Donald Trump has said he would love to have Russia return to the G7 group of advanced economies, and that expelling the country “was a mistake”.

Russia had been a member of the club of industrialised nations, then known as the G8, until it was excluded following its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014.

“I’d love to have them back. I think it was a mistake to throw them out. Look, it’s not a question of liking Russia or not liking Russia,” the US president said at the White House.

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During a series of fast-paced announcements, including a series of US trade tariffs, he also said he wants to discuss reducing defence spending with Russia and China, halve domestic defence expenditure and support moves towards getting rid of nuclear weapons.

The US president had already announced on Wednesday that he and Vladimir Putin would start peace talks “immediately” to end the war in Ukraine.

But much of Thursday’s focus on global defence and spending came after a fractious NATO meeting in Brussels.

It has been an intense 24 hours of diplomacy in Brussels, during which:

• Ukraine’s president said his country must have a place at the negotiating table.

• The Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitri Peskov said Ukraine would be involved in peace talks “one way or another”.

• Donald Trump’s defence secretary Pete Hegseth reiterated the US vow to focus its military might away from Europe – telling NATO allies: “Trump won’t allow anyone to turn Uncle Sam into Uncle Sucker.”

‘Make NATO great again’

Mr Hegseth told NATO allies that the US will not guarantee Europe’s security and pressured leaders to spend more on their militaries.

He told reporters “we must make NATO great again” as he called on allies to do “far more for Europe’s defence”.

In terms of military spending, as a proportion of a country’s GDP, the US defence secretary said: “2% is a start… but it’s not enough. Nor is 3%, nor is 4% – more like 5% – real investment, real urgency.”

Sky News’ US correspondent Mark Stone, who was listening to Mr Hegseth’s comments, said “he represents one man, Donald Trump, and he speaks for him”.

Stone points out that, whether people will like him or loathe him, he “is not a man who has experience in the forum he now finds himself in”.

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‘Ukraine is just the first stage’

In response to the Trump administration’s shift in policy, a European defence minister warned the continent will see its “darkest times since the Second World War” as Russia seeks to rearm and regroup following any peace deal.

Dovile Sakaliene, Lithuania’s defence minister, told reporters: “China and Russia are going to coordinate their actions and if we are not able to work together as a team for the democratic world, it is going to be the darkest times since the Second World War.

“In a few years, we will be in a situation where Russia – with the speed that it’s developing its defence industry and its army – is going to move forward.”

“We all understand that Ukraine is just the first stage currently of an imperial expansion of Russia.”

She added that NATO partners have a stark choice – rebuild their armed forces and defence industries “swiftly and very significantly” or find themselves “in a very difficult situation to put it diplomatically”.

Senior politicians in Moscow crowed over the thawing of relations between Russia and the US after presidents Trump and Putin held a 90-minute phone call on Wednesday.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former president and current security official, mocked Europe’s role on the world stage and said the continent is “mad with jealousy and rage” and that “Europe’s time is over”.

A recording has captured the implosion of the Titan submersible which went missing on its voyage to the wreck of the Titanic.

A passive acoustic recorder located around 900 miles from the implosion site picked up the sound, US Coast Guard officials said in a statement.

The short recording includes a loud noise that sounds like a muffled clap, before going silent for a few seconds.

The coastguard said the audio clip “records the suspected acoustic signature of the Titan submersible implosion” on 18 June 2023.

The implosion killed all five people on board – Titan operator Stockton Rush, who founded Oceangate, the company that owned the submersible; two members of a prominent Pakistani family, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman; British adventurer Hamish Harding; and Titanic expert and the sub’s pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

The sub vanished on its way to visit the wreck of the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean, setting off a five-day search that ended when authorities said the vessel had been destroyed with no survivors.

The wreckage was eventually found on the ocean floor around 300m from the Titanic, according to officials.

After the disaster concerns were raised because of the Titan’s unconventional design and Rush’s refusal to submit to independent safety checks.

OceanGate suspended operations in July 2023.

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A coastguard panel investigating the disaster heard two weeks of testimony last September, which saw a former OceanGate scientific director say the Titan malfunctioned during a dive just a few days before it imploded.

The coastguard is expected to release more information about the implosion in the future.

A spokesperson said the investigation is still ongoing and a final report will be released after it is completed.

Naya Rivera’s ex-boyfriend Ryan Dorsey has – for the first time – shared details from the day she died.

Speaking to People, the 41-year-old actor said that “the last thing she said was his [her son’s] name, and then she went under, and he didn’t see her anymore”.

The Glee actress, 33, died after drowning in a California lake in July 2020 – when she was swimming with her young son Josey.

Josey, who was four at the time, told police his mother had boosted him on to the deck – after their boat had drifted away.

Local police said they believe that after saving her son, Rivera did not have enough energy to save herself.

Dorsey says his son, now nine, told him he was worried about getting into the water – and that Rivera had said, “don’t be silly!”.

“Something he’s said over and over is that he was trying to find a life raft, and there was a rope, but there was a big spider on the rope, and he was too scared to throw it,” Dorsey told People.

“I keep reassuring him, buddy, that rope wasn’t going to be long enough.”

Dorsey added: “It just rocks my world that he had to witness her last moments.”

The actor says he found out that Rivera was first missing after receiving a call from her stepfather – while he was in a supermarket buying food for a friend’s barbeque.

“I collapsed into a pallet of drinks,” Dorsey said. “I feared the worst.”

Dorsey said he immediately got into his car and drove 145 miles to Lake Piru, where Rivera and their son had been swimming.

“I drove 100-and-­something the whole way with my four-way hazards on, chain-smoking cigarettes – and I don’t even smoke, really – and just crying,” he says. “I just wanted to get to Josey.

“If we’d have lost both Naya and Josey, I don’t know how I would continue on with my life.”

He added: “When it happened, I just found myself shaking my head, like, I can’t believe she’s gone. It’s still so surreal every day.”

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Dorsey says the holiday period is particularly tough for his nine-year-old son.

He said: “We made this book of memories for Josey that sits by his bed, and during the holidays he was crying looking at it.

“You can only give him a hug and tell him, ‘I know, life is not fair. Bad things happen and there’s no reason for it, and you just have to do your best to be a good person.'”

In 2022, a lawsuit filed by Rivera’s family against Ventura County, California, over her drowning was privately settled.

The lawsuit for wrongful death and negligent infliction of emotional distress was filed on behalf of her son.

The family also sued the United Water Conservation District and Parks and Recreation Management, accusing them of failing to warn visitors of the danger of boating and swimming in the lake, and saying Rivera’s death was “utterly preventable”.

They said the rented pontoon boat was not equipped with flotation or lifesaving devices, a ladder, rope, anchor, or any equipment designed to keep swimmers from being separated from their boat.

However, Ventura County officials said the death wasn’t their fault, and said the actress had declined to wear a life jacket. They said the rental agent had put the life jacket in the boat nevertheless.