Ukraine war briefing: Trump urges Zelenskyy to ‘get a deal done’ with Russia

US president Donald Trump on Thursday again urged Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy to strike a deal with Russia, claiming that Russian president Vladimir Putin was prepared to reach an agreement. “Zelenskyy, he has to get on the ball, and he has to get a deal done,” Trump said in an interview with Politico. Trump, returning to language he used during a tense White House meeting a year ago where he and vice-president JD Vance publicly berated Zelenskyy, suggested the Ukrainian president was in a weak position and needed to make compromises, saying “Now he’s got even less cards” and repeated his insistence that “Putin is ready to make a deal”, without providing evidence. Trump has long said that US support for Ukraine is wasteful to the US and has spoken admirably in the past about Putin, whom he invited to Alaska in August 2025.

Zelenskyy said the US and its allies in the Middle East are seeking Ukraine’s expertise in countering Iran’s Shahed drones. The Ukrainian president said various countries, including the US, have approached Ukraine for help in defending against Iranian drones. He said he had spoken in recent days to the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait about possible cooperation. Russia has fired tens of thousands of Shaheds at Ukraine since it invaded its neighbor just over four years ago. Iran has responded with the same type of drones to joint US-Israeli strikes on Iranian targets.

Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha accused Hungary early on Friday of detaining seven employees of Ukraine’s state savings bank while they were transporting cash from Austria back to Ukraine. Sybiha was writing on X after Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán said Budapest would force Ukraine with “political and financial tools” to reopen the Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil to Hungarian refineries. Hungary is one of the few European countries to maintain close ties with Russia since its Ukraine offensive. “In fact, we are talking about Hungary taking hostages and stealing money,” Sybiha wrote. “If this is the ‘force’ announced earlier today by Mr Orban, then this is a force of a criminal gang. This is state terrorism and racketeering.”

Repair crews have restored an external line to the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in south-eastern Ukraine nearly a month after it was taken out of operation, the head of Russia’s nuclear energy corporation said. Alexei Likhachev, director general of Rosatom, said in a statement that repairs to the Ferosplavna-1 line connecting the plant to the power grid were completed late on Thursday afternoon. Europe’s largest nuclear plant, with six reactors, was seized by Russia soon after Moscow’s troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

A downed Ukrainian drone fell next to a five-storey apartment building in the port of Sevastopol in Russian-held Crimea, injuring nine people and causing considerable damage, the Russian-appointed governor said early on Friday. Mikhail Razvozhayev said the drone was filled with metal pieces and explosives fell next to the building, badly damaging it. Sevastopol hosts the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014.