Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin realises he can’t win war against Ukraine, Trump’s envoy says

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has mocked US President Donald Trump after the American leader suggested that he was a “stupid person”.

Mr Trump said he had moved a “submarine or two” to the Russian coast on Tuesday. In August, he said that he had ordered two nuclear submarines to “appropriate regions” in response to threats from Medvedev.

“New episode of the thriller series,” Medvedev wrote on X/Twitter. “Trump once again brought up the subs he allegedly ‘sent to the Russian shores’ insisting they are ‘very well hidden.”

Rescuers worked through the night after severe weather and floods in Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa killed nine people, a child among them, the state emergency service said this morning.

The workers helped evacuate people from water traps, shift cars, pump water from buildings, and trace a missing girl who was found in the early hours, the service said on the Telegram messaging app.

It posted pictures of passengers being taken off a flooded bus and cars pulled from the water.

“In just seven hours, almost two months’ worth of rain fell in Odesa,” mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov said on Telegram earlier.

“No stormwater drainage system can withstand such a load.”

A total of 362 people were rescued in the continuing effort, the emergency service added.

An entire family of two brothers aged four and six and their parents were killed in an overnight Russian drone attack on a village in the northern Sumy region, the regional governor Oleh Hryhorov said.

“Last night, the enemy purposefully hit a residential building with an attack drone in the village of Chernechchyna,” Hryhorov said on his Telegram channel.

He added the family’s bodies were pulled from under the rubble.

Russian forces are engaged in a long, grinding war along the front line through eastern and southern Ukraine, but have also tried to gain a foothold in areas like Sumy, which borders Russia’s Kursk region.

Russia denies targeting civilians in its almost daily drone and missile attacks on Ukraine. Thousands of civilians have been killed and homes, apartment blocks and commercial property damaged and destroyed.

At least nine people, including a child, died in Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa and surrounding region as a result of severe weather and floods, state emergency service said this morning.

Donald Trump has yet again reiterated his frustrations with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

In a speech before military commanders in Quantico in Virginia yesterday, Trump said that the Russian president and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky need to get together to settle Moscow’s war.

“I think we’ll get that done, but that’s turned out to be the toughest one,” Trump said.

He said: “I’m so disappointed in President Putin, I thought he would get this thing over with.

“He should have had that war done in a week, and I said to him.

“And I said to him, you know, you don’t look good. You’re four years fighting a war that should have taken a week. Are you a paper tiger?” the US president said.

Donald Trump has yet again reiterated his frustrations with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

In a speech before military commanders in Quantico in Virginia yesterday, Trump said that the Russian president and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky need to get together to settle Moscow’s war.

“I think we’ll get that done, but that’s turned out to be the toughest one,” Trump said.

He said: “I’m so disappointed in President Putin, I thought he would get this thing over with.

“He should have had that war done in a week, and I said to him.

“And I said to him, you know, you don’t look good. You’re four years fighting a war that should have taken a week. Are you a paper tiger?” the US president said.

Romania hopes to work with Ukraine to ramp up its production of defensive drones – both for domestic use as well as by European Union and Nato allies, foreign minister Oana Toiu said in an interview.

Toiu told Reuters talks with Ukraine began before a spate of airspace incursions that the region has blamed on Russia in recent weeks.

“We believe it is strategic for the eastern flank to be better protected, especially in air defence. So what we are doing in that direction is to create the partnerships needed, for example, with Ukraine to build defensive drones for the future,” she said.

“We believe in our capacity to make it a reality fast,” she said on the sidelines of the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly that ended on Monday.

Tensions with Moscow edged up in recent weeks as Estonia accused Russia of sending fighter jets into its airspace and Nato jets shot down drones over Poland. Romania also said its jets almost engaged a drone that entered its airspace.

Russia has said it has never targeted EU or Nato nations and has no plans to do so in the future.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin knows he cannot win the war in Ukraine, US president Donald Trump’s special envoy has said.

“I think probably in his heart of hearts he realises he can’t win this. This is an unwinnable fight for him, long-term. It’s not going to happen,” US special envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg said.

Speaking at a conference in Poland, Kellogg said that the US is focusing on efforts to “stop the largest land war in Europe since the Second World War,” stressing that the losses have far exceeded any other major recent conflict.

The situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station has become critical amid shelling from Russian forces, Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Russian shelling is preventing restoration of a power line needed to cool the reactors and prevent a meltdown, Zelensky said last night.

Speaking in his nightly video address, Zelensky said one of the diesel generators providing emergency power was no longer working, seven days after external power lines went down.

“This is the seventh day. There has never before been such an emergency situation at the Zaporizhzhia plant. The situation is critical. Russian shelling has cut the plant off from the electricity network,” Zelensky said.

“This is a threat to everyone. No terrorist in the world has ever dared to do with a nuclear power plant what Russia is doing now. And it is right that the world not remain silent,” he said.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, said it was working with both sides to restore the external power line. Rafael Grossi said there was no immediate danger as long as diesel generators remained in operation, providing emergency power for the facility.

The Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest with six reactors, was seized by Russian troops in the first weeks of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and each side regularly accuses the other of attacks that endanger nuclear safety.

It produces no electricity at the moment, but needs power to ensure fuel in the reactors remains cool and no meltdown occurs. It was the 10th occasion since the start of the conflict that the plant has been disconnected from the power grid.

European Union leaders will discuss proposals for a “drone wall” to protect the continent at a summit in Copenhagen today.

The security talks for enforcing a drone barrier against Russian incursions comes just days after airspace intrusions by unidentified unmanned aircraft forced a temporary closure of Danish airports.

The summit will also be the first opportunity for leaders of the EU’s 27 countries to debate a proposal to use Russian assets frozen in Europe to fund a loan of €140bn(£122.25bn) to Ukraine.

France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Britain, Finland and Ukraine have committed troops and anti-drone systems to help Denmark protect the leaders, many of whom have accused Russia of brazen violations of European airspace with recent incursions by drones over Poland and fighter jets over Estonia.

Denmark has stopped short of saying who it believes is responsible for the incidents in its airspace last week, which disrupted air traffic at six airports, but prime minister Mette Frederiksen has suggested it could be Moscow.