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Here’s where things stand on Wednesday 4 June 2025:
Fighting
- Russian shelling on the Ukrainian city of Sumy killed four people and injured 28, including three children, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said in a post on Telegram.
- The Interior Ministry also said that two people were killed when fires broke out after a Russian attack on homes in the Kharkiv region’s village of Chistovodivka.
- Ukraine’s SBU security service said it detonated explosives targeting underwater supports on the Crimea Bridge, which links Russia with Russian-occupied Crimea, causing “severe damage” to the structure.
- The Russian Ministry of Transport said in a statement that “standard operations” had resumed on the bridge after earlier “temporary closures”, without providing a reason for the disruption, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
- Russian defence ministry said that its forces have Kindrativka in the Sumy region and Ridkodub in eastern Ukraine.
- The Kremlin has accused Ukraine of staging the attack on the Crimean Bridge and that there had been an explosion but no damage.
- Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the West was involved, both directly and indirectly, in Ukrainian “terrorist attacks” against civilian targets in Russia, adding that Western countries, NATO and “the collective West” supplied weapons and provided coordinates for such attacks.
Military aid
- Secretary of Defence John Healey said the United Kingdom will spend 350 million pounds ($473.5m) to deliver 100,000 drones to Ukraine as part of the UK’s 4.5 billion pound ($6bn) military support for Ukraine this year.
- German defence minister Boris Pistorius told reporters that Germany would kick off a new initiative to find more air defences for Ukraine. Pistorius added that they were lobbying the US and other countries for more donations of Patriot or similar air defence systems for Ukraine.
Politics and Diplomacy
- Ukraine has been invited to a NATO summit in The Hague this month, Mark Rutte, the military bloc’s chief, said, without specifying whether this meant Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would attend.
- White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said that United States President Donald Trump “was not” informed in advance of Ukraine’s unprecedented drone attack on Russian airbases earlier this week. Asked if Trump approved of the attack, Leavitt said that “the president does not want to see this war prolonged”.
- Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg said the risk of escalation from the war in Ukraine was “going way up”, after Ukrainian forces used drones to strike nuclear-capable bombers at several airbases deep inside Russia.
- NATO’s push to ramp up defences must outstrip Russia’s rearmament drive as Moscow is already gearing up for its “next move” beyond Ukraine, the US ambassador to the alliance Matthew Whitaker said.
- The European Commission has proposed extending Ukrainian refugees’ right to stay in the EU for another year — while for the first time stating clearly that their special status will at some point end.
- US Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the Senate would begin working on a bill to impose sanctions on Russia as it works with Trump to “get Russia to finally come to the [negotiating] table in a real way”.
- Russia’s mission to the United Nations said it would hold an informal UN Security Council meeting at 10am New York time (14:00 GMT) on Wednesday on “understanding and eliminating the ideological root causes of the Ukrainian crisis”.
- Switzerland said it would impose sanctions on “17 individuals and 58 entities” listed in the European Union’s latest sanctions package, “in response to Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine”.
- Caretaker Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof has vowed to keep up support for Ukraine and stick to defence commitments, despite the political crisis roiling the Netherlands after the government collapsed.
Trump: Putin says Russia will ‘have to’ respond to Ukraine attacks
Trump: Putin says Russia will ‘have to’ respond to Ukraine attacks
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Donald Trump in a telephone conversation that Moscow would have to respond to the recent Ukrainian drone attacks, the United States president said, as diplomatic overtures and momentum to reach a ceasefire have been overtaken by heavy aerial exchanges in the more than three-year war.
Trump said on Wednesday that the two men “discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides.”
Putin “did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields”, Trump said in a social media post.
Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said that Trump described his 85-minute phone call with Putin as “a good conversation but not one that would lead to immediate peace”.
“You have to remember that Donald Trump, when he came into office, was very confident that he could end this war on day one, but here we are now in June and the fact is … this is far from resolved,” she said from the White House.
