US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Ukraine First Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, Washington, D.C., April 30, 2025

Monday’s Coverage: Europe Plans for Troop Deployment with US Support

UPDATE 1319 GMT:

The suspect detained over Saturday’s murder of former Ukraine Parliament Speaker Andrii Parubii has told media that he committed the crime as a “revenge against Ukrainian authorities”.

Parubii, 54, was murdered in Lviv in western Ukraine on Saturday. He was shot eight times by an assailant with a short-barreled firearm.

The suspect, 52, is from Lviv. He was apprehended in the neighboring Khmelnytskyi region.

“I admit, I killed him. And I want to ask to be exchanged for [Ukrainian] prisoners of war so that I can go and find my son’s body,” the man told journalists.

UPDATE 0923 GMT:

After hosting Lithuanian counterpart Gitanas Nausėda in Helsinki, Finnish President Alexander Stubb has said:

Our shared assessment is that the security situation in Europe will remain challenging and unpredictable for a long term.

In these turbulent times, it’s important that you have close allies like Lithuania and Finland. We need a credible collective defence for the eastern flank of Europe.

Stubb said of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that he is not “very optimistic that we will achieve a ceasefire or a framework for the peace negotiations in the near future” amid Vladimir Putin’s stalling.

Europe should “obviously continue our dialogue and engagement” with Donald Trump while acknowledging that Putin is “testing everyone’s patience”.

We need to coordinate the security arrangements with the United States, which essentially will provide the backstop for this. This is what we’re focusing on right now.

We’re focusing on these issues with our Chiefs of Defense, which are drawing the concrete plans of what this type of an operation might look like, and I stress, post-peace agreement.

And then we are also discussing this on a political level….So we’re making progress on this, and hopefully we’ll get a solution soon.

UPDATE 0859 GMT:

At least eight civilians have been murdered and at least 29 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day.

Air defenses intercepted 120 out of 150 drones launched by Russia overnight. The other 30 hit nine locations.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine, three people were killed and five injured by drone strikes and shelling. Houses, a five-story building, farm buildings, power lines, a gas pipeline, and other civilian properties were damaged.

In the Donetsk region in the east, one civilian was slain and five injured.

In the Kherson region in the south, one civilian was killed and two injured. Five apartment buildings, eight houses, and a cell tower were damaged.

In the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, Russian attacks killed two people.

In the Kyiv region in the south, a man was murdered in a garage by a drone attack.

Casualties were also reported in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions.

UPDATE 0750 GMT:

South Korean intelligence estimates that around 2,000 North Korean troops have been killed while supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Legislator Lee Seong-kweun told reporters of the assessment after a briefing from the intelligence agency.

Having provided Moscow with along with artillery shells, missiles and long-range rocket systems, North Korea initially sent around 12,000 soldiers to Russia in autumn 2024. They were deployed in the Kursk region, part of which had been seized after a cross-border incursion in August.

South Korean intelligence believes Pyongyang plans to deploy another 6,000 personnel to Russia and 1,000 combat engineers have already arrived.

North Korea only confirmed in April that it had deployed troops. However, in recent weeks high-profile ceremonies, including leader Kim Jong-un, have honored the slain and praised Pyongyang’s contribution to the Russian invasion.

UPDATE 0608 GMT:

Russia launched overnight drone strikes on the Odesa, Sumy, and Kyiv regions, causing casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure.

A civilian was killed in the city of Bila Tserkva in the Kyiv region. His body was discovered as firefighters put out a fire at a garage.

In the Odesa region in southern Ukraine, fires were set at port infrastructure. No casualties were reported.

In the Sumy region in the northeast, Russian drones struck non-residential buildings in the Zarichny district, including a building near a kindergarten.

A 73-year-old man was killed in his yard on Monday amid Russian artillery shelling of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine.

On Tuesday, one resident was killed in Kostiantynivka in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Seven more were wounded across the region.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has revived the prospect of toughened US sanctions on Russia because of Moscow’s attacks on Ukrainian civilians and refusal to halt its 42-month full-scale invasion.

Donald Trump had proclaimed a “50-day deadline” and then 10 days this summer for the Kremlin to comply. However, after hosting Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15, he no longer referred to sanctions.

On Monday, Bessent returned to the Administration’s frustration with Moscow, telling Fox TV:

I think everything’s on the table.

President Putin, since the historic meeting in Anchorage, since the phone call, when the European leaders and President Zelensky were at the White House the following Monday, has done the opposite of following through on what he indicated he wanted to do. As a matter of fact, he has, in a despicable, despicable manner, increased the bombing campaign.

So I think with President Trump, all options are on the table, and I think we’ll be examining those very closely this week.

Bessent was also asked about the Administration’s 50% tariff on Indian goods, justified in part by India’s purchases of Russian oil, as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Vladimir Putin at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, China.

The Treasury Secretary said, “I think at the end of the day, India is the most populous democracy in the world. Their values are much closer to ours and to China’s than to Russia’s.”

But he maintained the tariffs pressure: “The Indians have not been great actors in terms of buying Russian oil and then reselling it, financing the Russian war effort in Ukraine.”

A Split Administration

The Administration is split over its approach to Russia’s invasion. Unnamed senior officials have told media outlets of impatience with European leaders pushing Kyiv to hold out for a “better deal”.

But other officials have been working with Ukraine and its European partners to transfer US weapons, via sales to NATO members, to Kyiv. They are developing plans for security guarantees.

On Sunday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of a “clear road map” and “an agreement with the White House” on the planning. She said potentially tens of thousands of European troops will be deployed in Ukraine, supported by American command and control systems and intelligence and surveillance assets.

Yesterday Germany pushed back, with Defense Minister Boris Pistorius saying, “Those are things that you don’t discuss before you sit down at the negotiating table with many parties that have a say in the matter.”