Ukraine war briefing: US-Ukraine talks to take place in Saudi Arabia next week, Zelenskyy says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said talks between Ukraine and the US on ending the war will take place in Saudi Arabia next week. In his nightly address on Thursday, Zelenskyy said he would travel to Saudi Arabia on Monday and his team would stay on to hold talks with US officials. “Ukraine is most interested in peace,” Zelenskyy said.

European leaders held emergency talks in Brussels where they endorsed a plan to mobilise €800bn for European defence. EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who made the proposal, called it a “watershed moment”.

The agreement was made on the same day Donald Trump said the US may not defend Nato allies who have not contributed their share of defence spending. “I think it’s common sense,” he told reporters. “If they don’t pay, I’m not going to defend them.”

Ukraine’s opposition leaders confirmed they had discussions with members of Trump’s entourage, but denied they were part of a reported White House plot to remove Zelenskyy from power.

Petro Poroshenko, the former Ukrainian president who lost to Zelenskyy in the 2019 election, said he took part of the talks but opposed Trump’s demands for wartime elections.

French president Emmanuel Macron doubled down in his criticisms of Vladimir Putin, calling him “an imperialist who seeks to rewrite history” after the Russian president appeared to compare him to Napoleon Bonaparte.

Macron said he had been approached by other leaders all day in Brussels about his recent offer to extend French nuclear deterrence and that he hopes to see cooperation by the end of the first half of 2025.

Russia views comments by President Emmanuel Macron about extending France’s nuclear deterrent to other European countries as a “threat”, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday. Lavrov also reaffirmed his country’s opposition to European forces being deployed in Ukraine if an accord was made to halt the conflict.

Zelenskyy, who was at the talks in Brussels, presented “practical proposals” to European and Nato leaders to end the war, starting with a ceasefire in the sky and at sea, including the halting of all military operations in the Black Sea.

Britain will continue to supply intelligence to Ukraine, sources told the Guardian, after the Trump administration said the US would stop doing so.

The UK will also continue to supply its analysis of the raw data, sources said, though in line with normal intelligence practice it will not simply pass on US information obtained via long-established sharing arrangements between the two countries.

Russian forces launched a new mass drone attack on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa late on Thursday, damaging energy infrastructure and triggering fires, the regional governor said, the latest of what have become daily assaults on the city. “On the outskirts of Odesa, three private homes are on fire and energy infrastructure has been damaged,” Governor Oleh Kiper wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Kiper said information on casualties was being clarified. Waves of drones have swarmed on the city every night this week.