US President Donald Trump has had a “very good” call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the White House says, during which US ownership of Ukraine’s energy network was discussed to help protect it.

Mr Trump also agreed to “help locate” additional air defence support in Europe after a request from the Ukrainian leader, a statement about the one-hour phone call said.

Further talks will take place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in the coming days, and the US will continue intelligence sharing with Ukraine, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Mr Trump also agreed to work to ensure missing Ukrainian children are returned home and both parties agreed to a temporary 30-day ceasefire involving attacks against energy facilities, with the US president saying the US “could be very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise”, Ms Leavitt said.

Secretary of state Marco Rubio also issued a statement about the call saying that “President Trump also discussed Ukraine’s electrical supply and nuclear power plants.

“He said that the United States could be very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise. American ownership of those plants would be the best protection for that infrastructure and support for Ukrainian energy infrastructure.”

The White House statement added that Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskyy also reviewed the situation in Kursk and agreed to share information closely.

The presidents instructed their teams to move ahead with the details of implementing a partial ceasefire, with discussions to include expanding any ceasefire to the Black Sea.

“We have never been closer to peace,” Ms Leavitt added.

In comments later on Wednesday, Mr Zelenskyy said that Mr Trump understands that Ukraine will not recognise occupied land as Russian, and that he would like the US president to visit Ukraine – adding that “it would be helpful for Trump in his peace efforts”.

In an earlier statement, President Zelenskyy said the two leaders had “a positive, very substantive and frank conversation”.

Mr Zelenskyy echoed much of Mr Trump’s statement about what was decided, and said later that he “felt no pressure” from the US president.

“We agreed that Ukraine and the United States should continue working together to achieve a real end to the war and lasting peace. We believe that together with America, with President Trump, and under American leadership, lasting peace can be achieved this year,” Mr Zelenskyy said

He added that Ukraine would “continue working to make this happen”.

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“I stressed that Ukrainians want peace, which is why Ukraine accepted the proposal for an unconditional ceasefire,” he said. “I highlighted the importance of President Trump’s concept of peace through strength. We agreed to maintain constant contact, including at the highest level and through our teams.”

In an earlier post on Truth Social, Mr Trump said the “very good” phone call lasted around one hour.

Read more:
A timeline of Trump and Zelenskyy’s relationship
What could be the future of Ukraine?
Sky’s correspondents react to Trump-Putin phone call

“Much of the discussion was based on the call made yesterday with President Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs,” Mr Trump said.

“We are very much on track,” he added.

The call marks the first time Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskyy have spoken since the disastrous confrontation in the White House last month.

Mr Zelenskyy travelled to Washington expecting to sign a critical minerals deal but left early after he and Trump clashed in front of the world’s cameras.

On Tuesday, Mr Trump and Vladimir Putin held a phone call lasting about an hour and a half in which the Russian leader rejected a full 30-day ceasefire.

He agreed to not attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 30 days. The two countries also swapped 175 prisoners each earlier this morning.

Israel says it has launched a “limited ground operation” to retake part of a key corridor in Gaza.

The move appeared to deepen a renewed Israeli offensive that shattered a ceasefire with Hamas that had begun in January.

As part of the ceasefire, Israel had withdrawn from the Netzarim corridor, which bisected northern Gaza from the south and had been used by Israeli forces as a military zone.

It came as an international United Nations worker from Bulgaria was killed and five others seriously wounded in a strike on a UN guesthouse in the Gaza Strip.

Jorge Moreira da Silva, head of the UN Office for Project Services, declined to say who carried out the strike that killed the worker in the central city of Deir al Balah but said the explosive ordnance was “dropped or fired” and the blast was not accidental or related to demining activity.

The UN body, known as UNOPS, carries out infrastructure and development projects around the world.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF), which has carried out a massive series of airstrikes throughout Gaza since early on Tuesday, denied earlier reports that it had targeted the UN compound.

But Mr Moreira da Silva said strikes had hit near the compound on Monday and struck it directly on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, when the worker was killed.

He said the agency had contacted the IDF after the first strike and confirmed that it was aware of the facility’s location. The UN’s secretary general Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply saddened” by the staff member’s death and condemned attacks on UN personnel.

The war in Gaza has been among the deadliest conflicts ever for humanitarian workers, according to the UN.

At least 436 people, including 183 children and 94 women, have been killed since Israel launched the fresh wave of strikes, the Gaza health ministry said.

