Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv allies pledge to take Russian oil off market to ‘choke’ Putin’s war machine

Kirill Dmitriev, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, said yesterday he believes his country, the US and Ukraine are close to a diplomatic solution to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Speaking to CNN after arriving in Washington for talks with US officials, Mr Dmitriev said that a meeting between Donald Trump and Mr Putin had not been cancelled, as the US president described it, and that the two leaders will likely meet at a later date.

The planned summit was put on hold on Tuesday, as Russia’s rejection of an immediate ceasefire cast a cloud over attempts at negotiations. Trump said he cancelled the planned meeting with Putin in Budapest because of a lack of progress in diplomatic efforts toward ending the war and a sense that the timing was off.

However, Mr Dmitriev said, “I believe Russia and the US and Ukraine are actually quite close to a diplomatic solution.”

Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine overnight have killed at least three people and wounded 17 others, local officials said.

One person was killed and 10 wounded in a ballistic missile attack on the capital Kyiv today, said Timur Tkachenko, head of the city military administration.

Three of the wounded were taken to hospital, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.

A fire broke out in a non-residential building in one location, while debris from intercepted missiles fell in an open area at another site, damaging windows in nearby buildings, the emergency service added.

“Explosions in the capital. The city is under ballistic attack,” mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote during the onslaught.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, two people were killed and seven wounded, acting regional governor Vladyslav Haivanenko said, adding that apartment buildings, private homes, an outbuilding, a shop and at least one vehicle were damaged.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched nine missiles and 62 drones, and air defences intercepted four missiles and 50 drones.

Russia’s defence ministry said its own air defences shot down 121 Ukrainian drones over Russia overnight.

For a quarter century, President Vladimir Putin has faced the specter of Russia’s shrinking and aging population.

In 1999, a year before he came to power, the number of babies born in Russia plunged to its lowest recorded level. In 2005, Putin said the demographic woes needed to be resolved by maintaining “social and economic stability.”

In 2019, he said the problem still “haunted” the country.As recently as Thursday, he told a Kremlin demographic conference that increasing births was “crucial” for Russia.

Putin has launched initiatives to encourage people to have more children – from free school meals for large families to awarding Soviet-style “hero-mother” medals to women with 10 or more children.

“Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight, and even more children,” Putin said in 2023. “Let’s preserve and revive these wonderful traditions. Having many children and a large family must become the norm.”

Russia is trying new restrictions to halt the backslide and embrace what it calls “traditional family values” with laws banning the promotion of abortion and “child-free ideology” and outlawing all LGBTQ+ activism.

Officials believe such values are “a magic wand” for solving demographic problems, said Russian feminist scholar Sasha Talaver.

In the government’s view, women might be financially independent, but they should be “willing and very excited to take up this additional work of reproduction in the name of patriotism and Russian strength,” she said.

The ringleader of an arson attack on Ukraine-linked businesses in London last year was on Friday jailed for 17 years for what prosecutors described as “a sustained campaign of terrorism and sabotage on UK soil”.

Dylan Earl, 21, admitted aggravated arson over the 2024 blaze which targeted companies delivering satellite equipment from Elon Musk’s Starlink to Ukraine, which is vital for its defence against Russia’s continuing invasion.

He also became the first person convicted under the National Security Act for his role in a plot targeting a wine shop and restaurant in London’s upmarket Mayfair district, with plans to kidnap the owner, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Prosecutors said that Earl also discussed with his handler from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group plans to kidnap the co-founder of finance app Revolut and torch a warehouse in the Czech Republic.

Earl appeared in the dock at London’s Old Bailey court alongside Jake Reeves, 24, who had also pleaded guilty to aggravated arson and a National Security Act charge of obtaining a material benefit from a foreign intelligence agency.

“This case is all about the efforts of the Russian Federation to gain pernicious global influence using social media to enlist saboteurs vast distances from Moscow,” Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said.

She sentenced Earl to 17 years in prison for arson and National Security Act charges, along with a separate drugs charge. Reeves was sentenced to 12 years.

Ukraine’s state security service has unveiled a significantly upgraded sea drone, the “Sea Baby,” which it claims can now operate across the entire Black Sea, carry substantially heavier weaponry, and utilise artificial intelligence for precision targeting.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has previously credited these unmanned naval vessels with compelling a strategic shift in Russia’s Black Sea operations, having used them to target Russian shipping and infrastructure.

The SBU confirmed the Sea Baby’s operational range has been extended from 1,000km to 1,500km, with its payload capacity now reaching up to 2,000 kilograms.

Ukrainian forces operating behind enemy lines derailed Russia’s hopes of reconnecting the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station before Vladimir Putin’s birthday earlier this month, sources have claimed.

Ukrainian sources told The Guardian that they believed Russia was trying to bring power back to the plant in time for the president’s birthday on 7 October, after it lost external power in late September.

Europe’s largest power station, which has been in Russian control since early in the invasion, was forced to operate on diesel backup generators after its last remaining external power line was severed on 23 September. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other.

James C. Reynolds has more.

At least eight people suffered injuries after Russia fired ballistic missiles in an overnight attack on Kyiv.

Explosions were heard in Kyiv just before 4 am local time, Kyiv Independent reported.

Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said fire broke out at multiple locations on the left bank of the Ukrainian capital.

The US has this week imposed new sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest petroleum-producing companies.

After efforts to negotiate an end to Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine appeared to come to a standstill, the Trump administration made the move in a bid to “increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector” and “degrade the Kremlin’s ability to raise revenue for its war machine and support its weakened economy”.

So how much impact could the move have, and what are the implications for countries who rely on Russia to supply their oil?

China, India and Turkey are the biggest recipients of Russian oil that used to go to the European Union. The EU’s decision to boycott most Russian seaborne oil from January 2023 led to a massive shift in crude flows from Europe to Asia.

Since then, China has been the No 1 overall consumer of Russian energy, having purchased some $219.5bn (£164bn) worth of Russian oil, gas and coal, followed by India ($133.4bn/£100bn) and Turkey ($90.3bn/£67.7bn).

US president Donald Trump said that he would like China to help Washington in its dealings with Russia.

“I’d like China to help us out with Russia,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. “I’d like to see China help us out.”

Mr Trump, who left Washington on Friday night, is set for a five-day trip to Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, his first to the region and longest journey abroad since taking office in January.

He will meet Chinese president Xi Jinping in South Korea later this week.

French president Emmanuel Macron has announced that France will soon supply Ukraine with additional Aster missiles for its SAMP/T air defence systems, along with Mirage-2000 fighter jets.

“In the coming days, we will deliver additional Aster missiles, new training programs and new Mirage aircraft. It is very important to continue our efforts to support Ukraine and put pressure on Russia,” Mr Macron said during a meeting of the “Coalition of the Willing”.

France and the UK had earlier supplied Ukraine with SCALP and Storm Shadow long-range missiles, which were most recently used in a strike on a Russian chemical plant in the Bryansk region.

The first French Mirage-2000 fighters arrived in Ukraine in February 2025, according to reports.