine.

“The largest drone attack in history was carried out on Moscow and the Moscow region,” said Andriy Kovalenko, a national security council official responsible for countering disinformation, adding: “This is an additional signal to Putin that he should also be interested in a ceasefire in the air.”

Damaged cars after the strike in Domodedovo, outside Moscow

MOSCOW REGION GOVERNOR ANDREI VOROBYEV OFFICIAL TELEGRAM CHANNEL/AP

Ukrainian officials are expected to outline plans for an air and sea truce with Russia during talks today in Saudi Arabia. President Zelensky previously said such a truce would act as an initial test, to see how committed Moscow is to ending their war on Ukraine.

The Ukrainian negotiators who will sit down with their US counterparts in Jeddah today will be aiming to regain the initiative after the surprise launch last month of direct talks between Washington and Moscow over ending the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine was thrown onto the back foot when President Trump announced that he had opened negotiations with President Putin and the two sides met in Saudi Arabia, leaving President Zelensky out in the cold.

Zelensky refused to swiftly sign an agreement exchanging Ukraine’s mineral wealth for US investment, and his trip to Washington to renegotiate it ended in disaster, in front of television cameras in the White House, after a fiery exchange with JD Vance, the vice-president.

• Read in full: Key talks between Ukrainian officials and the US in Jeddah

Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy, is planning to meet President Putin in Moscow later this week, according to Bloomberg.

Witkoff had been expected to join talks with Ukrainian officials in Jeddah today, although his attendance is now uncertain.

As Trump’s longstanding friend, Witkoff had his brief broadened after playing a key role in getting a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel over the line and flying to Moscow in mid-February where he met with Putin and secured a prisoner swap with Russia.

Russian forces attacked Ukraine with a ballistic missile and 126 drones overnight, setting a fuel storage facility on fire and injuring at least two people in different parts of the country, Ukrainian officials said.

The Ukrainian air force said that it shot down the ballistic Iskander-M missile and 79 of the drones, while another 35 drones did not reach their targets likely due to electronic warfare countermeasures.

Dmitry Peskov

MAXIM SHEMETOV/REUTERS

The Kremlin has cautioned Russians not to view America’s refusal to give full-fledged support to Ukraine through “rose-coloured spectacles”.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said that even with the US pausing military aid deliveries to Ukraine, it would be many months before Kyiv’s stockpiles would be depleted.

He also accused the west of waging a proxy war against Russia.

China has said it expects a “just and lasting solution” between Russia and Ukraine can be found as delegates from Kyiv and Washington prepare to meet in Saudi Arabia.

“We expect and hope that parties can reach a just and lasting solution that is acceptable to all sides,” Mao Ning, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, told a daily news conference in Beijing.

If confirmed, the drone attack overnight would be the biggest Ukrainian drone attack inside Russia in the three years since the start of the war.

The Russian military said that the attack targeted ten regions, with its air defences shooting down 337 Ukrainian drones. The majority of the drones (126) were shot down over the Kursk region across the border from Ukraine, parts of which are controlled by Kyiv, according to a statement by Russia’s Defense Ministry.

ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES

Other regions listed in the statement included Belgorod, Bryansk and Voronezh on the border with Ukraine and some regions deeper inside Russia, such as Kaluga, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Oryol and Ryazan.

Ninety-one drones were downed over the Moscow region, where one person was killed and nine more wounded. Two residential buildings had been damaged, according to Russian media.

President Zelensky praised Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s “wise perspective on global affairs” of after meeting Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader yesterday.

President Zelensky with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

SAUDI PRESS AGENCY/REUTERS

“With the Crown Prince, we had a detailed discussion on the steps and conditions needed to end the war and secure a reliable and lasting peace,” the Ukrainian leader posted on X. “I specifically emphasised the issue of the release of prisoners and the return of our children [from Russia], which could become a key step in building trust in diplomatic efforts. A significant part of the discussion was dedicated to the formats of security guarantees.

“We appreciate Saudi Arabia’s readiness to expand economic cooperation and invest in Ukraine. We discussed key sectors for investment, starting with security, energy, and infrastructure.”

• What’s on the agenda for Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia?

Contact between Russia and the United States has become quite intensive, Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, said this morning, according to RIA news agency.

Zakharova was commenting on media reports that President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff plans to visit Moscow this week to meet President Vladimir Putin.

President Zelensky is in Jeddah this morning before high-level talks aimed at ending the war with Russia without his country’s all-out surrender.

Ukraine is expected to lay out its proposal for a sea and air truce as an opening gambit in its pursuit of an equitable peace with Russia.

Zelensky, who will not take part in the talks, said in a post on X that Ukraine’s position would be “fully constructive” and he hoped for “practical outcomes” on ending the war. His chief of staff and defence and foreign ministers will meet President Trump‘s team led by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio.

On route to the Saudi coastal city on Monday, Rubio said Ukraine would have to give up land seized by Russia as part of any peace.

Ukraine targeted Moscow in a “massive” overnight drone attack, Russian authorities said Tuesday.

“The Defense Ministry’s air defense continues to repel a massive attack by enemy drones on Moscow,” Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor, said on Telegram.

AFP

Russia’s defence ministry claimed that it shot down 337 UAVs across the country with 91 drones downed around the capital.

At least one person was killed and three more wounded in the southern suburbs of Moscow, according to the region’s governor, Andrei Vorobyov.

Vorobyov added that drone debris damaged at least seven units in a residential building in another suburb in the southeast. Flights were suspended at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport but later resumed, aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said on Tuesday.

Andriy Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, described a 30-day ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and the US as a “serious step forward”.

In a post on X, he wrote that the deal was important “both on the path to peace and in developing the strategic Ukraine-US partnership”.

“This is what a frank, open, and constructive dialogue brings,” Sybiha added.

Sybiha also thanked Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, who led the negotiations.