Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump ‘approves of secret deal with Moscow that would force Kyiv to give up land and arms’

Ukraine received 1,000 bodies of what Russia says are fallen Ukrainian servicemen, Kyiv’s prisoner-of-war coordination centre said on Thursday.

“Investigators from law enforcement bodies, together with expert agencies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, will soon conduct all necessary examinations and identify the repatriated bodies,” the centre’s post said on the Telegram messaging app.

Kyiv and Moscow have conducted swaps of thousands of fallen bodies during the war, which began with Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Ukraine has previously accused Russia of returning bodies in a disorderly way, and of sometimes sending the bodies of Russian soldiers. Moscow has denied this.

Ukraine’s military said on Thursday it had struck Russia’s Ryazan and Ilsky oil refineries.

The general staff said it had struck the Ryazan refinery overnight, recording a hit and observing fires in the vicinity of secondary oil processing facilities. Ukraine had also hit this refinery in a previous strike last week.

Separately, Ukraine’s drone force chief Robert Brovdi said the Ilsky refinery had been struck by his units the night before.

It comes as part of Ukraine’s continued push to strain Russia ‘s economy through strikes on oil sites.

More than 400,000 Ukrainian consumers remained without electricity as of midday on Thursday following a recent large-scale Russian attack on Ukraine’s western regions, energy officials said.

The attack led to a decrease in electricity production at Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

Ukraine generates more than half of its electricity at three nuclear power plants, but damage to power lines and transformers has forced the plants to reduce their output, a representative of the national nuclear energy company Energoatom told Reuters.

The International Atomic Energy Agency also confirmed the reduction in Ukraine’s nuclear power output after Russian attacks on Tuesday night as the power stations lost the connection to their high-voltage power lines.

Energoatom said the situation remained unchanged as of Thursday, while the head of Ukrainian power grid operator Ukrenergo Vitaliy Zaichenko told national television that power supply restrictions were in effect across virtually the entire country, with blackouts lasting up to 16 hours.

The Kremlin has hit out at comments made by the chairman of Airbus on Russian nuclear weapons.

Airbus chairman Rene Obermann on Wednesday called on European countries to acquire tactical nuclear weapons in response to what he said was the threat posed by Russian nuclear-capable Iskander missiles deployed by Moscow in its exclave of Kaliningrad.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov asked why someone like him was making such comments in the first place, saying that “more and more Europeans” were “losing their restraint”.

He added: “Why is he involved in nuclear weapons?”

Kaliningrad was part of Russia and Moscow was doing everything necessary to ensure its security, Peskov said.

“It is evident that more and more Europeans are losing their restraint and thoughtfulness in their approaches.

“Unfortunately, some are making provocative statements and calling for further steps to heighten and escalate tensions. We take a negative view of this,” said Peskov.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz discussed with Polish prime minister Donald Tusk the latest railway explosions in Poland that Warsaw blames on Russia during a phone call on Wednesday, a German government spokesperson said.

“The Chancellor condemned this attack in the strongest terms and reaffirmed Germany’s solidarity with Poland,” said the spokesperson in a statement on Thursday, adding the two also discussed continued support for Ukraine’s war with Russia.

Polish authorities have said that two Ukrainian nationals collaborating with Russian intelligence were responsible for the explosion.

Ukraine’s prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, met the Secretary of the US Army Daniel Driscoll in Ukraine on Thursday, she wrote in a post on social media.

It comes as part of a recent push by the US to force through an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, including a 28-point proposal discussed between Washington and Moscow which the US is seeking to force Kyiv into agreeing.

“This visit provides an important opportunity for the senior military officials accompanying the secretary to assess the situation on the ground and to witness firsthand the consequences of Russian aggression,” Ms Svyrydenko wrote.

Driscoll and a delegation of senior US military officials met Ukraine’s military chief on Wednesday.

A peace plan from Donald Trump’s administration reportedly proposes Ukraine partially disarms and leases key territories to Russia.

Read everything you need to know in just five bullet points with The Independent’s Bulletin…

The Kremlin said on Thursday that any peace plan for Ukraine would have to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and that though there were contacts with the United States there were currently no negotiations with Washington on such a plan.

It is a line which has been repeatedly used by Moscow, which has characterised its invasion of Ukraine as an attempt to address neo-Nazism in the country, which it says needs to go through a process of “denazification”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment if Russian president Vladimir Putin had been briefed on the details of the reported Ukraine peace plan.

Russian defence ministry said that its forces had downed four British-made Storm Shadow missiles, Russian news agencies reported on Thursday.

The UK government allowed Kyiv defensive use of the missile shortly after Sir Keir Starmer was elected prime minister in 2024.

The ministry added in a battlefield update that Russian troops had taken control of the settlement of Vesele in the Zaporizhzhia region in eastern Ukraine.

The Independent could not independently confirm the battlefield report.

Russia’s parliament said on Thursday that any seizure of Russian assets by the European Union must be met by legal action against Belgium and Euroclear, the Belgium-based depository where the immobilised assets are held.

In a resolution, it also proposed using assets of non-residents from “unfriendly countries” to compensate for losses imposed on Russia.

The European Commission has proposed a plan allowing EU governments to use up to 185 billion euros ($217 billion) – most of the 210 billion euros worth of Russian sovereign assets currently frozen in Europe – to provide loans to Ukraine, although without confiscating them.