Ukraine-Russia war latest: Starmer joins emergency Europe summit amid Zelensky’s fury at missing Kremlin-US talks

« I told them that I want the equivalent of like $500 billion worth of rare earths, and they’ve essentially agreed to do that.”

China, with whom Trump has threatened a trade war, is the world’s largest producer of rare earths and many other critical minerals. Both the U.S and Europe have sought to reduce their dependence on Beijing.

The acceleration in Ukraine diplomacy means Europe needs to do more and in a better way, a French presidency official said ahead of informal talks later on Monday among several key European leaders in Paris.

US president Donald Trump stunned European allies in Nato and Ukraine last week when he announced he had held a call with Russian president Vladimir Putin without consulting them and would start a peace process.

Mr Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg jolted Europe further on Saturday when he said it would not have a seat at the table for the peace talks, even after Washington sent a questionnaire to European capitals to ask what they could contribute to security guarantees for Kyiv.

In the same six-point questionnaire, the US asked European allies in Nato what they would need from Washington to participate in Ukraine security arrangements.

« We believe that, as a result of the acceleration on the Ukrainian issue, and also as a result of what American leaders are saying, there is a need for Europeans to do more, better and in a coherent manner for our collective security, » the official told reporters.

Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that the risk Russia will occupy Europe is “100 per cent” if the US leaves Nato, adding intelligence showed 150,000 of Putin’s soldiers amassing in neighbouring Belarus.

The Ukrainian president issued the stark warning during an interview with NBC News, where he stressed that he trusted President Donald Trump, but would not accept any ceasefire deal conducted without Ukraine at the negotiating table.

Mr Zelensky voiced his concern that Putin was waiting for the weakening of Nato, and that the withdrawal of US military support in Europe would place his country and former Soviet bloc countries in a “difficult position”.

He told Kristen Welker: “There are risks that this can be Poland and Lithuania because we believe – we believe that Putin will wage war against Nato.”

Russia’s air defence units intercepted and destroyed 90 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Russian defence ministry said on Monday.

Thirty-eight of the drones were downed over the Sea of Azov, 24 over the southern Russia region of Krasnodar, and the rest over several other regions in the south and west of the country, as well as over the Crimean Peninsula, the ministry said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

The ministry said that its defence units also destroyed a guided missile over the Sea of Azov.

Ukrainian forces have recaptured the village of Pischane to the southwest of Pokrovsk, according to military officials, amid growing signs that Russia’s advance is slowing.

Russian progress in Ukraine has stalled, with the high rate of Russian casualties having a demoralising effect on combat units, according to Russian bloggers.

Major Viktor Trehubov, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s ground forces in the east, told the Guardian that 7,000 Russian soldiers died in January in the battle for Pokrovsk, and 15,000 are wounded or missing.

Zelensky has made it clear that he would never accept a peace deal negotiated by the U.S. and Russia without Ukraine having an equal place at the table

“I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine, never,” Zelenskyy told ‘Meet the Press’ moderator Kristen Welker on Friday in Munich, Germany. “This is the war in Ukraine, against us, and it’s our human losses.”

He added: “There is no any leader in the world who can really make a deal with Putin without us about us.”

Zelensky also said he told Trump not to trust Putin, and stressed that America, Europe, Ukraine and Russia all needed to be involved in ceasefire deals.

Donald Trump on Sunday said he believed Vladimir Putin is eager for a deal, while also noting that Russia has historically impressed on the battlefield.

« I think he wants to stop fighting, » Mr Trump said. « They have a big powerful machine, you understand that they defeated Hitler and they defeated Napoleon. They’ve been fighting a long time. »

Heather Conley, a deputy assistant secretary of state for Central Europe during Republican President George W Bush’s administration, said that with Mr Trump’s current approach to Moscow, the US appears to be « seeking to create a new international approach based on a modern-day concert of great powers”.

« As in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is only for the great powers to decide the fate of nations and to take — either by purchase or force — that which strengthens the great powers’ economic and security interests, » Ms Conley said.

« Each of these powers posit claims or coerce countries in their respective regional spheres of influence.

« There is some debate inside the administration about its developing approach to Moscow, with some more in favor of a rapid rapprochement and others wary that Mr Putin is looking to fray the Euro-Atlantic alliance as he aims to reclaim Russian status and wield greater influence on the continent, according to the US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mr Trump said last week that he would like to see Russia rejoin what is now the Group of Seven major economies. Russia was suspended from the G8 after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region.

White House officials on Sunday pushed back against the notion that Europe has been left out of the conversation regarding a peace deal for Ukraine.

Officials said Donald Trump spoke by phone in recent days with French president Emmanuel Macron and is expected to consult prime minister Keir Starmer this week.

During his visits to Munich and Paris, vice president JD Vance held talks with Mr Macron, British foreign secretary David Lammy, German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte as well as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

« Now they may not like some of this sequencing that is going on in these negotiations but I have to push back on this … notion that they aren’t being consulted, » national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News.

« They absolutely are and at the end of the day, though, this is going to be under President Trump’s leadership that we get this war to an end, » Mr Waltz said.

Marco Rubio, who was in Israel on Sunday before heading to Saudi Arabia, said the US is taking a careful approach as it reengages with Moscow after the Biden administration’s clampdown on contacts with the Kremlin following the February 2022 invasion.

President Donald Trump’s approach to ending Russia’s war against Ukraine has left European allies and Ukrainian officials worried they are being largely sidelined by the new US administration as Washington and Moscow plan direct negotiations.

With the three-year war grinding on, Mr Trump is sending secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff to Saudi Arabia for talks with Russian counterparts, according to a US official who was not authorised to publicly discuss the upcoming diplomatic efforts and spoke on condition of anonymity.

It is unclear to what extent Ukrainian or European officials will be represented in discussions expected to take place in Riyadh in the coming days. The official said the United States sees negotiations as early-stage and fluid, and who ultimately ends up at the table could change.

In an exchange with reporters on Sunday, Mr Trump said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky « will be involved » in the negotiations. Mr Trump offered no further explanation.

The outreach comes after comments by top Trump advisers this past week, including vice president JD Vance, raised new concerns in Kyiv and other European capitals that the Republican administration is intent on quick resolution to the conflict with minimum input from Europe.

« Decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending, » Mr Zelensky said in an address on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference. « From now on, things will be different, and Europe needs to adjust to that. »

A Ukrainian drone attack on Krasnodar injured one person and damaged at least 12 houses, the governor of the southern Russia region said early this morning.

In a post on the Telegram messaging app, governor Veniamin Kondratyev called the attack « massive », but did not provide further detail.

Russia’s Shot Telegram news channel reported that Ukraine tried to attack the Ilsky oil refinery and that drone wreckage sparked a fire there.

The report could not be independently verified.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. It has said in the past its attacks inside Russia target infrastructure key to Moscow’s war efforts.

The refinery, which has a capacity of around 138,000 barrels per day, has been a target of numerous Ukrainian attacks since 2023, when Kyiv stepped up its drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.