Ukraine President Volodymyr Starmer and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer confer in London, October 24, 2025

EA on RTE and Ukraine’s War and Politics 24: Trump Administration Turns Against Putin

Friday’s Coverage: Zelensky Welcomes Europe Support on Finance, Sanctions, and Air Defense

UPDATE 1325 GMT:

Vladimir Putin’s financial advisor Kirill Dmitriev is in Washington for talks with Trump Administration officials including real estate developer Steve Witkoff.

In an interview with CNN, he said Russia missile and drone attacks that struck civilian sites, including a kindergarten earlier this week, were “accidents”.

UPDATE 1257 GMT:

The toll from Russia’s strikes on Ukraine in the past 24 hours has risen to at least eight civilians murdered and 67 wounded.

In attention to two killed and 13 wounded from ballistic missiles in Kyiv, two people were slain and seven injured in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Apartment buildings, private homes, an outbuilding, a shop, and at least one vehicle were damaged.

In the Kherson region in the south, three civilians were slain and 29 injured, including three children. The attacks damaged 29 apartment buildings.

In the Donetsk region in the east, one person was murdered and five injured.

Casualties were also recorded in the Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions.

UPDATE 0730 GMT:

At least two civilians has been murdered and nine injured by a Russian missile attack on Kyiv overnight.

Explosions were heard just before 4 a.m. Fires were set at several points on the left bank of the Dnipro River.

The Russians launched nine Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 62 drones. Air defenses intercepted four missiles and 50 drones, but the others struck four locations.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and international partners have urged the US to step up its involvement in defense of Kyiv against Russia’s 45-month full-scale invasion.

More than 20 leaders in the “Coalition of the Willing” convened in a hybrid meeting on Friday. Zelensky said at the end of the session, “We are not finding and searching how to stop Putin and how to finish this work without the US.” For security guarantees, “we need to have the United States….Putin wants to divide us.”

The President said that while Trump stepped back from provision of Tomahawk cruise missiles for strikes inside Russia, the Coalition had “evolved together” with the supply of British Storm Shadows and French SCALPs as well as US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems.

The Trump Administration is providing intelligence for the targeting of Russian sites, and it has given permission for Ukraine to use the Storm Shadows and SCALPs.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said, “There’s further we can do on capability, particularly…long-range capability.”

Zelensky also spoke of the Russian effort to cause a “humanitarian disaster” through drone and missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure: “We’re thankful to you that we are not alone in this situation – from the very beginning of the war but especially now, it’s very important.”

Starmer emphasized, “From the battlefield to the global markets, as Putin continues to commit atrocities in Ukraine, we must ratchet up the pressure on Russia.”

Zelensky: “Sanctions Are One of Most Painful Blows for Putin”

In his nightly address to the nation, Zelensky spoke of the tightening sanctions on Russia.

On Wednesday, the US imposed sanctions on Russia’s largest oil companies Rosneft and Lukoil. The step has already prompted State refineries in China and India, Moscow’s two biggest customers, to reduce purchases because of the threat of American secondary sanctions.

The measure accompanied the European Union’s 19th package of sanctions during the invasion, blacklisting more than 100 vessels of Moscow’s “shadow fleet” and advancing the cutoff of imports of Russian natural gas to January 1, 2027.

Zelensky told the hybrid summit:

Pressure on Russian oil is an instrument to end the war….And all Russian oil companies – including Rosneft, Lukoil, Putin’s own oil company Surgutneftegas, and others – must be blocked.

Their access to the world market must be cut off – this will bring Putin back to reality and greatly limit the Russian war machine’s money. And I thank President Trump for this path of pressure, and I thank the countries that are already taking these steps.