Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky calls for air and sea truce after Moscow launches massive missile attack

Earlier, we reported that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky called for a truce in the air and the sea following a massive Russian aerial attack overnight.

Below, we have his full quote. After talking about the details of last night’s strikes, he wrote: “The first steps to establishing real peace should be to force the sole source of this war, that is, Russia, to stop precisely such attacks against life.

“And this can be realistically controlled. Silence in the sky – a ban on the use of missiles, long-range drones and aerial bombs. And also silence at sea – a real guarantee of normal shipping.

“Ukraine is ready to walk the path to peace, and it is Ukraine that wants peace from the very first second of this war. The task is to force Russia to stop the war.”

Saudi Arabia welcomed on Friday the prospect of hosting a meeting between the United States and Ukraine in Jeddah next week, its foreign ministry said in a statement, adding that the kingdom would continue to do its utmost to end the Ukrainian crisis.

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, has urged Japan to help Ukraine by increasing economic pressure on Russia.

In a televised statement made alongside his Japanese counterpart Takeshi Iwaya in Tokyo, Lammy said: “Our shared interests in a stable international system and rules-based trade is absolutely clear and fundamental.

“Europe is stepping up, but Japan can help too, including on ramping up economic pressure on [Vladimir] Putin.”

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a truce in the air and at sea, as well as additional pressure on Russia, after a massive attack overnight that hit Ukrainian gas infrastructure.

“The first steps to establishing real peace should be forcing the sole source of this war, Russia, to stop such attacks,” Mr Zelensky said on the Telegram app.

The British Ministry of Defence says it believes the Kremlin is showing a continued commitment to the “Russification” of occupied Ukraine by forcing Ukrainian civilians to take on Russian passports to access vital resources.

Vladimir Putin announced earlier this week that Russia had completed issuing passports to residents in the occupied territories.

Around 3.5 million people have been issued passports, it has been reported, meaning they are eligible for conscription into the Russian army.

“Russian efforts to enforce governance in illegally occupied territory, and to coerce and compel Ukrainians to accept Russian passports, demonstrate the Russian senior leadership’s continuing commitment to, and pursuit of, a Russification policy,” the MoD wrote in a statement on X.

Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK said on Friday that it has halted gas production at its facilities in Ukraine’s central Poltava region after they suffered significant damage from a Russian attack overnight.