Ukraine-Russia battle newest: Trump suggests taking on Ukraine’s nuclear energy vegetation in name with Zelensky

At least 10 people, including four children, were injured following a major overnight attack which damaged residential buildings in the city of Kropyvnytskyi, officials said.

“Kropyvnytskyi has survived through the most massive enemy attack,” said Arkadyi Raikovych, regional governor of the central Ukrainian city.

“Peaceful residential buildings were destroyed – private houses and multi-story buildings.”

Ukraine’s air force says its defences shot down 75 of 171 Russian drones fired overnight.

The Independent’s world affairs editor, Sam Kiley, says Putin may fear a growing relationship between Kyiv and Washington.

By respecting, vocally, Trump’s efforts to get a ceasefire with Russia, Ukraine has exposed Putin’s deep reluctance to agree to any lowering of hostilities until he can be sure of permanently mangling Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Major gaps still exist between the US and Ukraine. First is that Trump’s administration will not acknowledge that Russia invaded Ukraine. The White House has agreed with Russia that Ukraine will have to concede territory its has lost to Moscow. And Ukraine’s request for US military support to guarantee its security after any peace deal is signed remains off the table, as far as Trump is concerned.

But Putin may fear that the unison he has enjoyed with the White House is now discordant as Kyiv and Washington start singing a few lines together.

The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, will be a critical sticking point in future ceasefire negotiations.

While the White House said US control of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants was discussed in yesterday’s phone call between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president said they had only mentioned the Zaporizhzhia facility.

Located on the frontline and occupied by Russia since March 2022, the plant has been used as a shield from which Russian forces can attack the nearby city of Zaporizhzhia – in the knowledge that Ukraine wouldn’t risk major counter-strikes near the plant.

Kyiv has said that Russia will not be allowed to retain control of the plant, which has not been producing energy since it was occupied.

But by suggesting that the could take US control of Zaporizhzhia, Mr Zelensky has now given Washington a financial incentive to push Russia out of the plant.

Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump held what they described as a positive phone call yesterday, the latest development in the pair’s highly volatile relationship.

Soon after the call, Mr Trump took to Truth Social to hail the “very good” discussion – the first time he had spoken with the Ukrainian president since booting him out of the Oval Office nearly three weeks ago.

Mr Zelensky echoed the US president’s sentiment, praising the “positive, very substantive and frank conversation” and reaffirming Kyiv’s willingness to end strikes on energy and other civilian infrastructure.

It threw the ball back into Russian president Vladimir Putin’s court, after he agreed to the partial ceasefire before Kyiv accused Moscow of striking on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure hours later.

Also discussed in the call was the battlefield situation in Kursk, where Ukrainian troops lost large swathes of land reclaimed by Russia, and the provision of air defence systems and missiles to Ukraine, which Mr Trump committed to continue assisting with.

The White House also proposed US control of Ukraine’s electrical supply and nuclear power plants. US control of these plants, it said in a readout after the call, would be “the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

An airfield is on fire deep inside Russia after Ukrainian drones targeted a base housing strategic bombers, according to Russian officials and state media.

The base in Engels, about 700km (435 miles) from the frontlines in Ukraine, hosts Russia’s Tupolev Tu-160 nuclear-capable heavy strategic bombers.

Roman Busargin, the governor of Saratov, said there had been a Ukrainian drone attack on the town of Engels that had left an airfield on fire and that nearby residents had been evacuated.

He did not specifically mention the Engels base, but it is the main airfield in the area.

A plume of black smoke rising above cottages and what appears to be a major fire rising into the dawn sky, according to the unverified footage on Russian Telegram channels.

Russia’s defence ministry said air defences had shot down 132 Ukrainian drones overnight over six different regions in southern Russia, including 54 in the Saratov region where the Engels base is located.

Donald Trump suggested to Volodymyr Zelensky that he should consider giving the US ownership of Ukraine’s power plants to ensure their long-term security, according to a White House statement.

Mr Trump told Zelensky yesterday that the US could be “very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise,” according to a statement from secretary of state Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.

Mr Trump suggested that “American ownership of those plants could be the best protection for that infrastructure,” according to White House officials.

The idea was floated even as the Trump administration looks to finalise an agreement to gain access to Ukraine’s critical minerals as partial repayment for US support for Ukraine during the war.

In Kyiv, Mr Zelensky said the conversation focused on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — which is the largest of its kind in Europe and has been under Russian control since early in the war.

He said Mr Trump posed the idea of “an understanding” in which “the United States can recover” the plant.

An airfield is on fire in Russia’s Saratov region after a Ukrainian drone attack, governor Roman Busargin said this morning.

The Russian official said they are evacuating the nearby region for safety of residents living close to the airfield.

The scale of the fire at the airfield was not immediately clear.

The White House has said America’s intelligence community would continue to share information with the Ukrainian government to bolster Kyiv’s defensive efforts.

The announcement came after president Donald Trump and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky had a phone call yesterday.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the two leaders reviewed the situation in Kursk and agreed to share information closely between their defence staffs as the battlefield situation evolved.

“President Zelensky asked for additional air defence systems to protect his civilians, particularly Patriot missile systems, and president Trump agreed to work with him to find what was available, particularly in Europe,” Ms Leavitt said.

Finnish president Alexander Stubb has said the only real solution to put off Moscow was to “militarise Ukraine to its teeth”.

Talking to Politico, Mr Stubb said the Russian president Vladimir Putin has revealed his real intentions in Ukraine by bombing civilian energy infrastructure just hours after claiming to Donald Trump that Moscow would stop such attacks.

“As someone who’s mediated the ceasefire in Georgia in 2008, I can say this is a fairly typical Putin tactic,” Mr Stubb told Politico.

“We have an aggressor who says he wants a ceasefire and peace, but refuses to commit,” he said.

“And I think yesterday’s phone conversation between Trump and Putin was a step in the right direction, but we are now seeing the true face of Putin,” Mr Stubb said.

Ukraine has an undeniable right to defend itself on its own and supported by partners, he said after his meeting with Mr Zelensky in Helsinki.

Russia and Ukraine have each swapped 175 prisoners, in one of the largest exchanges since the Russian full-scale invasion three years ago.

Moscow also handed over 22 badly wounded Ukrainian prisoners, the Russian defence ministry added, in what it says was a goodwill measure.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “We are bringing back soldiers, sergeants, and officers — warriors who fought for our freedom in the ranks of the Armed Forces, the Navy, the National Guard, the Territorial Defence Forces, and the Border Guard Service.”

The Ukrainian leader said releasing all prisoners of war as well as captured civilians would be an important step toward peace and could help build trust between the two countries. He has repeatedly called for an “all-for-all” prisoner exchange.

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