Donald Trump also lays into Volodymyr Zelenskyy again, saying he’d “better move fast or he’s not going to have a country left” adding that he “could have come [to the talks in Saudi Arabia] if he wanted, although it does not appear Zelenskyy was invited.

He also repeats comments about Zelenskyy’s alleged low poll ratings (in fact levels of trust in the Ukrainian president are high at home) and the lack of elections in Ukraine, which has been under martial law since the war began three years ago. Trump also says,

It’s hope that my greatest legacy will be as a unifier and as a peacemaker.

It seems an odd comment given his recent comments on Ukraine and the Middle East, where he was threatened to displace the entire population of Gaza, in what would amount to the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.

It’s 1am in Kyiv, 2am in Moscow and 6pm in Washington. Here’s a recap of the latest developments:

• The US and Ukraine appear to be heading towards an irreconcilable rift after Donald Trump escalated his attacks on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, calling him a “dictator” and warning the Ukrainian leader “better move fast” or he “won’t have a country left.” The US president also accused Zelenskyy – without evidence – of benefiting from continuing US financial and military support. Trump’s latest comments cast serious doubt on future US aid to Ukraine and mark the most explicit threat yet to end the war on terms favourable to Moscow.

• Trump’s fiery Truth Social rant on Wednesday came after Zelenskyy accused the US leader of being “trapped” in a Russian “disinformation bubble”. The Ukrainian president said Trump was pushing “a lot of disinformation coming from Russia,” and accused Washington of bringing Russia out of global isolation through bilateral talks earlier this week in Riyadh. Zelenskyy also disputed Trump’s comments that most of Ukraine’s support comes from the US. US vice-president JD Vance warned Zelenskyy against “bad mouthing” Trump, saying criticising the president would not help his cause.

• Zelenskyy’s comments at a press conference came in response to Trump’s claims that Ukraine was to blame for Russia’s 2022 invasion, remarks that echoed the Kremlin’s narrative. Trump said he was “disappointed” that the Ukrainian leader complained about being left out of talks between the US and Russia over ending the Ukraine war, and increased pressure on Zelenskyy to hold elections – echoing one of Moscow’s key demands. Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, challenged him in a post that said: “Mr. President, Ukraine did not ‘start’ this war … . The Road to Peace must be built on the Truth.”

• Vladimir Putin said Ukraine would not be excluded from negotiations to end the war, and rejected claims that Moscow had rejected talks with Europe or Kyiv. On Trump, the Russian leader said the US president had begun receiving “objective information” about the war in Ukraine, which led him to “change his position.” He added that he was happy to meet with Trump, and said he “highly rated” the results of the Russia-US summit in Riyadh.

• Zelenskyy said he would meet with Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, in Kyiv on Thursday. Kellogg, who is seen as Trump’s most pro-Ukraine adviser, arrived in Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian leaders on Wednesday. “Together with America and Europe, peace can be more reliable, and this is our goal,” Zelenskyy said in his daily evening address on Wednesday.

• Keir Starmer expressed his support for “Ukraine’s democratically elected leader” during a call with Zelenskyy on Wednesday evening. German chancellor Olaf Scholz said that it was “wrong and dangerous” to deny Zelenskyy’s democratic legitimacy. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said there can be no Russia-Ukraine peace deal without the participation of Ukraine and Europe.

• Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron are set to visit Washington next week, according to reports. Macron will meet with Trump at the White House, a US official said. Starmer is also expected to visit Washington next week, amid other meetings aimed at bringing an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, US national security advisor Mike Waltz said.

• Sweden and Poland agreed to “strengthen and deepen cooperation” politically and in civil protection and civil defence, citing the worsened security situation across Europe. The statement of intent pledges to work together to improve national resilience and preparedness strategies, provide Ukraine support on strengthening national resilience and improve resilience and security in the Baltic region – particularly on critical infrastructure.

• Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen announced the country needs a “massive rearmament” to avoid war as she announced Denmark will spend 50bn DKK over the next two years on defence. The investment brings Denmark’s defence spending up to 3% of GDP in the next two years (up from 2.4% in 2024). It comes after coming under huge pressure from the Trump administration over Greenland and its recent comments on cutting support to Europe and Ukraine.

• Europe’s leading human rights official criticised US vice-president JD Vance’s “very problematic” speech on European democracy, offering an implicit rebuke to Vance’s take on free speech and politics across the continent. The Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, Michael O’Flaherty, challenged Vance’s claim that Europe had abandoned its values in an interview with the Guardian.

• EU sanctions against Russia will be extended to cover aluminium imports and dozens more “shadow” vessels covertly exporting Russian oil below a price cap imposed by western allies. The new package, 16th since the full scale invasion in 2022, includes a ban on imports of Russian aluminium into the EU, said by EU officials to generate significant revenues for Russia. The approval of the package carries extra weight, amid fears in Brussels that Trump will seek to lift US sanctions against Russia as part of his effort to make a peace deal.

