Donald Trump said he had a “very good call” with Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday and pledged to end Ukraine’s war with Russia. The US Republican presidential nominee posted on Truth Social that as president he would “bring peace to the world and end the war that has cost so many lives”. “Both sides will be able to come together and negotiate a deal that ends the violence and paves a path forward to prosperity,” he said. Trump has repeatedly claimed he would end the war quickly, without offering details on how. Zelenskiy said on X that in their conversation he had congratulated Trump on securing the presidential nomination, condemned the assassination attempt on him and agreed to arrange a meeting in person to discuss “what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting”.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Ukraine was on its way to being able to “stand on its own feet” militarily and more than 20 other countries had pledged to maintain their own military and financial aid to the country even if the US were to withdraw its support under a different president. Blinken was for the first time directly addressing the possibility that Trump could win the November election and back away from commitments to Ukraine.
A Russian missile hit a children’s playground in Ukraine’s southern city of Mykolaiv on Friday, killing a child and two adults and injuring five others, officials said. The playground was “near an ordinary house”, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, calling on the world to help stop Russian “terror”. He posted photos to Telegram showing what appeared to be at least two dead bodies – one lying under rubble by the entrance to a building, and another in a courtyard – and part of a missile. Windows on a multi-storey residential building had been blown out. The regional governor hailed residents of the city who rushed to the site to help before medics arrived. Vitaliy Kim said on Telegram that another missile had landed elsewhere in the region.
A nationalist former member of Ukraine’s parliament known for her vociferous campaigns to defend the Ukrainian language has died after being shot in Lviv. Police launched a wide search for the gunman alleged to have shot Iryna Farion, 60, on a street in the western city. The regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyi, said on Telegram that Farion died after being taken to hospital. The interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, earlier said the shooting was being treated as an attempted assassination.
Russian forces have captured the village of Yurivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the Russian defence ministry said on Friday.
A German national has been sentenced to death in Belarus, the German foreign ministry has said, hours after a Belarusian human rights group said a German combat medic had been sentenced to death by firing squad. The German ministry did not name its national but the Viasna Human Rights Centre said earlier on Friday that Rico Krieger, 30, had been convicted under six articles of Belarus’s criminal code in a trial held at the end of June. The exact allegations against Krieger were not immediately clear. Viasna said the case might be linked to the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment, a group of Belarusian volunteer fighters fighting against Russia in Ukraine.
The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer welcomed Volodymyr Zelenskiy at Downing Street on Friday, calling the visit a “real piece of history”. The Ukrainian president was greeted by the UK cabinet with a standing ovation as he became the first foreign leader to address the cabinet in person since 1997. Starmer said the UK would “double down” on backing for Ukraine, and confirmed he had accepted an invitation to visit Ukraine again in the future. Zelenskiy asked Starmer to “show your leadership” and help with Ukraine’s “long-range capability”.
Russia has designated pianist Evgeny Kissin as a “foreign agent” because of his support for Ukraine and opposition to the war, state news agency Tass quoted the justice ministry as saying on Friday. Moscow-born Kissin, 52, has won some of Russia’s top artistic awards and is considered one of the world’s finest concert pianists. He has lived outside the country for years and has British and Israeli citizenship.
