Ukraine-Russia battle newest: Vance accuses Kyiv and Moscow of ‘haggling over a few square kilometres’

President Donald Trump repeated his complaint about Nato after a closed-door meeting with the alliance’s secretary-general Mark Rutte on Wednesday for discussions that had been expected to be aimed at soothing Trump’s anger with the military alliance over the Iran war.

Ahead of the private meeting, Trump had suggested the US may consider leaving the trans-Atlantic alliance after Nato member countries ignored his call to help as Iran effectively shut the the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping waterway, and sent gas prices soaring.

Afterward, he issued an all-caps comment on social media suggesting he remained aggrieved. “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN,” Trump said in his post. The White House did not immediately offer any further updates.

The Republican president has had a warm relationship with Rutte in the past, and the meeting came after the US and Iran late Tuesday agreed to a two-week ceasefire that includes the reopening of the strait.

The nascent ceasefire was struck after Trump said he would strike Iran’s power plants and bridges, threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight.”

Hungary’s foreign minister offered to send his Russian counterpart a document about Ukraine’s European Union accession, leaked recordings purported to show, in the latest indication of Budapest’s warm relations with Moscow.

The audio clips released by a consortium of investigative news outlets ⁠including VSquare.org were the latest in a series of leaked conversations that purport to show how Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban’s government has worked to serve Russian interests and undermine EU efforts to aid Ukraine.

While the audio has not been independently verified, Hungary’s foreign minister Peter Szijjarto has previously said wiretapping of his phone ⁠calls was a “huge scandal” and Orban has ordered an investigation ​into ⁠it.

“I will send it ‌to you. It’s not a problem,” Szijjarto says in one conversation, after Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov says Moscow is trying to get a document about the role of minority ‌languages in Ukraine’s EU accession talks.

It was not clear what the ‌document in question was and whether it was available in the public domain.

Russian drones damaged a power substation in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region yesterday, while Moscow’s forces repeatedly attacked areas in regions farther east, ⁠killing one person, Ukrainian officials said.

Emergency services were at the site of the substation attack and no injuries had been recorded, Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.

DTEK, a large ⁠private energy company, said ​one ⁠of its substations had been damaged and crews were awaiting word that it was safe to begin ⁠repairs. DTEK said the region had been under Russian attack “almost ​round ⁠the clock”.

Energy infrastructure has ‌been under attack in Ukraine for many months. The Black Sea port of Odesa, vital to many Ukrainian exports, ‌and areas in the surrounding region, ‌have been frequent targets of the Russian military in four years of conflict.

Another strike by Russian glide bombs killed a man ⁠in a village outside the southeastern town of Zaporizhzhia, the governor of Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Fedorov, said yesterday.

In adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian drones and artillery attacked a string of towns nearly 40 times throughout the day, governor Oleksandr Ganzha said.

Officials also reported drone attacks in Sloviansk, near the front line ‌in eastern Donetsk region, and in Kherson region ​in the south and Sumy region on the ‌border with Russia.

In southern ⁠Russia’s Krasnodar region, falling drone debris killed a resident ⁠on the balcony of an apartment building northeast of the Black Sea ‌port of ​Novorossiysk, governor Venyamin Kondratiev said.

US vice president JD Vance has accused Russia and Ukraine of holding out on a ceasefire for the sake of a small portion of territory.

Russian and Ukrainian forces are engaged in combat along a frontline spanning over 1,200km (750 miles), four years after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of his European neighbour.

“What I would say to both the Russians and the Ukrainians is, you know, we’re talking about haggling at this point over a few square kilometres of territory in one direction or another. Is that worth losing hundreds of thousands of additional Russian and Ukrainian young men? Is that worth additional months or even years of higher energy prices and economic devastation? We think the answer is clearly no,” Vance said.

He added that “it takes two to tango” and the Russians and Ukrainians must reach an agreement themselves.

It’s unclear how Vance reached the figures in his remarks. Russia has demanded Ukraine give up the entirety of the Donbas region despite failing to take it by force, but Ukraine still controls around 20 per cent of Donetsk – roughly 5,300 square km or 2,000 square miles.

In March, Ukrainian forces recaptured nearly all the territory lost in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk industrial region, driving Russian troops out of more than 400 square kilometres (150 square miles).

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said the ceasefire in the Middle East is an opportunity for a halt to fighting in Ukraine.

“A ceasefire is the right decision that leads to ending the war,” Zelensky said in a post on X, adding that an agreement which “paves the way for diplomatic efforts” would save lives and stop the destruction of cities.

“Security must be guaranteed, and the interests of every nation must be taken into account when defining post-war arrangements,” Zelensky said, calling for freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.

Ukraine has “always called for a ceasefire” in the war with Russia and Kyiv would respond in kind if Moscow stops its strikes, he said.

Ceasefire efforts in Ukraine have yielded no results, with both sides continuing long-range strikes.

US vice president JD Vance has said Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky ⁠made “scandalous” comments about Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, as he echoed Budapest’s accusations that Kyiv was using energy supplies to try to influence elections there.

In an effort to sway the ballot, Budapest has accused Kyiv of deliberately stopping flows of Russian oil through the Druzhba pipeline. Kyiv says the pipeline was damaged by a Russian ​drone ⁠attack in late January and it is ‌fixing it as fast as it can.

Hungary responded by blocking a €90bn (£78.3bn) EU loan for Ukraine, prompting Zelensky to say he could give the address of whoever was responsible to ‌the Ukrainian army, who could “speak with him in their own ‌language”.

Vance said Orban had told him about Zelensky’s remarks.

“It’s completely scandalous,” Vance said. “You should never have a foreign head of government… threatening the head of government of an allied nation,” without addressing the reports of Russian attack on the pipeline.

Vance’s remarks came during a visit to Budapest aimed at boosting the chances of the nationalist Orban, who faces the toughest challenge of his 16-year rule in an 12 April election seen as ⁠crucial for the influence of supporters of Donald Trump’s ​MAGA ⁠movement in Europe.

Russia warned Baltic countries not to let ⁠Ukrainian drones use their airspace to carry out attacks on targets in Russia.

Foreign ministry spokesperson ⁠Maria Zakharova ​was speaking after ⁠a spate of Ukrainian drone attacks on ⁠Russia’s Baltic ports of Primorsk ​and ⁠Ust-Luga, which have ‌disrupted its oil exports.

“Without a doubt, we view the ‌recent drone incidents as terrorist ‌attacks against the Russian Federation, carried out against industrial and ⁠civilian facilities,” Zakharova said at her weekly press conference.

“And if third countries have provided or are providing their territory for enemy drones to fly over, ‌they must fully understand – and ​we are confident ‌they do, ⁠because it has been explained ⁠to them – the risks they are ‌exposing ​themselves to.”

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said he is welcoming the ceasefire between the US and Iran, adding that ⁠Kyiv was ready to “respond in kind” if Moscow ceased strikes.

“Ukraine has always called for a ceasefire in the war waged by Russia here in ⁠Europe against our ​state ⁠and our people, and we support the ceasefire in the Middle East and ⁠the Gulf that paves the way for ​diplomatic ⁠efforts,” he wrote on ‌X.

“It is obvious to everyone that a ceasefire can create the right preconditions for ‌agreements,” he added.

Ukraine had previously ‌praised US “decisiveness” in attacking Iran, which is a close ally of Russia and has supplied thousands of drones ⁠that have been used to hit Ukraine.

Kyiv has repeatedly called for Moscow to agree to a full ceasefire in its four-year war so that the two sides can negotiate a peace deal. Russia says it wants ‌comprehensive terms for peace to be agreed ​before it stops fighting.