Earlier Wednesday. Putin showed a flash of anger, referring to the suggestion of direct talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and to Ukraine’s recent “terrorist acts” on Russian rail lines in the Kursk and Bryansk regions on the countries’ border.
“How can any such [summit] meetings be conducted in such circumstances? What shall we talk about?” Putin demanded in a video call with top Russian officials.
Putin’s refusal to meet Zelenskyy, who while dismissing Russia’s ceasefire proposal as “an ultimatum”, for his part renewed a call for direct talks with his Russian counterpart.
Zelenskyy on Wednesday also seemed to taunt Moscow by saying if it had accepted Kyiv’s offer of a ceasefire, there would have been no launching of the massive drone strike on Russian strategic bombers.
The Kremlin insisted on Wednesday that military options were “on the table” for its response to the unprecedented Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russia and accused the West of being involved in them.
Russia also urged the United States and United Kingdom to restrain Kyiv after the attacks, which Ukrainian officials have lauded as showing Kyiv can still fight back after more than three years of war.
British and US officials have said they had no prior knowledge of the weekend attacks on Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers.
In the meantime, Pope Leo held a first call with Putin Wednesday, urging Russia to take a step to support peace, the Vatican said. The pontiff also emphasized the importance of dialogue to find solutions to the conflict, it added.
In his social media post, Trump said he and Putin also discussed Iran. Putin suggested he would participate in talks aimed at reaching a new nuclear deal with Tehran, Trump said.
“I stated to President Putin that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and, on this, I believe that we were in agreement,” Trump said. He accused Iran of “slow-walking” decisions regarding the talks.
Putin told Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian that Moscow was ready to help advance talks on a nuclear deal, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.
But Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said earlier on Wednesday that Washington’s proposal was against Tehran’s national interests, amid sharp differences over whether Tehran can continue to enrich uranium.
UK prepares for war: How much will it cost?
UK prepares for war: How much will it cost?
The United Kingdom has announced a major investment in defence in response to a “new era of threats” driven by “growing Russian aggression”.
The UK’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR), unveiled on Monday, includes new investments in nuclear warheads, a fleet of new submarines and new munitions factories. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the SDR would bring the country to “war-fighting readiness”.
“The threat we now face is more serious, more immediate and more unpredictable than at any time since the Cold War,” Starmer said as he delivered the review in Glasgow, Scotland.
The SDR described Russia as an “immediate and pressing” threat, and referred to China as a “sophisticated and persistent challenge”.
European nations have rushed to strengthen their armed forces in recent months, following Trump’s repeated demands that Europe must shoulder more responsibility for its security.
What are the key features of the UK’s Strategic Defence Review?
The defence review, the UK’s first since 2021, was led by former NATO Secretary-General George Robertson. Among the 62 recommendations in the SDR, all have been accepted by the government.
Starmer said the measures recommended in the review would bring “fundamental changes” to the armed forces, including “moving to war-fighting readiness”, re-centring a “NATO first” defence posture and accelerating innovation.
“Every part of society, every citizen of this country, has a role to play because we have to recognise that things have changed in the world of today,” he said. “The front line, if you like, is here.”
Boosting weapons production and stockpiles
Based on the recommendations in the review, the government said it would boost stockpiles and weapons production capacity, which could be scaled up if needed.
A total of 1.5 billion pounds ($2bn) will be dedicated to building “at least six munitions and energetics factories”, with plans to produce 7,000 long-range weapons.
In turn, UK ammunitions spending – just one component of overall military spending – is expected to hit 6 billion pounds ($8.1bn) over the current parliamentary term, which ends in 2029.
New attack submarines
There are also plans to build up to 12 new attack submarines by the late 2030s as part of the AUKUS military alliance with Australia and the United States – equivalent to a new submarine every 18 months.
This accounts for nearly half the projected spending outlined in the SDR.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) also said it would invest 15 billion pounds ($20.3bn) in its own nuclear warhead programme.
