Ukraine Update…Day 1,082….Trump attacking Zelensky…. Personally….

• Russian drones attacked Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa for the second night running on Wednesday, with nearly 90,000 people affected by blackouts and loss of heating, said the regional governor, Oleh Kiper, and the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Four people, including a child, were injured in the initial attack on Tuesday.

• A Russian guided bomb killed at least one person on Wednesday in and around Ukraine’s north-eastern city of Kupiansk, east of Kharkiv, said the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov. Russian forces hit a residential area of Kupiansk and rescuers retrieved the body of one resident from under rubble; while two people were injured in an attack on a village south of the city. Prosecutors in the region put the death toll for the day at two people.

• In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, Russian forces hit a multi-storey apartment building with guided bombs, injuring three people and causing serious damage, said Roman Mrochko, head of the city’s military administration. The injured included 13-year-old twins.

• Ukrainian drones hit the Syzran oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region on Wednesday, said the local governor. The refinery suspended oil processing afterwards, industry sources told Reuters. It is about 700km from the Ukrainian border.

• EU officials have proposed boosting it military aid for Ukraine amid uncertainty about continued backing from the US, whose president, Donald Trump, has started direct talks with Russia and on Wednesday launched a tirade laced with pro-Kremlin falsehoods against the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Reuters news agency said a paper suggested each EU member state contribute based on the size of its economy to produce a package that would include 1.5m rounds of artillery ammunition to be delivered this year, as well as air defence systems, missiles for deep precision strikes and drones. Diplomats held initial talks on the plan this week in Brussels and said EU foreign ministers may discuss it on Monday.

• EU envoys have also agreed a 16th package of sanctions on Russia. It includes restrictions on Russian banks, measures to strengthen the G7 oil price cap, a Russian aluminium import ban and new export bans. The package is expected to be adopted by the bloc’s foreign ministers on Monday to mark the third anniversary of the war.

• Britain and France are leading efforts to create a European “reassurance force” intended to prevent future Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities, ports and critical infrastructure in the event of a US-brokered peace deal, Dan Sabbagh writes. The proposal, western officials said, would involve less than 30,000 troops and would be likely to be concentrated on air and maritime defence. Ground forces would be minimal and not deployed near the frontline in the east of Ukraine. Among the aims would be safe reopening of Ukraine’s airspace to commercial flights and the security of its seaborne trade over the Black Sea such as food and grain exports.

• South Korea has affirmed that a North Korean soldier captured by Ukraine has the right to start a new life on its side of the border. An official from Seoul’s foreign ministry said “North Korean soldiers are constitutionally considered our nationals” and the South “would provide the necessary protection and support”. The South’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper published an interview with a North Korean soldier on Wednesday describing “brutal” fighting on the frontline. The soldier, whom the newspaper called Ri, said he was “80%” decided that he “plans to apply for refugee status and go to South Korea”.

• Ri – visibly wounded – told Chosun that many of his fellow North Korean soldiers had been killed by drones and artillery fire. “Everyone who joined the army with me is dead. When I finally entered the battle, it was truly brutal … I had never seen people die before.”

• Ukraine on Wednesday denied claims by Vladimir Putin of a ground attack into Ukrainian territory from the Kursk region, which would have been a first in the region since 2022. “Putin’s information about a large-scale Russian offensive is a lie,” said Andriy Kovalenko, an official responsible for countering disinformation, who added that a Russian reconnaissance unit had tried to cross but was destroyed. Russia’s president claimed fighters of the 810th brigade had crossed into Ukrainian territory overnight.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would meet on Thursday with Donald Trump’s US envoy, retired Gen Keith Kellogg, and hoped for “constructive” work with the US….

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The Russian money pitch thrown at Trump….

(Effort to lift Russian economic Santions for INVADING the Ukraine…)

The Russian government’s top investment manager, who has Harvard and McKinsey credentials and fluent English, brought a simple printout to Tuesday’s talks with the Trump administration in Saudi Arabia.

Its message: By pulling out of Russia in outrage over the invasion of Ukraine, American companies had walked away from piles of cold, hard cash.

“Losses of U.S. companies by industry,” read the document, which Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, showed to a New York Times reporter. “Total losses,” one of the columns said. The sum at the bottom: $324 billion.

In appealing to President Trump, the Kremlin has zeroed in on his desire to make a profit. President Vladimir V. Putin said last month that the two leaders “have a lot to talk about” when it comes to energy and the economy. Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said after Tuesday’s meeting that “there was great interest” in the room “in removing artificial barriers to the development of mutually beneficial economic cooperation” — an apparent reference to lifting American sanctions….

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Republican Senators NOT Happy with Trump’s attacks against Zelensky…

Public comments from President Trump blaming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for Russia’s invasion of his country are unnerving Senate Republicans, who have largely sought to avoid conflicts with the White House.

Trump’s escalating war of words with the Ukrainian leader comes as hawks in both parties plead with the president not to give Moscow a free pass in talks to end the bitter three-year conflict.

“I’m concerned with anything that would ultimately allow there to be a moral equivalency between Zelensky and Putin,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who visited Ukraine alongside a pair of Senate Democrats over the weekend and toured parts of suburban Kyiv that have been ravaged by fighting.

He also pushed back on Trump’s criticism of Zelensky on Wednesday, when he took to Truth Social and called the Ukrainian president a “dictator without elections” who was doing a “terrible job.”

“Zelensky is frustrated, but he’s also been the right head of state for the time. He’s kept a nation together focused on Russian occupiers, and I think we should give them a fair amount of credit for that work,” Tillis said.

Trump and Zelensky have a tumultuous relationship dating back to Trump’s first term, when a phone call between the two led to Trump’s first impeachment…..

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Pence on his former Boss’s Lie….

Former Vice President Mike Pence denounced his ex-boss, President Trump,over his recent claim that Ukraine started the war with Russia, a conflict that has been ongoing for three years.

“Mr. President, Ukraine did not ‘start’ this war. Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. The Road to Peace must be built on the Truth,” Pence said in a Wednesday post on the social platform X, accompanied by emojis of U.S. and Ukrainian flags….

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Canadian support for Ukraine…

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an unequivocal defense of Ukraine on Wednesday amid an escalating feud between the leader of the war-torn country and President Trump.

In video remarks posted to social media, Trudeau made clear that “Canada and our allies” are united in support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and against Russian President Vladimir Putin….

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Trudeau fiercely defended the “rules-based order” that he said has kept the world safe for the last near-century.

“Ukrainians have been fighting and dying not just to protect their sovereignty, their territorial integrity,” Trudeau said. “They’re also fighting to protect the rules-based order that keeps us all safe around the world and has for close to 80 years now.”…

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Trump Ukraine ‘Pay Back Protection  Money’ view…

Trump also claimed that U.S. is not “being paid back” for the military and humanitarian aid given to Ukraine and repeated the false claim that the U.S. has provided considerably more aid to Ukraine than its European allies. In fact, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Europe has allocated $138 billion compared with $119 billion from the United States….

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