Ukraine-Russia struggle newest: Lavrov ‘ready’ to fulfill with Marco Rubio after studies of rift with Putin

Russian air defence systems destroyed or intercepted 71 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Russian defence ministry said on its Telegram channel.

Of these, seven were downed over the Kursk region and seven were downed over the Black Sea. Most of the drones were shot down in the bordering regions of Ukraine and Russia, the defence ministry said.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said he was ready to meet US secretary of state Marco Rubio but that Russia would not abandon its core conditions for ending the Ukraine war.

“Secretary of state Marco Rubio and I understand the need for regular communication,” Lavrov, Putin’s foreign minister since 2004, told state news agency RIA Novosti.

“It is important for discussing the Ukrainian issue and promoting the bilateral agenda. That is why we communicate by telephone and are ready to hold face-to-face meetings when necessary,” Lavrov said.

Europe will need to invest in Ukraine’s defence to halt Russia’s war and ensure the continent’s security against increasing threats from Moscow, Czech Republic foreign minister Jan Lipavsky said.

“We know that if we want to stop Russia, we have to pay for it,” Lipavsky told AFP from the sidelines of the European Union-CELAC summit in Santa Maria, Colombia yesterday.

The center-right government in Prague has been a strong ally for Kyiv since the beginning of Russia’s invasion in 2022.

Russia will abide by its obligations under a global nuclear ban, the Kremlin spokesperson said Dmitry Peskov said.

The remarks from Moscow come after days of uncertainty over remarks by US president Donald Trump that appeared to suggest Washington might restart atomic tests after more than three decades.

Trump’s comments came after Russia announced it had tested a new atomic-powered and nuclear-capable underwater drone and a new nuclear-powered cruise missile.

But Moscow did not announce any tests of its nuclear weapons, which last occurred in 1990.

“Putin has repeatedly said that Russia is committed to its obligation to end nuclear tests, and that we have no intention” of conducting them, Peskov told reporters.

Earlier this week, Putin ordered officials to study the possibility of resuming nuclear testing, though Russia said it would not do so unless the US did so first.

Slovakia will not be party to use of frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine, the country’s prime minister Robert Fico said.

His remarks come as the European Commission proposed a plan to allow the EU nations to use up to €185 billion, comprising majority of Russia’s sovereign assets currently frozen in Europe, in order to support Ukraine, without formally confiscating them.

“Slovakia won’t take part in any legal or financial schemes to seize frozen assets if those funds would be spent on military costs in Ukraine,” Fico said, stating that use of these assets will only fuel the war.

“Do we want to end the war or are we stoking it? We are going to give €140 billion to Ukraine to keep the war going. So what does that mean? That the war will go on for at least another two years,” Fico said.

Ukrainian repair services have deployed workers non-stop to fix the damage to power grids caused by massive Russian airstrikes, Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“Repair crews are working almost around the clock in most regions,” Zelensky said in his evening address.

“Restoration efforts are ongoing, and although the situation is difficult, thousands of people are involved in stabilising the system and repairing the damage.”

Around 100,000 homes in the Kharkiv region have plunged into darkness after Russian airstrikes through the weekend.

The massive attacks on Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure have heightened scrutiny over the the energy ministry’s apparent failure to protect the country’s most critical energy facilities near nuclear power sites, according to several current and former officials who spoke to AP.

Ukraine was looking to order 27 Patriot air defence systems from US companies, Volodymyr Zelensky said.

In the meantime, he added, the war-hit nation was looking to borrow essential anti-missile defence systems from its European allies.

Additional help was always needed until Russia continued to wage war, the Ukrainian president said.

“It’s never enough. It’s enough when the war ends. And enough when Putin understands that he has to stop,” he said.

Naive, self-sabotaging and riddled with Moscow’s agents, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons and an arms industry that produced a third of the Soviet Union’s supply, trusted the West and the Kremlin to protect it, and was left fighting for its life.

Now, 30 years on, the start-up nation redefining how war is fought has been forced into a bodge-and-make-do world of arms production, fusing old technology with IT know-how to break the bonds its allies tied to make Kyiv fight one-handed.

The latest innovation is a cruise missile with a range of 3,000km, a maximum speed of 900kmph and a payload of over a tonne, which has been used in strikes deep into Russian territory.

The Independent’s world affairs editor Sam Kiley reports from Kyiv:

Volodymyr Zelensky has said he has good relations with US president Donald Trump and that unlike other western leaders, he was not afraid of him.

“Everyone in the world” was afraid of Trump, Zelensky told The Guardian in an interview at the presidential palace in Kyiv. “That’s the truth”.

But denied the position for Kyiv. “No… we are not enemies with America. We are friends. So why should we be afraid,” he said.

Britain is sending anti-drone equipment and personnel to Belgium after a spate of sightings near airports and military bases, the head of the UK military said Sunday.

In the past week both Belgium’s main international airport at Brussels and Liege, one of Europe’s biggest cargo airports, were forced to close temporarily because of drone incursions. That came after a series of unidentified drone flights near a military base where US nuclear weapons are stored.

Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton, the head of Britain’s armed forces, said the UK had agreed to “deploy our people, our equipment to Belgium to help them,” after a request from Belgian authorities.

“We don’t know – and the Belgians don’t yet know – the source of those drones, but we will help them by providing our kit and capability, which has already started to deploy to help Belgium,” Knighton told the BBC.

Defense Secretary John Healey said the UK was sending a team of Royal Air Force specialists to Nato ally Belgium “to counter rogue drone activity.”

“As hybrid threats grow, our strength lies in our alliances and our collective resolve to defend, deter and protect our critical infrastructure and airspace,” he said.

In recent months, drone incidents across Europe have forced airports to suspend flights at a time. Russia has been blamed in some cases, but Belgium has not said who has been operating the drones. Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken said that he believed that some incidents were part of “a spying operation” that could not have been done by amateurs.

Belgium is home to the headquarters of Nato and the European Union, as well as Europe’s biggest financial clearinghouse holding tens of billions of euros in frozen Russian assets. Many EU countries want to use those assets as collateral to provide loans to Ukraine, but Belgium has so far resisted.