New F-35 fighter jets
The SDR recommended procuring new F-35 fighter jets and the Global Combat Aircraft Programme, a sixth-generation fighter produced jointly with Japan and Italy.
Use of technology to improve the army
The target size of the army will remain roughly the same, but the SDR recommended a slight increase in the number of regular soldiers “if funding allows”. There are currently about 71,000.
Instead of a dramatic increase in troop numbers, the SDR recommends using technology, drones and software to “increase lethality tenfold”.
To do this, the MoD plans to deliver a 1 billion pound ($1.35bn) “digital targeting web”, an AI-driven software tool designed to collect battlefield data and use it to enable faster decision making.
Investment in defence companies
More details about the SDR will be provided in the upcoming Defence Industrial Strategy, expected in the coming weeks, but UK defence companies will be among the big winners from the new SDR.
Though supposedly a 10-year review, past SDRs suggest its shelf life might be more limited.
The last SDR was published in 2021 and recommended “a strategic pivot towards the Indo-Pacific region to counter China’s influence and deepen ties with allies like Australia, India, and Japan”, in line with strategic priorities of the time.
This SDR, undertaken in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, has re-oriented the UK’s geographical priorities. In the coming years, those could change again.
Can the UK afford this defence expansion?
Proposals to prepare the UK’s armed forces to be “battle ready” will cost at least 67.6 billion pounds ($91.4bn) through to the late 2030s, according to costings and estimates provided in the SDR.
Before Monday’s announcement, the government had already pledged to increase spending on defence from 2.3 percent currently to 2.5 percent by 2027, an increase of about 6 billion pounds ($8.1bn) per year. This would raise 60 billion pounds over 10 years – a bit shy of the cost projected by the SDR.
The government has said it will cut overseas aid to fund that 0.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) rise in defence spending.
Critics say this will not be enough and that the measures outlined by the SDR will cost more like 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).
James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, said the “authors of the strategic defence review were clear that 3 percent [not 2.5 percent] of GDP ‘established the affordability’ of the plan.”
In February, the Labour government said it had “an ambition” to raise defence spending to 3 percent in the next parliament (after 2029), but Cartlidge said: “That commitment cannot be guaranteed ahead of the next general election.”
According to researchers at the Institute for Fiscal Studies – an independent, London-based research organisation – raising defence spending to 3 percent of GDP by 2030 would require an extra 17 billion pounds between now and then, which the government has not yet accounted for.
But the UK could be required to raise spending even more than this. In discussions taking place in advance of the NATO summit in The Hague later this month, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte is understood to be pushing for member nations to commit 5 percent of GDP towards defence-related spending.
Rutte has proposed that NATO’s 32 members commit to spending 3.5 percent on hard defence and 1.5 percent on broader security, such as cyber, by 2032.
“At this Ministerial, we are going to take a huge leap forward,” Rutte stated before a meeting of defence ministers in Brussels on Thursday this week. “We will strengthen our deterrence and defence by agreeing ambitious new capability targets.” He specified air and missile defence, long-range weapons, logistics, and large land manoeuvre formations as among the alliance’s top priorities, according to a briefing note from NATO on Wednesday.
“We need more resources, forces and capabilities so that we are prepared to face any threat, and to implement our collective defence plans in full,” he said, adding: “We will need significantly higher defence spending. That underpins everything.”
Will taxes have to rise in the UK?
On Monday, Starmer refused to rule out another raid on the aid budget to fund higher military spending, and signalled that he was hopeful the extra investment could be supported by a growing the economy and generating more taxes to pay for defence.
After the SDR’s announcement, Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, warned that the prime minister will need to make “really quite chunky tax increases” to pay for the plans.
Alternatively, increased defence spending could be siphoned off from other parts of the budget – for instance, through reduced state spending on areas like transport and energy infrastructure.