Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Polish president Andrzej Duda on Wednesday in New York, reports the Associated Press (AP).
The planned dinner meeting, confirmed by a person familiar with the matter according to the AP, comes as European leaders prepare for the possibility that Trump might win the November election and return to the White House.
Leaders of Nato countries are especially concerned given Trump’s long history of critical comments about the key western alliance, even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The person was not authorised to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, says the AP.
According to the news agency, Duda himself told reporters before he departed Warsaw for New York on Tuesday that he hoped to meet with Trump “socially” if arrangements worked out, and one of his advisers defended the encounter which was viewed as controversial in Poland.
“Today here is no more important partner for the Republic of Poland in international relations than the US, and this is exactly the context in which this meeting should be seen,” said the adviser, Małgorzata Paprocka.
Polish president Andrzej Duda greets the then US president Donald Trump in Warsaw, Poland, in 2017. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters
Poland, which shares a border with Ukraine, is a Nato member. Duda, a right wing populist whose term ends in 2025, has encouraged the US to send additional funding to Ukraine to combat Russian aggression.
Republicans in Washington, meanwhile, are fighting among themselves over a massive foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and other allies.
Poland’s centrist prime minister Donald Tusk, a political opponent of Duda, was critical of the president for his willingness to meet Trump, describing the expected meeting as a form of meddling in the US election campaign, reports the AP.
Tusk said that “a possible victory of president Trump would probably not be beneficial” for the security of Europe or Nato, noting that “almost every speech of president Trump very clearly shows his anti-Ukrainian sentiment and a pro-Russian attitude.”
“But if Mr President actually meets with Mr Trump, we would expect him to raise the issue of clearly siding with the western world, democracy and Europe in this Ukrainian-Russian conflict,” Tusk added.
As the crisis in the Middle East shifts resources away from the Russian invasion, VolodymyrZelenskiy is calling for more money, weapons and attention, writes the Guardian’s First Edition newsletter today.
Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, has long feared that the crisis in the Middle East centred on Israel’s war in Gaza would shift focus and, crucially, resources away from Ukraine. Two years since Russia’s invasion, Ukraine is struggling with munitions shortages, as a $60bn aid package has been held up for months in the US House of Representatives.
To understand how Ukraine’s position in the war has changed in recent months Nimo Omer spoke with Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor, who is in Kharkiv.
The Reuters news agency are reporting that the death toll in the Russian strike on Chernihiv now stands at 10 people.
According to Reuters, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called for sufficient determination and support from western partners after the Russian missile strike on Wednesday morning.
“This would not have happened if Ukraine had received sufficient air defence equipment and if the world’s determination to counter Russian terror had been sufficient,” Zelenskiy said via the Telegram messaging app.
This image handout shows rescuers working at the site of a Russian missile strike in Chernihiv, Ukraine, on Wednesday. Photograph: State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Reuters
An update on the newswires by the Associated Press (AP) says that at least eight people have been killed and 18 injured in the Russian strike on the northern Ukraine region of Chernihiv (see 08:35 BST).
Citing local officals, the AP report that at least eight people were killed when three Russian missiles slammed into a downtown area of Chernihiv on Wednesday, hitting an eight-floor apartment building.
At least 18 people were injured in the morning attack, the city’s acting mayor Oleksandr Lomako said.
German chancellor urges Xi Jinping to press Russia to end Ukraine war
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, says he has urged Xi Jinping to press Russia to end its “senseless” war in Ukraine and that the Chinese president has agreed to back a peace conference in Switzerland.
Scholz said after a meeting with Xi in Beijing on Tuesday that “China’s word carries weight in Russia”.
“I have therefore asked President Xi to influence Russia so that Putin finally calls off his senseless campaign, withdraw his troops and ends this terrible war,” he said on social media platform X.
Scholz said Xi had agreed to back a peace conference in Switzerland, which is due to take place in June without Russia in attendance.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, responded on X that China could help deliver a “just peace” for his country by playing an “active role” in the international conference.
Xi, however, appeared to dismiss the meeting in Switzerland, saying efforts towards a peaceful resolution should be recognised by both sides and include equal participation by all parties.
Russia has dismissed any such meeting as meaningless without Moscow’s participation.
Kharkiv at risk of becoming ‘second Aleppo’ without US aid, mayor says
Dan Sabbagh
Dan Sabbagh is the Guardian’s defence and security editor.
Kharkiv is at risk of becoming “a second Aleppo” unless US politicians vote for fresh military aid to help Ukraine obtain the air defences needed to prevent long-range Russian attacks, the city’s mayor has warned.
The mayor of Ukraine’s second city said the $60bn US military aid package, currently stalled in Congress, was of “critical importance for us” and urged the west to refocus on the two-year-old war.
The site of a recent Russian bombing at an unused shopping mall which killed seven people. Photograph: Julia Kochetova/The Guardian
On 22 March, Russian attacks destroyed a power station on the eastern edge of the city as well all its substations; a week later officials acknowledged a second plant, 30 miles south-east of the city, had been eliminated in the same attack.
Power in the city, about 30 miles from the Russian border, was interrupted after another bombing raid this week, causing the metro to be halted briefly. Residents said there was usually a few hours’ supply a day in the city centre, although in the outskirts the situation was said to be better.
Children are educated either online or in underground schools, for their own safety. The water supply remains on, but Terekhov said there were concerns the Russian military may switch to targeting gas distribution, after storage facilities in the west were attacked last week.
You can read more of Dan Sabbagh’s report from Kharkiv here:
Several killed and injured in Russian strike on Ukraine’s Chernihiv, says local official
A Russian strike on the northern Ukraine region of Chernihiv has left several people dead or injured, a local official said on Wednesday, in Moscow’s latest aerial assault on Ukraine.
