Donald Trump has said his plan to end the war in Ukraine has been “fine-tuned” and he’s sending envoy Steve Witkoff to meet Vladimir Putin, and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to meet Ukrainian officials. Yet despite White House optimism there was little sign of progress on core sticking points as diplomatic efforts continued. Trump said his son-in-law Jared Kushner might join the Witkoff-Putin meeting. “Steve Witkoff is going over maybe with Jared. I’m not sure about Jared going, but he’s involved in the process, smart guy, and they’re going to be meeting with President Putin, I believe next week in Moscow,” Trump told journalists aboard Air Force One. Trump also backed away from his earlier Thursday deadline for Ukraine to agree to a US-backed peace plan, saying: “The deadline for me is when it’s over.” He played down the element of his plan that would require Ukraine to cede territory to Russia, suggesting Russian forces were already likely to seize the land they’re seeking. “The way it’s going, if you look, it’s just moving in one direction,” he said. “So eventually that’s land that over the next couple of months might be gotten by Russia anyway.”
Trump has suggested he could eventually meet Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but not until further progress has been made in negotiations, Shaun Walker and Dan Sabbagh report. “I look forward to hopefully meeting with President Zelenskyy and President Putin soon, but ONLY when the deal to end this War is FINAL or, in its final stages,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform after a day of negotiations involving US, Russian and Ukrainian officials in Abu Dhabi.
Witkoff has advised a senior Kremlin official how to best pitch a peace deal to Trump, according to a recording of their conversation obtained by Bloomberg. In the 14 October phone call with Yuri Ushakov, the top foreign policy aide to Vladimir Putin, Witkoff told Ushakov to congratulate Trump and frame discussions more optimistically. The recording offers direct insight into Witkoff’s negotiating approach and appears to reveal the origins of the controversial 28-point peace proposal, Joseph Gedeon and Hugo Lowell report.
Russian forces staged a mass drone attack on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia late on Tuesday, triggering fires, injuring 12 people and badly damaging buildings and vehicles, the regional governor said. Ivan Fedorov, posting on the Telegram messaging app, said the attack had destroyed shops, damaged seven apartment blocks and other buildings and smashed cars. He said 12 people were being treated in hospital. The attack follows a missile and drone attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure 24 hours earlier, killing seven and injuring 21 in Kyiv.
Nato jets were scrambled to track two Russian drones that crossed into Romania on Tuesday. German Typhoon and Romanian fighter jets took off to follow the uncrewed aircraft. The first drone flew back into Ukrainian airspace, but the second was later found downed in Puieşti, about 70 miles (112km) from Ukraine. Officials said German pilots had been given orders to shoot down the second drone – but it appeared to have crashed, possibly because it had run out fuel, Dan Sabbagh reports.
Leaders of Britain, France and Germany, after their “coalition of the willing” meeting on Tuesday, expressed support for Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war, emphasising that any solution must fully involve Ukraine. Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz said they were “clear on the principle that borders must not be changed by force”. “This remains one of the fundamental principles for preserving stability and peace in Europe and beyond,” the leaders said in a joint statement.
Russian authorities must consolidate the Russian language and identity in parts of Ukraine incorporated into the country since Moscow’s 2022 invasion, according to a document signed by Vladimir Putin and published on Tuesday. The document, entitled “Strategy of Russia’s national policy in the period to 2036”, appeared as a decree signed by the president. It calls for measures to ensure that 95% of the country’s population identify as Russian by 2036.
French authorities have arrested three people on suspicion of spying for Russia and acting to promote its war propaganda, as part of a probe into a French-Russian association, prosecutors said on Tuesday. One of those detained, a 40-year-old Russian man, was seen on video surveillance footage putting up pro-Russian posters on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the prosecutors’ office said.
South African police are investigating allegations that a daughter of the former president Jacob Zuma tricked men into fighting for Russia in Ukraine by telling them they were travelling to Russia for a paramilitary training course. Rachel Savage reports that another of Zuma’s daughters, Nkosazana Zuma-Mncube, filed a police report on Saturday alleging that her sister Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla and two others, Siphokazi Xuma and Blessing Khoza, had recruited 17 men who are now trapped on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine. Zuma-Sambudla has now filed charges against Khoza, claiming she was duped into recruiting men for what she thought was a legitimate training programme, according to the local media outlet Daily News.
