Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump says ‘very good things happening’ ahead of crunch US-brokered peace talks

Much of my hotel near the centre of the Black Sea port city of Odesa was wrecked when Shahed drones hit close by, setting buildings opposite ablaze and blowing out walls, shattering windows and collapsing ceilings where I was staying.

I had slept through the sirens warning of an approaching attack and was wrenched out of my slumber by the first enormous explosion which blew out windows in my room in the Hotel Alarus at around 2.20am.

For average wage earners in Russia, it’s a big payday. For criminals seeking to escape the harsh conditions and abuse in prison, it’s a chance at freedom. For immigrants hoping for a better life, it’s a simplified path to citizenship.

All they have to do is sign a contract to fight in Ukraine.

This desperate recruitment drive is part of Moscow’s strategy to replenish its forces in the nearly four-year conflict, while simultaneously avoiding an unpopular nationwide mobilisation. The bloody war of attrition has also seen foreign combatants join the fray. Following a mutual defence treaty in 2024, North Korea reportedly sent thousands of soldiers to help Russia defend its Kursk region against a Ukrainian incursion.

Slovakia will file a lawsuit challenging the European Union’s ban on Russian gas imports, after the policy won final approval on Monday.

European countries agreed to completely ban the imports by late 2027, but Slovakia and Hungary both voted against. Russian gas imports make up 90 percent of Hungary’s imports in the sector.

Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, is reported to have confirmed the news of the lawsuit, according to news website Dennik N.

Just days after trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, President Donald Trump told reporters that “very good things are happening on Ukraine and Russia.”

His comments come as Kyiv and Moscow negotiators are set to meet again this Sunday, as US-brokered peace talks continue.

US officials said progress had been made towards an agreement, as envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner came away from the talks feeling optimistic that a deal could be reached soon.

President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev has said that Ukraine’s withdrawal from the Donbas region is the solution to the conflict raging between Russia and Ukraine.

Dmitriev, who has been part of high-stakes negotiations being held between the US, Russia and Ukraine, said on Tuesday: “Donbas withdrawal is the path to peace for Ukraine,” in a statement on X/Twitter.

Russia currently controls 90 per cent of the region and Putin has insisted on Ukraine surrendering the rest of it or Russia will take the region by force.

Prime minister Viktor Orban said Hungary would summon Ukraine’s ambassador over what he claimed were attempts to interfere in a Hungarian parliamentary election due on 12 April.

Orban has intensified his anti-Ukraine campaign in the past weeks, and has sought to associate Hungarian opposition leader Peter Magyar with Kyiv and the EU executive in Brussels as the campaign heats up.

In a campaign primarily targeting rural voters, Orban has portrayed Ukraine as unworthy of financial support, framing the April vote as a choice between war and peace and echoing his past anti-migrant campaigns.

Orban, who has kept close ties with Moscow, has repeatedly refused to support European Union aid for Ukraine, and has launched a “national petition” asking voters to sign up to say they do not want to help pay for the war.”

Last week, Ukrainian leaders and even the president himself made grossly insulting and threatening statements against Hungary … Our national security services have … concluded this is a coordinated attempt to interfere in Hungarian elections,” Orban said in a video.

Authorities in the Philippines said they were verifying reports of a Filipino national said to have died on the front lines fighting for Russia.

Ukraine’s military intelligence yesterday claimed that a Filipino national, identified as John Patrick, was killed fighting for Russian forces in the Donetsk region.

The man had served in Russia’s 9th Battalion, 283rd Regiment, 144th Motorized Rifle Division in the 20th Combined Arms Army of the Russian military, Ukraine claimed.

The American leader imperilled the future of the alliance with repeated threats to seize Greenland and attacks on European allies. General Richard Shirreff tells Maira Butt that the US President has turned the international order into a ‘dead duck’.