Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv claims Moscow has lost more than one million soldiers

Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani has said that it needs at least a decade to raise defence spending and comply with new NATO targets.

He told a press conference: “I believe that we can do good work with NATO and arrive at The Hague summit with an agreement ready beforehand, so that NATO can demonstrate its unity.”

The war in Ukraine has provoked a discussion in European capitals over military spending, with Washington demanding that Nato members spend more on defence.

The alliance leaders will meet in The Hague on June 24-25.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said that Germany is not considering delivering Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine despite Kyiv’s repeated requests.

Although Germany is one of Ukraine’s main military backers, Berlin has never supplied Taurus missiles, which have a range in excess of 480 km.

Answering a journalist’s question during his fifth visit to Kyiv since the start of the war, Mr Pistorius said: “Since you asked me whether we are considering this, my answer is no.”

Foreign ministers from large European countries have said they are ready to step up pressure on Russia at a meeting in Rome.

The meeting was attended by officials from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Britain and the European Union.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and a Ukrainian representative also joined the talks.

“We reiterated our readiness to step up our pressure on Russia as it continues to refuse serious and credible commitments, including through further sanctions and countering their circumvention,” the foreign ministers’ statement said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he will attend the G7 summit in Canada next week and hopes to meet Donald Trump.

Mr Zelensky told a news briefing that he hopes to discuss continued support for Ukraine, sanctions against Russia, and future financing for Kyiv’s reconstruction efforts during the summit.

Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky last met at the Vatican in April, ahead of the funeral of Pope Francis.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that a new group of severely wounded Ukrainian servicemen returned home from Russian captivity in a new round of POW swaps with Moscow.

Kyiv and Moscow agreed to a large exchange of POWs during their latest peace talks in Istanbul earlier this month.

Russia’s defence ministry said Moscow’s forces had shot down 260 Ukrainian drones in the past day, including 62 outside the combat zone, the Interfax news agency reported on Thursday.

Meanwhile, a concentrated, nine-minute-long Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv on Wednesday killed six people and injured 64, including nine children, Ukrainian officials said.

Russia’s approach to peace talks with Ukraine is not helpful, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte said on Thursday.

“The Russians are sending this historian now twice to these talks in Istanbul, trying to start with the history of 1,000 years ago and then explaining more or less that Ukraine is at fault here. I think that’s not helpful,” Mr Rutte said.

“But at least, step by step, we try to make progress”, he added before meeting foreign affairs ministers from Italy, Britain, France, Germany, Poland and Spain in Rome.

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has admitted Russia is the “aggressor” in the Ukraine war, a position which the Trump administration has often been reluctant to take.

At a Senate budget hearing on 1 June, Mr Hegseth was criticised by Republican senators over the attempts to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, The Kyiv Independent reported.

Senator Mitch McConnell warned that “America’s reputation is on the line” in some of his strongest public criticism so far.

“We don’t want a headline at the end of this conflict that says Russia wins and America loses,” Mr McConnell said.

Later in the hearing, Mr Hegseth was asked who the aggressor in the three-year war is, and he responded: “Russia is the aggressor”.

But he declined to say which side he wanted to see win the war, only that the US was committed to peace.