Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin rejects full ceasefire but halts strikes on energy targets after Trump call

Shortly after the call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin ended, air raid alerts sounded in Kyiv, followed by explosions in the city.

Local officials urged people to seek shelter.

US President Donald Trump told Fox News that aid to Ukraine was not discussed in his call on Tuesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump made the comments in an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” show.

There was no indication that Vladimir Putin has backed away from his conditions for a prospective peace deal, which are fiercely opposed by Kyiv.

Russia wants Ukraine to pull back its troops from the four regions that Moscow has annexed but never fully captured, renounce any prospect of joining the NATO military alliance and sharply cut its army.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow launched more than 40 drones late on Tuesday, hitting civilian infrastructure and showing that pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin must continue for the sake of peace.

“It is precisely such night attacks by Russia that destroy our energy systems, our infrastructure, the normal life of Ukrainians,” Zelensky said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

“Today, Putin de facto rejected the proposal for a complete ceasefire. It would be right for the world to reject in response any attempts by Putin to drag out the war.”

Sir Keir Starmer has spoken with Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss “progress President Trump had made towards a ceasefire in talks with Russia”, Downing Street has said.

Giving a readout of a call between the UK prime minister and the Ukrainian president, a Downing Street spokeswoman said: “The prime minister spoke to President Zelensky this evening.

“They discussed progress President Trump had made towards a ceasefire in talks with Russia.

“President Zelensky updated on the situation on the front line and the prime minister reiterated the UK’s unwavering support.”

Democratic US lawmakers will call on President Donald Trump’s administration to restore a program that helps track thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, and to use sanctions to punish those responsible for the rights violation.

As it slashes a wide range of US government programs and most foreign aid, the Republican president’s administration has ended a government-funded initiative led by Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab (Yale HRL) that tracked the mass deportation of children from Ukraine, the lawmakers said.

That decision meant researchers have lost access to a trove of information, including satellite imagery and other data, about some 30,000 children taken from Ukraine.

“We have reason to believe that the data from the repository has been permanently deleted. If true, this would have devastating consequences,” the Democratic lawmakers, led by Ohio Representative Greg Landsman, said in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent seen by Reuters on Tuesday and due to be sent on Wednesday.

Trump’s termination of the program and the letter were first reported in The Washington Post. It became public the same day that Trump spoke by telephone to Russian President Vladimir Putin in which Russia stopped short of agreeing to a 30-day cessation of hostilities.

Vladimir Putin’s demands on ending military aid and intelligence sharing is part of efforts to weaken Kyiv, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

The Ukrainian president also said that talks about Ukraine without Ukraine will not bring results.