Europe would struggle to collectively muster 25,000 troops to be part of a “deterrence” force in Ukraine because its armies are undermanned and underfunded, sources have disclosed.
The Times was given a rare insight into conversations between Europe’s defence ministers and military chiefs as they thrashed out plans for a “coalition of the willing” force.
Donald Trump has demanded a permanent ceasefire in Ukraine after Vladimir Putin announced a three-day pause in fighting to begin in May.
Mr Trump, who is pushing for a peace deal to be agreed this week, wants to see a “permanent ceasefire” and is growing “increasingly frustrated” with both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.
Asked about Mr Trump’s meeting with Mr Zelensky on the sidelines of the Pope’s funeral this weekend, she said: “He is increasingly frustrated with the leaders of both countries.
Donald Trump’s latest peace plan landed with a bang, leaving Europe in shock. The version leaked last week suggested US recognition of Crimea; the de facto recognition of Russian-occupied territories; no Nato membership for Ukraine; a lifting of sanctions; and economic co-operation between the US and Russia. European media called it capitulation and insisted it be resisted. Note the passive tense. But the sorry truth is, we Europeans have no alternative.
Inevitably, Trump’s most recent plan will not be the final one. We’ve seen diplomacy playing out in the days since, most visibly in St Peter’s Basilica, where Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky sat down for an impromptu encounter. But also online, where Trump threatened to take action against Vladimir Putin unless he stopped the nightly bombings of residential areas in Ukraine. Given the President’s unpredictability, none of us knows what the final version will look like.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Monday declared a three-day ceasefire in Ukraine on May 8-10 to mark the World War II Victory Day, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration decides whether a deal to end the more than three-year war is within reach.
The Kremlin said that the truce will start at 0000 on May 8 (2100 GMT May 7) and last through the end of May 10, adding that Putin ordered the full cessation of hostilities on “humanitarian grounds” to mark the May 9 holiday celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany.
President Trump has held an extraordinary one-to-one meeting with President Zelensky on the fringes of the Pope’s funeral before accusing President Putin of stringing him along over ending the war in Ukraine.
A Ukraine-Russia peace deal appeared to be inching closer after the intense exchanges in St Peter’s Basilica. Zelensky said that their 15-minute conversation had the “potential to become historic”, while the White House described it as “a very productive discussion”.
An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine in 2024 while fighting under contract for the Russian military, according to an investigation by independent Russian media.
Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, died on 4 April 2024 in “Eastern Europe”, according to an obituary published by his family. He was the son of Juliane Gallina, who was appointed the deputy director for digital innovation at the Central Intelligence Agency in February 2024.
Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Donald Trump for a “potentially historic” one-on-one meeting in St Peter’s Basilica on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral.
The two leaders met for private talks amid speculation “funeral diplomacy” could bring a breakthrough on their differences over ending the war in Ukraine.
They were pictured hunched over and facing each other on two simple red chairs inside the Italian high renaissance church, moments before the ceremony began.
h/t Mauser
A senior Russian military commander was killed on Friday in a car explosion in a suburb of Moscow, investigators said.
The Investigative Committee of Russia, the country’s equivalent to the F.B.I., issued a statement identifying the officer as Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a senior figure in the Russian General Staff who was directly involved in planning operations. The investigators said that they had opened a criminal inquiry into the explosion, which took place in the town of Balashikha, east of Moscow.
BREAKING:
Looks like Ukraine’s military intelligence has eliminated one of Russia’s top-level war criminals.
Deputy Chief of the Main Operations Directorate of the Russian General Staff, Major General Yaroslav Moskalik, was killed in a car bomb explosion in Moscow this morning pic.twitter.com/mUPLv1UAP5
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 25, 2025
It’s the summer of 2023 and Ukrainian troops are furiously digging trenches under Russian fire in the pine forests outside Kreminna. Suddenly, a rocket crashes to the ground, and Zhakhar, a special forces sergeant, shouts at his troops to retreat to the car.
It was a dispiriting pushback, but at least it gave him a chance to inspect his latest battlefield trophy. Examining two boxes in his hand, he saw markings that were not Russian, but clearly Chinese.
Donald Trump has accused Volodymyr Zelenskyy of jeopardising what he claimed was an imminent peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, as he gave the clearest hint yet that the US would be willing to formally recognise Russia’s seizure of Crimea as part of any agreement.
The US president claimed a deal to end the war – largely negotiated between Washington and Moscow – was close, while the vice-president, JD Vance, said the agreement would include a proposal to freeze the conflict roughly along the current frontlines.
It was unclear how Ukraine and its European allies, who were meeting in London on Wednesday, would respond to a plan largely constructed in their absence. Zelenskyy countered by proposing a simple ceasefire without conditions on both sides, though this did not immediately gain any traction from the US.
President Putin’s Easter truce ended with explosions this morning as missiles hit a port city in the south of the country, signalling the start of a potentially crucial week for floundering peace talk efforts.
“With the end of the ceasefire, the armed forces of the Russian Federation continued to conduct the special military operation,” the Russian defence ministry said after Putin’s 30-hour truce expired at midnight.
Putin’s truce was widely seen by analysts as an attempt to convince President Trump that Moscow remains serious about a lasting peace, despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary.
Ukraine’s military has reported Russian drone attacks on several regions overnight, just hours after the end of a 30-hour “Easter truce” declared by Moscow.
Air raid alerts were issued by Ukraine’s air force for the Kyiv region, as well as Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia.
In the southern city of Mykolaiv, Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said “explosions were heard”. It was not immediately clear whether there were any casualties.
The US is open to recognising the annexed Crimea peninsula as Russian territory as part of a wider Ukraine peace deal.
On Thursday, Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy, presented allies with proposals in Paris that would freeze current battle lines and leave most Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory under Moscow’s control.
The potential concession comes as Donald Trump, the US president, signalled on Friday that his administration would abandon peace-brokering efforts without quick progress.
Vladimir Putin has declared an “Easter truce” in his invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian president said all military operations in Ukraine would cease from 6pm local time on Saturday (4pm UK) until midnight on April 21.
Ukraine has not responded, although Putin said he expected President Zelensky to “follow our example”.
The US will abandon its efforts “within days” to broker a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine unless there are clear signs a settlement can be reached, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said, as Kyiv says it has signed a memorandum with the US over a controversial minerals deal.
Speaking in Paris on Friday after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders, Rubio said Donald Trump was still interested in a deal. But he added that the US president had many other priorities around the world and was willing to move on unless there were signs of progress.
Rubio’s comments are the clearest signal yet that the White House is ready to walk away from its diplomatic attempts to negotiate an end to the war. Last month Ukraine agreed unconditionally to a US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire.