Yan Patsenko, who is originally from Kyiv but now lives in Spain, told the Guardian they felt ambivalent about the Trump administration-led talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.

“I have very mixed feelings about the peace process initiated by the Trump administration. On the one hand, I welcome the willingness of Russians and Americans to start talking to each other because I believe that much of this war’s roots lie in the Cold War-era perceptions they still hold about one another – to everyone’s detriment. I also welcome the intention to end the war in Ukraine through diplomatic means. After three years of bloodshed, this is what our families long for the most.

“On the other hand, I worry when I see these discussions happening behind closed doors, solely between representatives of Russia and the US. And I question how much of what they share publicly actually reflects the content of their private conversations.

“My biggest concern is that what is being presented as a peace process may, in reality, be nothing more than an attempt to negotiate between two competing imperial ambitions on how to divide Ukraine. I worry that this process remains entirely in the hands of a small circle of politicians who are the least affected by the consequences of their decisions.”

30-year-old Ivan, who is currently living in Los Angeles on a student visa, said:

“I voted for Zelenskyy last time and will vote for him again. So will my entire family and all my friends. There are people both in the country and abroad who are dissatisfied with the president, but in such challenging times, that’s not surprising.”

He agreed with many others that Ukrainian elections were impossible to hold while fighting continued. “There are hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the front lines. How would they vote? In the trenches?

“It looks like Trump doesn’t care about peace but rather about fulfilling his promise to ‘end the war’ for his voters, who don’t care what price Ukraine has to pay. A ceasefire without security guarantees, on the aggressor’s terms, is not peace – it’s just a short pause for Putin before his next offensive.”

US vice-president JD Vance warned Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy against “bad mouthing” Donald Trump, saying criticising the president would not help his cause.

In comments to the Daily Mail after Zelenskyy said Trump was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space”, Vance said:

The idea that Zelenskyy is going to change the president’s mind by bad mouthing him in public media, everyone who knows the President will tell you that is an atrocious way to deal with this administration.

Vance added that Zelenskyy had been getting “bad advice” on how to deal with the Trump administration. “We obviously love the Ukrainian people … but we obviously think that this war needs to come to a rapid close,” he continued.

That is the policy of the President of the United States. It is not based on Russian disinformation. It’s based on the fact that Donald Trump, I think, knows a lot about geopolitics and has a very strong view, and has had a strong view for a very long time.

Dan Sabbagh

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.

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 of the force would be to ensure the safe reopening of Ukraine’s airspace to commercial flights and to maintain the security of seaborne trade over the Black Sea, critical to the country’s food and grain exports.

Ukraine’s electricity and other utilities have been repeatedly bombed by Russia during the near-three-year war, and maintaining their integrity is also deemed critical to the recovery of the country if the conflict is brought to a close.

It is unclear whether a force that is relatively small in number would be supported by Ukraine, whose president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has called for the creation of a deterrence force 100,000-150,000 strong, which involves the US.

Here’s more on this story:

The UK prime minister Keir Starmer spoke to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday evening to express his support, Downing Street said.

Starmer “stressed the need for everyone to work together” during his call with Zelenskyy, according to a readout from No 10. The statement continued:

The Prime Minister expressed his support for President Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader and said that it was perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time as the UK did during World War II.

“The Prime Minister reiterated his support for the US-led efforts to get a lasting peace in Ukraine that deterred Russia from any future aggression,” it added.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he will meet US envoy Keith Kellogg on Thursday.

Zelenskyy, in his daily evening address on Wednesday, said he hopes for “constructive” work with the US.

We are scheduled to meet with General Kellogg tomorrow, and it is very important for us that the meeting and our work with America in general be constructive.

“Together with America and Europe, peace can be more reliable, and this is our goal,” he added.

Julian Borger

All the effort Kyiv had expended in wooing the White House, combining flattery with bribery and a share of Ukraine’s mineral wealth, imploded in minutes when Volodymyr Zelenskyy broke the fundamental rule of the new global reality: he told the truth about Donald Trump.

All America’s allies, the great majority of Republican leaders who have bowed to him, and a good number of his own cabinet, know full well that Trump is trapped in a disinformation bubble, but Zelenskyy said it out loud at a press conference on Wednesday.

In this new world where the foreign policy of the most powerful country on Earth has been rapidly reorganised around the fragile ego of a sullen and resentful old man, you might as well launch missiles at America’s eastern seaboard as utter a few words of rebuke.

Zelenskyy was aware of this. On Tuesday, he had complained that his country was being excluded from talks about its fate between the US and Russia in Riyadh. They were “about Ukraine but without Ukraine”, he said.

It was a fair point. What happened in Riyadh was an upending of western policy towards Ukraine, but none of that matters any more. This is year zero as far as Trump, Elon Musk and their supporters are concerned.

Read the full analysis: Kyiv’s White House wooing implodes as Zelenskyy tells the truth about Trump