“We discussed Ukraine in pretty strong words,” Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday after a phone call with the “coalition of the willing” leaders Keir Starmer of Britain, Emmanuel Macron of France and Germany’s Friedrich Merz. “I think we had some little disputes about people, and we’re going to see how it turns out. And we said, ‘before we go to a meeting, we want to know some things,’” Trump added. “They would like us to go to a meeting over the weekend in Europe, and we’ll make a determination depending on what they come back with. We don’t want to be wasting time.”
Voldodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, spoke further about Ukrainian elections, saying he had discussed with parliament the legal and other issues involved. “If partners, including our key partner in Washington, speak so much and so specifically about elections in Ukraine, about elections under martial law, then we must provide legal Ukrainian answers to every question and every doubt,” he said. “It is not easy, but pressure on this issue is definitely not what we need.”
There is no proof of Russian allegations that western arms sent to Ukraine are being illicitly diverted on a large scale to criminal groups, two NGOs said in a study on Wednesday. The Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey and Ukrainian Center for Security Studies said that while firearms seizures by Ukrainian authorities had increased, “Ukrainian authorities have shown a strong commitment to addressing this issue” – and Russia’s invading forces were driving illicit arms flows in Ukraine by establishing arms caches and losing or abandoning their weapons on the battlefield. “Western hand grenades, shoulder-fired rockets, and portable missiles comprise only a small percentage of all seized weapons.”
The war in Ukraine is endangering pregnant women, and maternal mortality has risen sharply, the United Nations Population Fund has warned. The maternal mortality rate among pregnant women jumped by approximately 37% from 2023 to 2024. The war was putting “more women at risk of dying and more pregnancies ending in life-threatening complications” said Florence Bauer, the agency’s director for eastern Europe. “These are not abstract statistics – they are people and families living under unbearable stress and reflect a health system under attack.”
On Capitol Hill, the US House of Representatives passed a $900bn defence policy bill on Wednesday that includes $400m for each of the next two years to manufacture weapons to be sent to Ukraine. Despite Trump’s capricious attitude to Ukraine and European allies, lawmakers included several provisions meant to keep up US support for countering Russian aggression.
The bill would need to pass the Senate, where it could be amended, and then also would have to receive the president’s signature. It requires the Pentagon to keep at least 76,000 troops and major equipment stationed in Europe unless Nato allies are consulted and there is a determination that a withdrawal is in US interests. About 80,000 to 100,000 U.S. troops are usually present on European soil.