Trump offers to ‘settle’ Ukraine invasion as Biden calls Putin ‘war criminal’- debate

Russia‘s Defense Minister ordered officials to prepare a “response” to U.S. drone flights over the Black Sea, the ministry said Friday, in an apparent warning that Moscow may take forceful action to ward off the American reconnaissance aircraft.

The Russian Defense Ministry noted a recent “increased intensity” of U.S. drones over the Black Sea, saying they “conduct intelligence and targeting for precision weapons supplied to the Ukrainian military by Western countries for strikes on Russian facilities.”

“It shows an increased involvement of the U.S. and other NATO countries in the conflict in Ukraine on the side of the Kyiv regime,” the ministry said in a statement.

The Kremlin said on Friday that the outlook for EU-Russia ties was bad after EU leaders nominated Ursula von der Leyen for another term as European Commission president and picked Estonia’s Kaja Kallas as the next EU foreign policy chief.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the bloc’s decision to nominate Germany’s von der Leyen for a second five-year term would not change anything.

“Mrs von der Leyen is not in favour of normalising relations between the EU and Russia. That’s how we know her, that’s how we remember her. Nothing changes in this respect,” said Peskov.

Commenting on the choice of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas for EU foreign policy chief, Peskov said she was known for her anti-Russian rhetoric.

“Mrs Kallas has not demonstrated any diplomatic inclinations so far either, and is well known in our country for her absolutely intransigent and sometimes even openly anti-Russian statements,” he said.

“Therefore, we do not think that European diplomacy will contribute in any way to the normalisation of relations. The prospects, in terms of relations between Moscow and Brussels, are bad.”

Russia has no comment on the U.S. presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump as it is an internal U.S. matter, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

Biden stumbled frequently in the encounter with Trump, which revived discussion about his age. Russia loomed large in the debate as both men tried to show who was tougher on foreign policy.

Trump said if the U.S. had a “real president” who was respected by Putin, he would never have invaded Ukraine on Biden’s watch.

Biden responded: “Go ahead, let Putin go in and control Ukraine, and then move on to Poland and other places. See what happens then. He has no idea what the hell he’s talking about.”

Putin said earlier this month he did not believe the outcome of the election would make much difference for Russia.

The border service of Belarus and the country’s Ministry of Defence are taking measures to further reinforce the Belarusian border with Ukraine after a security incident, the Belarusian border service said in a statement.

The border service said its staff had brought down a quadrocopter on Wednesday after it had illegally crossed the border from Ukraine to collect information about Belarusian border infrastructure.

Earlier in the week, it said materials for a homemade bomb had been found concealed in the same area and that it was aware that a unit of pro-Ukrainian Russian fighters was present in a Ukrainian region bordering Belarus.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signaled Wednesday that he is getting tough on officials he suspects are shirking their duties in the war with Russia that is now in its third year.

Zelensky and Commander in Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi visited troops in the eastern Donetsk region who have weathered fierce Russian ground and air assaults in recent months. They also discussed with local officials the drinking water supply, social issues, evacuation plans and the rebuilding of local homes, Zelenskyy said.

He added that back in Kyiv he would speak to “officials who must be here and in other areas near the front line — in difficult communities where people need immediate solutions.”

The United States will confront Russia at the United Nations Security Council on Friday over violating a North Korea arms embargo, and will push for China’s view on growing ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, said deputy U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood.

The meeting of the 15-member council comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Pyongyang last week to sign a pact with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in which they agreed to provide military assistance if either faces armed aggression.

“This should be of great concern to the entire global community,” Mr Wood told Reuters ahead of the meeting, accusing Russia of “in essence siding with a rogue state to violate countless U.N. Security Council resolutions.”

“This is unprecedented, and we need to call it out for what it is,” he said. “We also want to see what China has to say about this growing military cooperation between DPRK and Russia. They cannot view this as a positive development.”

Here’s a look at what we know about the first day of the trial for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been charged in Russia with espionage — charges that he, his employer and the US government deny.

Where was the trial held?

It was held on Wednesday in the Sverdlovsky Regional Court in the city of Yekaterinburg, about 880 miles (1,416km) east of Moscow. Gershkovich was arrested in the city in March 2023 while on a reporting trip.

Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov has ordered the army’s General Staff to come up with proposals on how to promptly deal with “provocations” by U.S. strategic drones operating over the Black Sea, the defence ministry said on Friday.

The ministry said in a statement that it had noted increased activity in the area from U.S. drones which it said were carrying out reconaissance and gathering targeting information for high-precision Western weapons used by Ukraine to strike Russian facilities.

“This demonstrates the increasing involvement of the United States and NATO countries in the conflict in Ukraine on the side of the Kyiv regime,” the defence ministry said.

“Such flights multiply the likelihood of airspace incidents with Russian aircraft, which increases the risk of a direct confrontation between the (NATO) alliance and the Russian Federation.”

It said that NATO countries would be responsible for any such incidents.

The statement did not mention Crimea, the Black Sea region which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. But Russian military facilities in Crimea have been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian forces, including with Western missiles.

As an investigative journalist, then an activist, and later a lawmaker, Yehor Soboliev sought to expose corruption in business and government as a way to defend Ukraine’s budding democracy.

Now, as a soldier battling Russia, he’s had to put those aims on hold as he fights alongside some of the people he once tried to bring down.“Till the victory, we are on the same side,” said Soboliev, a lieutenant in a front-line drone unit.

“But maybe — definitely — after the victory, we should separate ourselves from each other. And we should continue that fight in making our country more honest, more responsible, more serving to its citizens.”

Ukraine has spent years trying to build a Western-style democracy, although not without some bumps along the way as it shed habits from its Soviet past.

To beat back Russia and remain a democracy it has felt compelled to temporarily suspend or restrict some democratic ideals.

Elections have been postponed, a once-robust media has been restrained, corruption-fighting has slipped down the agenda, and freedom of movement and assembly have been curbed by martial law.

And as Russia pounds Ukraine’s cities and makes battlefield gains, the unity sparked by the invasion — and the sense of common purpose crucial to defending democracy — have come under growing strain.

At least 1,170 Russian forces have been killed and wounded in invasion in Ukraine in the past day, officials of the Ukrainian military said this morning. This comes as the battlefield clashes in the war-hit nation surged.

In the past 24 hours, the frontline saw 119 combat clashes, the General Staff of the Ukraine Armed Forces said, naming Toretsk, Pokrovsk and Kurakhove as the hottest sections of the front throughout the day.

“During the day, the enemy launched six missile strikes on Ukrainian territory (a total of eight missiles), 43 airstrikes (56 guided aerial bombs dropped), and 458 kamikaze drones. They also fired 2,863 times on our troops’ positions and settlements using a variety of weapons,” the statement update this morning read.