Donald Trump with Volodymyr Zelensky outside the White House, Washington, D.C., October 17, 2025 (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

EA-Times Radio VideoCast: Why Trump Wobbled on Tomahawks for Ukraine

EA with TVP World: What Next After Zelensky-Trump Meeting?

Sunday’s Coverage: Putin Demands More Territory in Trump Call

UPDATE 1001 GMT:

Ukraine’s air defenses downed 38 of around 60 drones launched by Russia overnight.

Three Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles and 20 attack drones struck 12 locations.

UPDATE 0937 GMT:

The European Union has reportedly agreed to end all Russian gas imports by the end of 2027.

Energy ministers confirmed the timeline in a meeting in Luxembourg.

Spot purchases of Russian gas are banned from January 1, 2026 and short-term contracts from June 17, 2026. No long-term contracts may be signed, with existing ones terminated, from January 1, 2028.

Russian oil is not explicitly banned, with the Commission calling on governments to draft exit strategies to halt imports by the end of 2027.

Hungary and Slovakia, who continue to rely on Russian oil, have held out against a ban.

UPDATE 0924 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky says he is ready to join Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in talks in Hungary.

If I am invited to Budapest – if it is an invitation in a format where we meet as three or, as it’s called, shuttle diplomacy, President Trump meets with Putin and President Trump meets with me – then in one format or another, we will agree.

Posting after a conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, Zelensky said, “Now is the right moment to push the situation toward ending the war, and the most important thing is to fully seize every opportunity and apply the right kind of pressure on Russia.”

UPDATE 0530 GMT:

US Vice President J.D. Vance has said that Donald Trump is still considering the provision of Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine.

However, Vance signalled his opposition to the delivery.

He told reporters on Sunday that Trump “is certainly hearing that request” from Kyiv: “We know that it’s something that they want. That’s something that the president is going to ultimately decide.”

Vance then gave one of the primary excuses for not giving Ukraine the capacity for strikes inside Russia with the Tomahawks: “That means that we need to have the critical weapon systems for our own military, for our own troops. So that’s what the President is focused on.”

UPDATE 0521 GMT:

Russia’s Orenburg gas processing plant has been forced to halt intake from Kazakhstan following a Ukrainian drone attack early Sunday.

The plant in southwest Russia is one of the largest of its kind in the world, with the capacity to process around 45 billion cubic metres of gas per year.

Orenburg Governor Yevgeny Solntsev said a fire had broken out within a workshop. Ukraine’s General Staff said a “large-scale fire” damaged a gas processing and purification unit.

No timeline has been given for a resumption of operations.

Another drone strike hit the Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery in the Samara region near Orenburg, sparking a blaze and damaging the main refining units.

The attack was the fifth on the refinery and the second in a month.

The complex has an annual capacity of 4.9m tonnes, with more than 20 types of petroleum products.

UPDATE 0510 GMT:

European leaders are closing on an agreement to lend Ukraine €140 billion ($163.4 billion), secured with frozen Russian assets.

Proposals from the European Commission were discussed at a meeting of G7 finance ministers in Washington last week and will be considered at a summit of European Union leaders on Thursday in Brussels.

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, said last week, “The issue of the use, on behalf of the victim of aggression, of the frozen Russian assets is heading towards a happy resolution”.

He said an agreement on the interest-free loan can be confirmed by the end of the year: “It’s very simple, either we use the aggressor’s money or we will have to use our own money. Don’t ask me which I prefer.”

The loan is on the basis that Russia would use the frozen assets to cover war reparations when its invasion is halted.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: During last Friday’s White House meeting, Donald Trump told Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to surrender to Russia’s terms or face being “destroyed” by Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

In recent weeks, Trump had shifted his rhetoric from an inevitable Russian victory to Ukraine triumphing through its strikes inside Russia and the strain on Moscow’s economy.

But in an urgent call to Trump last Thursday, Putin repeated his demands for the seizure of more Ukrainian territory, including the rest of the Donetsk region in the east of the country. He threatened a response if the US supplied Tomahawk cruise missiles to Kyiv, citing irrevocable harm to relations between Moscow and Washington.

In the Friday meeting, Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff pressed the Ukrainian delegation about giving up all of Donetsk. He parroted the Kremlin line that the region is mostly Russian-speaking.

The session descended into a “shouting match” with Trump “cursing all the time”, said “people familiar with the matter“.

Three European officials confirmed that Trump spent much of the meeting lecturing Zelensky with Putin’s demands and urging him to capitulate.

Zelensky eventually talked Trump back into accepting a freeze of the current frontline, in which Russia holds 75% of Donetsk but has struggled to make a further advance.

However, “European officials briefed on the meeting” said Trump appeared to echo many of Putin’s talking points almost verbatim. Using the Kremlin’s phrase of a “special operation, not even a war”, he declared to Zelensky, “If [Putin] wants it, he will destroy you.”

The reality TV star pushed aside maps of the battlefield, dismissing further discussion of the situation. He snapped, saying he was “sick” of seeing them: “This red line, I don’t even know where this is. I’ve never been there.”

And only days after saying Putin will negotiate because his “economy is going to collapse” if the invasion continues, Trump said it is “doing great”.

On Thursday, Putin proposed to Trump that Ukraine surrender the Donetsk territory under its control in exchange for some small areas held by Russia in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south.

Russia also occupies Crimea and the Luhansk region in the east.

Despite Moscow’s aggression, Trump proposed US security guarantees to both countries, another key Russian demand.

One official said Zelensky was “very negative” afterward, and European leaders were “not optimistic but pragmatic with planning next steps”.

Trump: Putin Has “Won Certain Property”

In an interview with Fox TV, broadcast Sunday but taped on Thursday, Trump said Putin should be expected to keep the territory that he has seized during Russia’s 45-month full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Well, he’s going to take something,” Trump said. “I mean, they fought and uh, he has a lot of property. I mean, you know, he’s won certain property, if you say that, he’s won certain property.”

Trump made no mention of Ukraine’s sovereignty or international law.

Talking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, Trump denied that he called on Zelensky to give up all of Donetsk: “We never discussed that.”

But he said, “Let it be cut the way it is. It’s cut up right now….Leave it the way it is right now.”

We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are, the battle line….

The rest is very tough to negotiate if you’re going to say, “You take this, we take that.” You know, there are so many different permutations….

I think 78% of the land [in Donetsk] is already taken by Russia. You leave it the way it is. They can negotiate something down the line.

Zelensky made clear, in his nightly address to the nation, “We will grant the aggressor no gifts and forget nothing.”

He called on Europe to act by cutting off all imports of Russia oil and gas.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk gave his full support: