Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kremlin responds to Trump’s nuclear testing after flaunting Poseidon submarine

The American president has outwardly pursued a rapprochement in US-Russian relations since returning to the White House in January, but continued provocations from Moscow have pressed Washington to change its stance.

Of the 9,614 warheads believed to be in military stockpiles around the world today, around 2,100 US, Russian, British and French warheads are on high alert and ready for use on short notice, according to the US think tank the Federation of American Scientists.

The United States has cancelled a planned Budapest summit between president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin following Russia’s firm stance on hardline demands regarding Ukraine, the Financial Times reported today.

The decision came after a tense call between the two countries’ top diplomats, the Financial Times said.

The intended summit between Trump and Putin was put on hold on last week after Moscow refused to budge on its red lines for ending the war in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has reacted cautiously to Donald Trump’s remarks about the resumption of nuclear weapons testing by the United States, saying that Russia had not tested but that Moscow would follow suit if Washington did.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded to a question about Trump’s remarks and whether it marked the start of a new arms race between Russia and the US.

“Trump mentioned in his statement that other countries are allegedly testing nuclear weapons… If the Burevestnik test is somehow meant, then it is not a nuclear test,” Peskov said.

Trump ordered the US military yesterday to immediately resume testing nuclear weapons after a gap of 33 years, minutes before beginning a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping.

“President Trump mentioned in his statement that other countries are engaged in testing nuclear weapons. Until now, we didn’t know that anyone was testing,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Russia, he said, had received no prior notification from the United States about a change to Washington’s position on nuclear testing.

Ukraine is intensifying efforts to defend the strategic hub of Pokrovsk, aiming to secure supply and evacuation routes and root out Russian infantry infiltrating the city, the country’s top army commander said.

Russia’s army has been inching towards Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region for more than a year.

Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi visited his troops in the area as Russia, almost four years into its invasion of Ukraine, increased its assaults.

“The enemy infantry, avoiding combat, is gathering in urban areas and changing locations, so the primary task is to locate and destroy them,” Syrskyi said on his Telegram channel.

Ukraine was taking steps to “strengthen the stability of defences” in the city and protect supply and evacuation routes, Syrskyi said.

According to Ukraine’s military, at least 200 Russian military personnel have entered the city as small-arms firefights raged in the former logistics hub.

Taking Pokrovsk could enable advances in the Donetsk region, which Russia aims to fully occupy, and the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region, said Oleksandr Kovalenko, a Ukrainian military analyst.

Russia was sending groups of three to four soldiers “non-stop,” Kovalenko said.

The Kremlin has reacted cautiously to Donald Trump’s remarks about the resumption of nuclear weapons testing by the United States, saying that Russia had not tested but that Moscow would follow suit if Washington did.

Trump ordered the US military yesterday to immediately resume testing nuclear weapons after a gap of 33 years, minutes before beginning a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping.

“President Trump mentioned in his statement that other countries are engaged in testing nuclear weapons. Until now, we didn’t know that anyone was testing,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Russia, he said, had received no prior notification from the United States about a change to Washington’s position on nuclear testing.

Asked if the Kremlin felt that a new nuclear arms race had been triggered by Trump’s remarks, Peskov said: “Not really.”

Putin, who commands the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal, has repeatedly said that if any country tests a nuclear weapon then Russia will do so too.

“I want to recall President Putin’s statement, which has been repeated many times: if someone departs from the moratorium, Russia will act accordingly,” Peskov added.

Any dialogue from Russia with Japan regarding a peace treaty to formally end the Second World War could only begin once Tokyo abandoned what Moscow described as a damaging “anti-Russian” stance.

Soviet troops took control of four islands off Japan’s Hokkaido – known in Russia as the Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories – at the end of the war and they have remained in Moscow’s hands ever since.

Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, in a speech last week, scolded Russia for its “aggression against Ukraine” but also said that Japan maintains “its policy of resolving the territorial issue and concluding a peace treaty”.

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said she had not seen anything new in the remarks by Takaichi, and that for any progress Tokyo would have to change its tone.

“We have repeatedly stated before that the path to resuming dialogue with Japan will open only after Tokyo actively abandons its anti-Russian course aimed at harming our country and its citizens,” Zakharova told reporters when asked by Reuters about the prospects for a peace deal.

Zakharova said Tokyo’s “unfriendly” policy towards Russia had led relations towards a deadend.

“This unfriendly deadend approach was chosen by the Japanese side, not by us,” Zakharova added.

The power supply will be limited in parts of Ukraine as Russian attacks hit energy facilities in central, western, and southeastern regions, Ukrainian officials said.

The government announced nationwide limits on electricity supplies to retail and industrial consumers. In some regions, water supplies and heating were also disrupted.

Regional officials said two energy facilities in the western Lviv region had been damaged. DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said its thermal power stations in a number of regions were under attack.

“(T)his attack is a bad blow to our efforts to keep power flowing this winter,” said Maxim Timchenko, DTEK’s CEO.

“Based on the intensity of attacks for the past two months, it is clear Russia is aiming for the complete destruction of Ukraine’s energy system.”

Six children were among the 17 people wounded in strikes on Zaporizhzhia, its governor said. Four people were injured in the Vinnytsia region, officials said.

At least seven people, including a seven-year-old girl, was injured after Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and other targets yesterday, officials said.

Regional officials said two men were killed in the southeastern industrial city of Zaporizhzhia, and a seven-year-old girl from the central Vinnytsia region died in hospital from injuries sustained in the attacks.

The regional governor said a later drone strike on a village south of Zaporizhzhia killed one person and injured another.

Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko accused Moscow of targeting Ukrainian people and power supplies as the cold winter months approach.

“Its goal is to plunge Ukraine into darkness. Ours is to preserve the light,” Svyrydenko said on the Telegram app. “To stop the terror, we need more air defence systems, tougher sanctions, and maximum pressure on the aggressor,” she said.