Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump believes ‘Putin is winning’ while G7 threatens Moscow with further sanctions

Hackers working for Russian military intelligence targeted Western technology and logistics companies involved in shipping assistance to Ukraine, the U.S. National Security Agency said.

The hackers were trying to obtain details about the type of assistance entering Ukraine and, as part of the effort, sought access to the feeds of internet-connected cameras near Ukrainian border crossings, according to the NSA’s report on the cyberattack, which was issued late Wednesday.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz is reportedly “actively” backing a proposed EU ban on the Nord Stream pipelines that connect Russia to Germany.

The German government this week said it endorsed the ban as part of the bloc’s upcoming round of sanctions against Russia.

The Financial Times quotes sources saying that adding Nord Stream to the EU sanctions list “potentially removes a political problem for him [Merz]”.

The Nord Stream pipelines are by far the biggest potential route for Russian gas to flow to Europe.

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline supplied gas from 2011 to 2022. The $11bn Nord Stream 2 project was completed in 2021 but never launched as Germany halted the plan ahead of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Earlier in March, Germany’s economy and energy minister said talks to revive the Nord Stream gas pipelines to relaunch Russian gas flows to Germany would be “completely the wrong direction” to go.

Germany for decades relied heavily on Russian gas, but Norway has become its biggest supplier since the Ukraine war.

Moscow slashed gas supplies to Europe in 2022, plunging the continent into an energy crisis of record-high gas prices.

Russia has received a list of the names of prisoners of war that Ukraine wants freed in a swap involving 1,000 captives from each side, the Kremlin said.

Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Interfax that Moscow received the list from Ukraine after Russia handed over its own list of prisoners it wants released.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Kyiv received the list in question following a meeting on preparations for the swap.

“Returning all of our people from Russian captivity is one of Ukraine’s key objectives. I am grateful to everyone who is contributing to this effort,” he said, adding that the deal was “perhaps the only tangible result of the meeting in Turkiye”.

The deal to free 1,000 prisoners of war on each side in the largest swap of the war was agreed during talks last week in Istanbul.

Vladimir Putin made a surprise inspection at a nuclear plant in Kursk, in his first visit to the region since Russian forces claimed they ejected Ukrainian troops from the area last month.

Video footage posted by Russian state media shows Putin walking around the plant in a hard hat, where he speaks to officials.

The Russian president met volunteer organisations in the city of Kurchatov, as well as visiting the Kursk nuclear power plant, which is currently under construction.

In April, the Kremlin said that it had expelled forces from Kyiv from the region, ending the largest incursion into Russian territory since World War Two.

Russia’s defence ministry said this morning its air defence systems had downed 112 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 24 over the Moscow region.

Ukraine has intensified drone attacks on Russia in the past several days, forcing temporary shutdowns of Russian airports.

Yesterday, Russia said it had fired an Iskander-M missile at part of the city of Pokrov in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region.

US president Donald Trump told European leaders after a phone call with Vladimir Putin that the Russian president was not ready to end the war, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Mr Trump allegedly told European leaders that Mr Putin is not ready to end the war against Ukraine because he believes he is winning.

If confirmed, this would be the first time Mr Trump had suggested that Mr Putin wasn’t interested in ending the war.

The White House, however, denied this account. Karline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Trump “did say he believes Putin is winning the war but he never said ‘Putin isn’t ready to end the war’.”

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said he discussed increasing pressure on Russia with Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis over a phone call.

Greek media reported Mr Mitsotakis will attend the upcoming Ukraine–Southeast Europe Summit in Odessa, following an invitation from Mr Zelensky.

“Strong pressure and additional sanctions against Russia are needed. No one needs to be reminded that the war continues solely because of Russia’s unwillingness to end it,” Mr Zelensky wrote on X.

“I thanked Kyriakos and the entire European Union for the 17th package of sanctions. Moscow must be deprived of everything that enables it to finance killing.

“Greece shares our position and will contribute to increasing the pressure.”

Ukraine’s former top commander has claimed that Kyiv should abandon any notion of restoring its borders established with the collapse of Soviet rule.

Valerii Zaluzhnyi, who was replaced as the commander in 2024 following alleged disagreements with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, said: “I hope that there are not people in this room who still hope for some kind of miracle or lucky sign that will bring peace to Ukraine.”

“My personal opinion is that the enemy still has resources, forces and means to launch strikes on our territory and attempt specific offensive operations,” said Mr Zaluzhnyi.

Russia said it had fired an Iskander-M missile at part of the city of Pokrov, formerly known as Ordzhonikidze, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, destroying two Patriot missile launchers and an AN/MPQ-65 radar set.

Ukraine’s air force reported damage in the Dnipropetrovsk region after an attack but did not specify the type of weapon.

The governor of Russia’s western Kursk region said a Ukrainian missile strike on the town of Lgov had wounded 16 people.

The Russia-installed governor of the occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said a Ukrainian strike had killed a woman and injured four children in a car.

Russia and Ukraine have no direct peace talks scheduled, the Kremlin said yesterday, nearly a week after their first face-to-face session since shortly after Moscow’s invasion in 2022 and days after US president Donald Trump said they would start ceasefire negotiations “immediately”.

“There is no concrete agreement about the next meetings,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “They are yet to be agreed upon.”During two hours of talks in Istanbul on 16 May, Kyiv and Moscow agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war each, in what would be their biggest such swap.

Apart from that step, the meeting delivered no significant breakthrough.

Several months of intensified US and European pressure on the two sides to accept a ceasefire and negotiate a settlement have yielded little progress.

Meanwhile, Russia is readying a summer offensive to capture more Ukrainian land, Ukrainian government and military analysts say.