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Trump reportedly asked Zelensky why he had not struck Moscow to ramp up pressure on Putin
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Donald Trump has said Volodymyr Zelensky should not target Moscow after reportedly privately discussing strikes on the Russian capital with the Ukrainian leader and deliberating whether to send long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, according to reports.
“No, he shouldn’t target Moscow,” Mr Trump told reporters yesterday on the South Lawn of the White House when asked if Mr Zelensky should attack the Russian capital.
In a recent phone call, Mr Trump asked his Ukrainian counterpart why he had not struck Moscow to ramp up the pressure on the Kremlin. “We can, if you give us the weapons,” Mr Zelensky responded, a source told the The Washington Post.
The US president has privately encouraged Kyiv to step up strikes deep in Russian territory, the Financial Times reported.
He is considering sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, one of the weapons used by the US in its dramatic strikes on Iran last month, according to the Post.
It comes after the US president said he is “disappointed but not done” with Russian president Vladimir Putin after threatening 100 per cent secondary tariffs on Moscow if it fails to agree a peace deal within 50 days.
Russia is probing Ukraine’s battlefield weaknesses by sending its weaker forces first in the eastern Pokrovsk direction and then follows it up with trained forces to attack Kyiv’s forces, a US-based think tank has said.
“The commander of a Ukrainian drone detachment operating in the Pokrovsk direction stated that Russian forces are focusing on the eastern flank in the Pokrovsk direction,” the Institute for the Study of War said.
It added: “The commander stated that the Russian military command sends poorly trained infantry to probe Ukrainian defences and sends more professional, better equipped, and better trained personnel to attack Ukrainian weak points.”
Donald Trump’s ultimatum to Russia – that it will face crippling sanctions if it does not accept a peace deal in the next 50 days – is likely to give Moscow’s forces extra time to push forwards with its summer offensive in Ukraine, experts have said.
“The Russian army aims to exhaust the enemy to such an extent that it will not be able to hold the defence, and make multiple advances merge into one or several successes on a strategic scale that will determine the outcome of the war,” Moscow-based military analyst Sergei Poletayev wrote in an analysis.
“It’s not that important where and at what speed to advance: the target is not the capture of this or that line; the target is the enemy army as such.”
Russian forces are closing in on the eastern strongholds of Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka in the Donetsk region, methodically capturing villages near both cities to try to cut key supply routes and envelop their defenders — a slow offensive that has unfolded for months.
Capturing those strongholds would allow Russia to push toward Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, setting the stage for the seizure of the entire Donetsk region.
“The rate of Russian advance is accelerating, and Russia’s summer offensive is likely to put the armed forces of Ukraine under intense pressure,” Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute in London said in a commentary.
Russia’s increasing use of chemical weapons in its war on Ukraine is an effort to cause its smaller neighbour as much pain and suffering as possible, vice president of the European Commission has said.
“As the intelligence services are saying this is intensifying, I think it’s [Russia’s use of chemical weapons] of great, great concern,” Kaja Kallas said.
“It shows that Russia wants to cause as much pain and suffering so that Ukraine would surrender. And, you know, it’s really … unbearable,” the top EU diplomat said, speaking to reporters after a gathering of foreign affairs ministers in Brussels.
She cited intelligence reports from Germany and the Netherlands showing that Russia has used chemical weapons at least 9,000 times since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — and was now boosting the use of banned chemicals.
US officials are now talking with Nato allies and gauging who is willing to send what to Ukraine.
European officials have been broadly receptive.”We are ready to participate,” Danish foreign minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels yesterday ahead of a meeting of European Union ministers.
One official cited Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and Spain as good candidates to send a Patriot battery to Kyiv, either because they had multiple batteries or the threats they face are relatively remote.
Some, including Greece and Spain, have previously resisted appeals from allies to give some of their Patriot systems to Ukraine, arguing that they are essential to defend their own countries and Nato as a whole.
In a win-win situation for the EU and the US, Donald Trump has found a way of arming war-hit Ukraine by asking Kyiv’s European allies to donate their weapons and sell them American replacements.
But it remains unclear which of the EU nations will step up to arm Ukraine and donate Patriot anti-missile defence systems from their stockpiles.
