A Russian missile attack late on Friday on infrastructure around Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Pivdennyi in the Odesa region killed seven people and injured 15, Ukrainian officials said. It comes after Ukraine said it had attacked a Russian “shadow fleet” tanker with aerial drones off the coast of Libya on Friday, in the first such strike in the Mediterranean since Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Odesa, a focal point of Ukrainian grain and other exports, has been a frequent target of Russian attacks. Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba said Ukraine was talking to Moldovan authorities to find alternative routes away from the affected area so trucks and passengers could cross the border. In Moldova, authorities set up temporary camps at border crossings to provide shelter and food for travellers making their way to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said a €90bn loan from the EU to Ukraine that was secured on Friday to meet urgent financial needs amounted to “significant support that truly strengthens our resilience”, adding: “It is important that Russian assets remain immobilised and that Ukraine has received a financial security guarantee for the coming years.” The loan will last for two years and Kyiv would only repay it if and when Russia paid war reparations.
Putin intends to capture all of Ukraine and reclaim parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet empire, according to six sources familiar with US intelligence. The reports present a starkly different picture from that painted by Donald Trump and his Ukraine peace negotiators, who have said Putin wants to end the conflict. The most recent of the reports dates from late September, according to one of the sources. The intelligence also contradicts the Russian leader’s denials that he is a threat to Europe, and comes as Putin says “the ball is now fully and completely” in the court of Kyiv and its western allies regarding an end to the war.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Friday promised not to force Ukraine into any agreement to end Russia’s invasion as European allies joined fresh talks in Miami. The weekend talks come as Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, in an annual news conference vowed to press ahead with his military offensive in Ukraine. Donald Trump’s envoys have pressed a plan in which the US would offer security guarantees to Ukraine, but Kyiv would likely be expected to surrender some territory. Rubio said both sides had to agree: “We can’t force Ukraine to make a deal. We can’t force Russia to make a deal. They have to want to make a deal.”
Rubio said he may join the talks in Miami on Saturday, which are being led by Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and will include top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov and officials from Britain, France and Germany. Umerov said he would be “acting clearly in line with the priorities defined by the [Ukrainian] president: security must be guaranteed reliably and in the long term.”
Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev is also heading to Miami to meet Witkoff and Kushner, a Russian source told Reuters. The source said that any meeting between Dmitriev and the Ukrainian negotiators had been ruled out. Witkoff and Kushner have been working with EU and Ukrainian negotiators on an amended version of a peace plan, earlier drafts of which were criticised by the EU and Ukraine as being slanted toward Russia.