The region, which borders Belarus to the north, was occupied at the beginning of Russia’s invasion but has been spared fierce fighting for around two years since Moscow’s army withdrew.
“The enemy launched three missile strikes almost in the centre of the city. There are civilians who have been killed and many wounded. Rescuers are working now,” governor Vyacheslav Chaus said in a statement on social media, according to the news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The region’s administrative centre, also called Chernihiv, lies about 145 kilometres (90 miles) north of the capital Kyiv and had a prewar population of about 285,000 people.
It was badly damaged when Russian tanks swept into Ukraine from Belarusian territory in February 2022.
It has gone 10am in Kyiv and in Moscow. This is our latest Guardian blog covering all the latest developments over the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
A Russian strike on the northern Ukraine region of Chernigiv has left several people dead or injured, a local official said on Wednesday, in Moscow’s latest aerial assault on Ukraine.
The region, which borders Belarus to the north, was occupied at the beginning of Russia’s invasion but has been spared fierce fighting for around two years since Moscow’s army withdrew.
Meanwhile, Kharkiv is at risk of becoming “a second Aleppo” unless US politicians vote for fresh military aid to help Ukraine obtain the air defences needed to prevent long-range Russian attacks, the city’s mayor has warned.
More on that in a moment, but first, here are the other latest developments:
Large explosions and fires have been reported in Russian-occupied Crimea, at or near the Dzhankoi airbase of the Russian navy. The Russian-run independent Telegram channel Astra said: “Residents of Dzhankoy report new explosions, a fire in the area of the military airfield continues, there is no official information.” Videos online showed fires and flashes in succession that might indicate stored ammunition catching fire and exploding. The Guardian has not been able to independently verify these reports.
White House officials have said they are taking a wait-and-see approach until the House speaker, Mike Johnson, releases details of his plan to pass aid for Ukraine. “It does appear at first blush, that the speaker’s proposal will, in fact, help us get aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel and needed resources to the Indo-Pacific for a wide range of contingencies there,” said John Kirby, Joe Biden’s national security spokesperson. “But we’re waiting to get a little bit more detail before we say one way or the other.”
The speaker is considering a complicated approach that would break apart the already Senate-approved $95bn aid package and send it to separate votes, then either stitch it back together or send the components to the Senate for final passage, and potentially to the White House for the president’s signature. It would require the speaker to cobble together bipartisan majorities with different factions of House Republicans and Democrats on each measure.
Johnson is preparing a fourth measure that would include various Republican-preferred national security priorities, such as a plan to seize some Russian assets in US banks to help fund Ukraine, and another to turn the economic aid for Ukraine into loans. The New York Post has meanwhile published Republican-aligned polling that shows a majority of Republican voters in electorates crucial to the November election back US assistance for Ukraine’s fight back against the Russian invasion.
Russian forces are exploiting the delays to US aid to switch from fighting for individual positions and instead manoeuvre on the battlefield again, the Institute for the Study of War has warned. “Ukraine cannot hold the present lines now without the rapid resumption of US assistance, particularly air defence and artillery, that only the US can provide rapidly and at scale. Lack of air defence has exposed Ukrainian frontline units to Russian aircraft that are now dropping thousands of bombs on Ukrainian defensive positions for the first time in this war. Ukrainian artillery shortages are letting the Russians use armoured columns without suffering prohibitive losses for the first time since 2022.”
The Czech prime minister, Petr Fiala, said 20 countries had pledged enough to buy 500,000 artillery shells for Ukraine outside Europe within the so-called Czech initiative. The Czechs said in March they were able to collect about 800,000 shells in total for Ukraine outside the continent. Fiala said there was no reason why the donors could not “deliver one million more in the next 12 months … I want to highlight that this initiative is not a one-time project. Our goal is to create a long-term system of ammunition supplies for heavy weapons. This will directly help to change the situation on the frontline.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has signed a mobilisation bill into law with the aim of boosting troop numbers. The parliament’s website said the bill had been “returned with the signature of the president” on Tuesday, after receiving final approval from lawmakers last week. The new law toughens penalties on draft dodgers, incentivises conscription and obliges men to keep their military registration details with the authorities up to date.
On PBS NewsHour, Zelenskiy said a lack of air defence missiles prevented Ukraine from thwarting a Russian missile attack last week that destroyed the Trypilska thermal power plant. His comments gave fresh urgency to Kyiv’s pleas to be sent more military weapons from its allies as the war appears to have turned in the Kremlin’s favour over recent months.
German weapons manufacturer Rheinmetall is to build an ammunition plant in Lithuania. Germany’s largest military equipment maker and the Lithuanian government signed a letter of intent to set up a factory to make 155mm artillery shells in the EU and Nato member country.
Ukraine said it had identified almost 37,000 people, including military personnel, who are unaccounted for since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Xi Jinping has agreed to back a Ukraine peace conference in Switzerland, Germany’s chancellor said after meeting the Chinese president. “China’s word carries weight in Russia,” said Olaf Scholz. “I have therefore asked President Xi to influence Russia so that Putin finally calls off his senseless campaign, withdraw his troops and ends this terrible war.” Zelenskiy welcomed the development.
Beijing has called for a “political settlement” to the war, which western countries said could enable Russia to hold much of the territory it has seized in Ukraine. China has also deepened its ties with Russia and, according to a US assessment cited by the Associated Press, is surging the supply of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Russia in turn is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine. Chinese and Russian entities have also been working to jointly produce unmanned aerial vehicles inside Russia, and Chinese companies are likely providing Russia with nitrocellulose used in the manufacture of ammunition, US officials said.