Some Patriot missile defence systems should arrive in Ukraine “within days,” Mr Trump said.
The costly Patriot systems are in high demand among US allies and have proven effective at destroying Russian ballistic missiles aimed at Ukraine’s cities.
During his Oval Office meeting with Mr Trump on Monday, Nato chief Mark Rutte mentioned six of the bloc’s countries – Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada – that were willing to participate in the weapons-purchasing scheme.
The US has also signalled willingness under the proposed arrangement with European allies to send additional offensive weapons, said one source familiar with the matter, though Mr Trump has said that Ukraine should refrain from attacking Moscow.
According to at least 10 officials in the US and Europe, how material any support ends up being for Ukraine will depend on coming negotiations about who provides which equipment.
The first lady could be Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s unlikely ally in the White House, influencing Donald Trump’s recent tougher stance on Russia.
As the president this week decided to deliver Patriot air missiles to Kyiv, Melania Trump has been reminding him of the deadly toll of Russian airstrikes on Ukraine.
“I go home, I tell the first lady, ‘I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation.’ And she says, ‘Oh really, another city was just hit’,” Mr Trump said from the Oval Office on Monday afternoon.
Melania was born behind the Iron Curtain in 1970 and grew up in the former Yugoslavia.
According to Mary Jordan, author of The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump, Melania’s influence does not come as a surprise to those who know her.
A US citizen who helped the Kremlin target Ukrainian troops has been granted a Russian passport in Moscow.
Daniel Martindale, with a trim beard and dressed in a suit and tie, smiled as he received his new documents, as seen during a Russian state television broadcast a report on Tuesday.
“I, Daniel Richard Martindale, voluntarily and consciously accepting the citizenship of the Russian Federation, swear to observe the constitution,” he said in Russian.
“The belief that Russia is not just my home, but also my family – I am extremely glad that this is not only in my heart, but also by law.”
Mr Martindale told reporters at a press conference last November that he established contact with pro-Russian forces via Telegram and passed them information on Ukrainian military facilities from the Donetsk region in the country’s east.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has named Yulia Svyrydenko as Ukraine’s new prime minister in the latest reshuffle of his cabinet.
Ms Svyrydenko, 39, has been serving as first deputy prime minister and economic development and trade minister since November 2021. She had been appointed to lead the revival of Ukraine’s struggling economy only months before Russia invaded in February 2022 and made her task more difficult.
Ms Svyrydenko came to global attention earlier this year when she brokered a minerals deal with the US, fulfilling a crucial demand that the Donald Trump administration had set to help Kyiv negotiate with Russia. The deal helped repair damaged ties between Mr Zelensky and the Trump administration.
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte warned countries such as Brazil, China and India could be hit very hard by secondary sanctions if they continued to do business with Russia.
Mr Rutte made the comment while meeting with senators in the US Congress the day after President Donald Trump announced new weapons for Ukraine and threatened “biting” secondary tariffs of 100 per cent on the buyers of Russian exports unless there is a peace deal in 50 days.
“My encouragement to these three countries, particularly is, if you live now in Beijing, or in Delhi, or you are the president of Brazil, you might want to take a look into this, because this might hit you very hard,” Mr Rutte told reporters, who met with the US leader on Monday and agreed the new steps.
“So please make the phone call to Vladimir Putin and tell him that he has to get serious about peace talks, because otherwise this will slam back on Brazil, on India and on China in a massive way,” Mr Rutte added.
US president Donald Trump said that weapons are already being shipped to Ukraine.
On being asked yesterday about what he thought of Patriot missiles being purchased by the US allies, Mr Trump said: “They are already being shipped”.
He added that the Patriot anti-missile defence systems are coming in from Germany.
“And in all cases, the United States gets paid back in full. So what’s happening, as you know, is the European Union, if you look, mostly European Union stuff, but let’s put it in the form of Nato, it’s very similar, but Nato’s going to pay us back for everything,” the US president said.
Mr Trump also added that he has not spoken to Russian president Vladimir Putin since sanctions against Russia were announced on Monday.
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Ukraine Russia war latest: Trump tells Zelensky not to ‘target Moscow’ after asking about hitting Russian capital – The Independent
