Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump at the NATO Summit, The Hague, Netherlands, June 25, 2025

Wednesday’s Coverage: Russia Murders 18+, Wounds 300+ In Dnipro

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1542 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has posted about another exchange of prisoners of war with Russia:

UPDATE 1038 GMT:

Donald Trump would attend talks between Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin, provided the Russian leader shows up, says Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Returning from meeting Trump at the NATO summit, Erdoğan told reporters, “He said, ‘if Russian President Vladimir Putin comes to Istanbul or Ankara for a solution, then I will also come.’ We will hold the necessary contacts and God willing realise this meeting as soon as possible.”

UPDATE 0859 GMT:

Photographer Grigory Skvortsov has been sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony by a court in Perm, Russia.

Skvortsov, arrested in November 2023, was condemned for “treason”. He was accused of giving an American journalist a book by historian Dmitry Yurkov, “Soviet ‘Secret Bunkers’: Urban Special Fortification of the 1930s–1960s”.

Skvortsov also bought photographs of declassified archival documents as additional material for the book.

UPDATE 0849 GMT:

Norway is allocating 6.5 billion Norwegian kroner ($642 million) to drone procurement for Kyiv’s forces from Ukrainian and European manufacturers.

Denmark committed 500 million Danish kroner ($78 million) to accelerate Ukraine’s weapon production, as Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and Danish counterpart Troels Lund Poulsen signed a letter of intent to establish the joint production of Ukrainian weapons in Denmark.

UPDATE 0843 GMT:

Ukraine air defenses downed 8 of 41 drones launched by Russia overnight, and 16 were lost to electronic counter-measures.

UPDATE 0824 GMT:

Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina has been posthumously awarded the UK’s Orwell Prize for her book “Looking at Women, Looking at War”.

Amelina won in the political non-fiction category. Kim Darroch, the chair of judges, acclaimed her book as “an unforgettable picture of the human consequences of war”.

Already a prominent author, Amelina became a war crimes researcher following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

She died on July 1, 2023 from injuries suffered during a Russian missile strike on Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine. An estimated 208 Ukrainian artists have been slain during the invasion.

See also Ukraine War, Day 495: Russia Murders Award-Winning Writer Victoria Amelina

Journalist and cultural manager Tetyana Teren, who was a close friend of Amelina, said of the award:

It’s a significant victory for our culture — a book by a Ukrainian author, written in English, has received a prestigious international prize.

I’m certain that if she were still with us, Victoria would have used this recognition to share vital messages with an international audience about the true reasons behind Russia’s imperial war against Ukraine and Europe and about the urgent need to keep fighting for the future, even as some foreign politicians call for peace without justice built on compromise with the aggressor.

UPDATE 0719 GMT:

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told Donald Trump on Wednesday that the determination shown by the US toward Iran should be applied to ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

She said sustained commitment is needed over Moscow’s 40-month full-scale assault, with Vladimir Putin declared last week that “all of Ukraine is ours”.

I spoke about this with…Donald Trump, to whom I said the same determination is needed to achieve two other important ceasefires. One in Ukraine, where Russia seems unwilling to take any steps forward, and one in Gaza.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed a 50-minute meeting with Donald Trump, on the sidelines of the NATO Summit in The Hague, for covering “all the truly important issues”.

Zelensky posted that the “long and substantive” discussion covered air defenses, including Ukraine’s purchase of US systems; the potential for co-production of drones; Kyiv’s talks with Russia in Istanbul; and the situation on the battlefield.

Trump told journalists that the meeting was “very nice” even though he and Zelensky “had little rough times” in the past. Speaking to a Ukrainian reporter, whose husband is on active duty in Kyiv’s army, Trump said he would see about making more Patriot air defense missiles available for Ukraine: “They are very effective, 100% effective.”

The reality TV star said of the Russian invasion, “I’m going to speak to Vladimir Putin see if we can get it ended.”

He insisted Putin “would like to settle, he’d like to get out of this thing. It’s a mess for him.”

Trump added that his original promise to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine “within 24 hours” was “sarcastic”: “it’s more difficult than people would have any idea.”

He concluded, “Look, Vladimir Putin really has to end that war.”

At a later briefing, when asked if the US would restart military aid to Ukraine, Trump said, “We’ll see what happens.”

The brief communiqué from the summit bowed to the Trump Administration by not repeating previous commitments to Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to NATO membership.

Secretary General Mark Rutte maintained, “The whole of NATO, including the United States, is totally committed to keep Ukraine in the fight, to make sure that if there is a peace deal, that peace deal – or the ceasefire – will be lasting, will be durable.”

He said Europeans will be responsible for more of the military aid to Ukraine. The US will be “very much involved with intelligence-sharing and “practical military support”, possibly including air defense systems.

Ukraine-Europe Agreement on War Crimes Tribunal

Ukraine and the Council of Europe signed an agreement to establish a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression over the Russian invasion.

Zelensky thanked the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly for its “real leadership”: “It was here in this assembly, that the first call for such a tribunal was made. The idea was born here – and now it’s gaining real support from partner countries in Europe and beyond.”

He emphasized, “Everyone responsible for this war must be held to account. Every war criminal must face justice – including Putin…the crime of aggression must be recorded, judged, and punished.”

To the applause of those present, Zelensky enters the hall of the Council of Europe

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— MAKS 25 (@maks23.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 8:47 PM