The IDF claims it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it operates in densely populated areas. Gaza’s health ministry records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army said it had overnight attacked a Hamas military site from which the militant group planned to launch strikes into Israel.

The IDF targeted the site in northern Gaza as it was where “preparations were being made to fire projectiles at Israeli territory”, the military said in a statement.

Read more:
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The Israeli navy also struck several vessels in the coastal area of Gaza as they were intended to be used for “terrorist activities”, the IDF claimed.

Israel issued fresh evacuation orders on Wednesday for different areas across the Gaza Strip and told people to move to known shelters in Khan Younis and western Gaza City.

The latest strikes come weeks after the end of the first phase of the ceasefire, during which Israel and Hamas exchanged hostages for prisoners and were set to negotiate an extension to the truce that was meant to bring about an eventual end to the war. But those negotiations never got off the ground.

Hamas has demanded that Israel stick to the terms of the initial ceasefire deal, including a full withdrawal from Gaza and an end to the war.

Israel, which has vowed to defeat Hamas, has put forward a new proposal that would extend the truce and free more hostages held by Hamas, without a commitment to end the war.

During the ceasefire period, 33 hostages were released, along with nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners.

There are 59 hostages still in captivity, of whom Israel believes 35 are dead.

More than one million people risked being left without food parcels in March if aid was not allowed into Gaza, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported the Food Security Sector as saying.

The war, sparked by Hamas’ 7 October 2023 killing of 1,200 people and capture of 250 more in southern Israel, has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians in the Strip, Gazan health officials say.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone on Tuesday for at least 90 minutes.

Russia has agreed to a partial ceasefire on targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure as a result, for a period of 30 days.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that future talks about Ukraine without Kyiv at the table will not bring any results.

Here’s what two of Sky’s correspondents make of the Trump-Putin phone call.

Ivor Bennett, Moscow correspondent

I think Vladimir Putin will be very satisfied with the outcome of this call because even if he hasn’t gained a whole lot, he crucially hasn’t lost anything.

By agreeing to a ceasefire on energy infrastructure, he has given Donald Trump enough to ensure the wider US-Russia rapprochement remains intact.

There’s been talk in the last month of a reset of relations, of the lifting of sanctions – and Putin certainly doesn’t want to jeopardise that.

Follow live updates on aftermath of call

At the same time, though, Putin didn’t want to dilute any of his red lines. And by the sounds of it, they’re as indelible as ever.

The Kremlin’s readout of the call talks of a need to “eliminate the root causes of the crisis”, which is Kremlin code for “Russia’s security concerns regarding NATO expansion need to be met”.

One thing this call has given him though is the time to press home Russia’s military advantage.

This is particularly important to Putin in Russia’s Kursk region, where his forces are seemingly on the verge of eradicating Ukraine’s foothold, which would be of huge symbolic importance to the Kremlin.

James Matthews, US correspondent

They’re calling it “ceasefire-lite”. In Kyiv, they’ll choke on it.

The respective readouts of the Trump-Putin phone call don’t read well for Ukrainians relying on a US ally to do their bidding.

They had already agreed to a 30-day ceasefire with the Americans who said they were “on the 10th yard line of peace”.

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Moscow, clearly, has different ideas. To extend the American football metaphor, Vladimir Putin still has hands on the ball.

The Russians know Donald Trump. Prisoner exchanges present a trophy achievement.

There was, of all things, talk of US vs Russia ice hockey matches. In Moscow, they know Trump’s comfortable talking sport and that many Americans think hockey before they think Ukraine.

Read more: What are the options for peace in Ukraine?

It was dressing around a deal that is deeply flawed from Kyiv’s perspective.

Russian talk of eliminating “root causes of the crisis” speaks to Moscow’s desire to demilitarise Ukraine and lay claim to its territory.

Then there was Putin’s insistence on a “cessation of foreign military aid and the provision of intelligence information to Kyiv”.

To cut the supply of weapons and intelligence would weaken Ukraine while Russia strengthens. For Kyiv, it’s a line so red, it’s purple.

What Trump does next is pivotal. What he’s done so far boxes Ukraine into a corner, European allies too.

A common thread in the readouts was the positive talk of US-Russian relations to come – “an improved bilateral relationship… has huge upside” was Washington’s take.

It’s clear Trump and Putin share the vision of a geopolitical shift, built on shared priorities. The fate of Ukraine isn’t necessarily top of the list.