Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky have ramped up air attacks, killing 10 people across Ukraine and Russia, despite Donald Trump’s plea for a peace deal.
“Russia is escalating every single day. If the Russians have chosen to make their strikes even more brutal, the world must choose stronger responses to keep the war from spreading further,” President Zelensky said on Saturday.
Mr Trump told Zelensky to make a deal with Vladimir Putin to end the war at the UN General Assembly earlier this week in New York.
“You know what I want him to do? Make a deal,” the president told Fox News. “I want him to settle with Putin and I want Putin to settle with him.”
During the latest wave of Russian aerial attacks overnight, two women were killed in Zaporizhzhia city when they were trapped beneath the rubble of their destroyed home, while a separate attack on Sumy also killed two people.
Zelensky said the overnight strikes, which came at the end of a week of high-level diplomacy at the UN, showed the urgent need for the international community to rein in Putin.
Watch: 20 rescued after Kyiv residential building hit in Russian attack
ICMYI: Zelensky urges Trump to get China to help end Russia's invasion
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky says he asked Donald Trump to press China’s Xi Jinping to use Beijing’s influence over Moscow and end the war on his country.
Zelensky told reporters late on Friday that he has not yet received feedback from the White House about Trump’s talks with Xi, but expects to learn the outcome.
Nato countries have called China a “decisive enabler” of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion.
Zelensky was also in the US this week on a trip coinciding with the UN General Assembly. He met with Trump on Tuesday.
Zelensky met with US senators and Congress members during his trip and said he thanked them for their bipartisan support in passing a powerful sanctions bill aimed at Moscow last month. Trump signed the bill into law last week but hasn’t enacted the measures yet.
Ukraine now intercepting 55 per cent of Russian jet-powered drones - Zelensky
Next year, Russia plans to spend $12 billion on the production of jet-powered drones and loitering munitions alone. Of course, this is not only about Ukraine.
Ukraine’s interception rate for jet-powered “shaheds” is now 55%. In September, the Russians launched more than 2,730…
Putin 'looking for excuses to keep waging war'
Volodymyr Zelensky has said Vladimir Putin continues to “look for excuses” so he can keep waging war.
“Obviously, the Russians are not preparing to stop their war, at least for now,” he said.
“Putin always finds some lame excuse – not to meet, not to hold a trilateral, not to talk, not to end it, not to stop the killing… It has been the same with him for years – and all our partners feel it. He is looking for excuses to keep waging the war.
“It always sounds the same – and our recent meeting with the US President showed that. America sees the situation the same way. And Russia must develop a desire to spend money not on death, but on something else – they must develop a desire to end this war.
“In the coming days and throughout October, there will be a lot of diplomatic activity to change the situation. But beyond that, the Lindsey Graham Act, other mechanisms of pressure – all of this needs to work even harder.”
Russian and Ukrainian strikes leave 10 dead despite Trump plea for peace deal
Russian attacks killed four people across Ukraine, officials said on Saturday, while Kyiv continued to target Russian oil refineries and industrial sites with long-range drones.
The intensifying air strikes between Moscow and Kyiv come as Donald Trump said he hoped Volodymyr Zelensky would “settle” with Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine continued to target Russian oil refineries and industrial sites with long-range drones.
A Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region killed three people and wounded two, local officials said Saturday.
Attacks also killed three people overnight in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.
Russia and Germany's top diplomats hold first talks since 2022
Russia and Germany’s foreign ministers met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Saturday in the first talks since before the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Relations between Moscow and Berlin, a close ally of Ukraine, have been frozen since the Russian invasion, and tensions escalated further after a drone incident at Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany in August.
The ministers discussed bilateral ties and the war in Ukraine, officials from both sides said.
German foreign minister Johann Wadephul also used the talks to urge Mr Lavrov to do “everything possible to reach an agreement on grain exports via the Black Sea,” according to a German delegation source.
In his speech to the UN, Russia’s top diplomat rejected German calls to ease off its “dangerous path of escalation” toward the country, instead accusing Germany of being Ukraine's main sponsor and seeking to be a leading military power in Europe.
“Does Berlin understand what this could lead to?’ Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov asked in his speech.
“Didn’t they not learn the lessons of World War II?”
In focus: ‘Whoever wins AI, wins’: How artificial intelligence is transforming the future of war
Killer robots, nuclear war, and chemical weapons are all part of a doomsday scenario involving AI and global conflict. Experts tell Maira Butt that guardrails are crucial to prevent disaster:
Watch: Putin claims peace is ‘on the table’ for Ukraine - yet warns of further strikes
The critical infrastructure Europe - and Nato - needs to protect from Russia
Ukraine's ex-defence minister launches initiative to replace humans with robots on the battlefield
Former Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has announced he is launching the “army of robots”, a tech initiative which looks to replace humans on the battlefield.
“In 2022, we launched the Army of Drones. Today, drones account for over 95 per cent of battlefield strikes, and Ukraine has more than 700 UAV manufacturers,” he wrote on X on Saturday.
“Now we need the next technological breakthrough: the robotisation of warfare.”
He added: “The goal is simple — save lives. Robots should take on the most dangerous missions: evacuating the wounded, delivering ammunition, mining and demining, reconnaissance, defending positions and engaging targets.
“The Army of Robots is not one company. It’s an ecosystem. We will invest in defence tech companies, launch our own technology projects, test them with the military and scale what works on the battlefield.”