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.
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.”
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3:12
Uncle Sam ‘won’t be 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.”
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2:47
Will NATO countries cough up 5% of GDP?
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”.
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”.
Image: Lithuania’s defence minister Dovile Sakaliene warns of dark days ahead. File pic: AP
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”.
“Complete families were wiped off the civil registration record by Israeli bombardment,” Khalil Al-Deqran, Gaza health ministry spokesperson, told the Reuters news agency.
Nasser hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, said it received the bodies of 20 people killed in strikes that hit houses and tents in the Muwasi area. Hamas described that as a “new brutal crime”.
Image: Smoking debris after an airstrike at a tent camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza on Sunday. Pic: Reuters
Image: Saleh Zenati carries the body of his nephew killed in Khan Younis on Sunday. Pic: AP
In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed in two separate strikes, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir al Balah.
Meanwhile, first responders from the health ministry and the civil defence reported at least 36 people were killed in multiple strikes in Jabalia, northern Gaza.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the latest strikes.
Israel has blocked the entry of medical, food and fuel supplies into Gaza since the start of March. It is attempting to pressurise Hamas into freeing Israeli hostages and has approved plans that could involve seizing the whole of Gaza and controlling aid.
It comes as peace talks between Israel and Hamas take place in Qatar this weekend, although sources told Reuters there had been no breakthrough.
Sky News Arabia reported that Hamas had proposed freeing about half its Israeli hostages in exchange for a two-month ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
A Palestinian official close to the talks said: “Hamas is flexible about the number of hostages it can free, but the problem has always been over Israel’s commitment to end the war.”
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3:14
On Saturday, Israel ramped up attacks on Gaza
Earlier on Sunday, Gaza’s health ministry issued a statement accusing Israel of “intensifying its systematic campaign to target hospitals”.
“After putting the European Gaza Hospital out of service a few days ago, the Israeli occupation has intensified its targeting and siege of the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip since dawn today,” it added.
Israel has previously denied deliberately targeting civilians and accused Hamas of using hospitals for military purposes.
This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but Sky News analysis has cast doubt on its evidence.
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0:49
Mass protests on Saturday mark 77 years since the Nakba
Separately, the Israeli military said on Sunday it had intercepted a missile launched from Yemen toward Israel.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said they had targeted Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv with two ballistic missiles.
The Houthis have fired at Israel because of the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, while Israel has carried out airstrikes in response, including one on 6 May that damaged Yemen’s main airport in Sanaa and killed several people.
The conflict began on 7 October 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has seen the deaths of more than 53,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
Donald Trump has said he will speak to Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy separately on Monday in a bid to secure a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine.
The US president made the announcement on Truth Social – shortly after the Ukrainian president condemned Russiafor the “deliberate killing of civilians” after a drone hit a bus in north-eastern Ukraine.
Mr Trump said he will speak to Mr Putin over the phone. He will then talk with Mr Zelenskyy and “various members of NATO”, he wrote.
In an all-caps post, he said: “HOPEFULLY IT WILL BE A PRODUCTIVE DAY, A CEASEFIRE WILL TAKE PLACE, AND THIS VERY VIOLENT WAR, A WAR THAT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED, WILL END. GOD BLESS US ALL!!!”
The Ukrainian town of Bilopillia today declared a period of mourning lasting until Monday after nine people were killed in a Russian drone attack – which occurred just hours after Kyiv and Moscow held peace talks.
Seven others were injured, Ukrainian authorities said. The bus was evacuating civilians from a frontline area when the drone hit, the country’s national police said.
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0:41
Nine killed in Russian strike on bus
A “father, mother and daughter” were among the dead, Mr Zelenskyy said, writing on Telegram: “All the deceased were civilians. And the Russians could not have failed to understand what kind of vehicle they were targeting.”
The attack has also been condemned by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who said he was “appalled”.
“If Putin is serious about peace, Russia must agree to a full and immediate ceasefire, as Ukraine has done,” he wrote on X.
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While the discussions – which were not attended by the Mr Putin or Mr Zelenskyy – did not result in a truce, both countries agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners in their biggest swap yet.
Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said on national television the exchange could happen as early as next week.
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1:52
What happened at Ukraine talks?
Russia ‘threatened eternal war’ at peace talks
After a Ukrainian official yesterday said Russia made “unacceptable” demands during the discussions, a source from the Kyiv delegation has now told Sky News that Moscow threatened “eternal war”.
Separately, a senior Kyiv official said Russia’s proposed ceasefire terms included the full withdrawal of troops from four regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Luhansk.
Moscow also called for international recognition that those regions and Crimea – annexed in 2014 – are Russian and for Ukraine to become a neutral state, with no allied troops stationed there, they said.
Ukraine has rallied support from its allies following the talks, and a number have spoken out.
French President Emmanuel Macron said: “Today, what do we have? Nothing. And so I tell you, faced with President Putin’s cynicism, I am sure that President Trump, mindful of the credibility of the United States, will react.”
The EU is working on a new package of sanctions against Moscow, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.
On Sunday, President Trump called on leaders of both Russia and Ukraine to meet.
He posted: “President Putin of Russia wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY.”
That post let the Russian leader off the hook. Only the day before, Putin had been ordered by Ukraine’s allies, including America, to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire.
Image: Pic: AP
The Russian president had swerved that demand, suggesting talks instead.
“If the ceasefire is not respected, the US and its partners will impose further sanctions,” Trump posted before swivelling and backing Putin’s proposals for talks instead.
Undeterred, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepted the call.
Putin though refused to go, sending officials instead.
And yet there was no reprimand from the US president. Instead, he chose to undermine the talks he had himself called for.
“Look, nothing is going to happen until Putin and I get together,” he told reporters on Air Force One. So much for that then.
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1:52
What happened at Ukraine talks?
It is what happened in those talks though that should give the US president the greatest pause for thought about Putin’s intentions – as it does in Kyiv.
The message they brought was blunt and belligerent, threatening eternal war.
“We don’t want war, but we’re ready to fight for a year, two, three – however long it takes,” lead Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky is reported to have said. “We fought Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?”
Image: Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky. Pic: AP
Far from offering a compromise, they are reported to have demanded the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the four regions they have partially seized by force and the capitulation of another two, just for good measure.
And there was a chilling moment when the Russians are reported to have threatened their interlocutors like gangsters.
“Maybe some of those sitting here at this table will lose more of their loved ones,” Mednisky said. Russia is prepared to fight forever.
For Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, that was personal.
Max, his 23-year-old nephew, lost his life fighting the Russians in 2022 not long after their illegal and unprovoked invasion began.
Image: Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister. Pic: AP
At the end of this week, Putin appears scornful of Western efforts to end this war through a ceasefire and negotiations and Trump seems happy to let him get away with it.
Even Fox News, normally slavishly subservient to Trump, is wondering what gives.
Its anchor Bret Baier is no Jeremy Paxman, but in an interview last night asked Donald Trump 10 times if he might finally now put pressure on Putin.
The US president ducked and dived, talking about the money he had made in his Gulf tour, Zelenskyy’s shortcomings, Biden, and Iran instead. But he did not give a straight answer to the question.
With performances like that, Putin has nothing to worry about. Trump’s position though seems increasingly untenable.
Ukraine’s European allies though should be alarmed. They threatened Russia with sanctions and retaliation last weekend if he rejected a ceasefire. He now has.
With or without America, will they be good to their word?