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President Donald Trump on Monday said he held a "productive" call with Turkish President Recep Erdogan on a range of topics, including the war between Russia and Ukraine. Trump shared details of the call in a post on his TRUTH Social platform. "I just had a very good and productive telephone conversation with the President of Turkey, Recep Erdoğan, concerning many subjects, including the War with Russia/Ukraine, all things Syria, Gaza, and more," Trump wrote. The president added that he is looking forward to working with Erdogan to end the "ridiculous, but deadly" Russia-Ukraine war.

Ukraine said it hit a drone command unit in the Kursk region, amid reports of fresh attempts to cross into Russia. Sunday's attack on the unit was located near the Russian village of Tyotkino, according to the Ukrainian general staff. Multiple Russian military bloggers also reported that Ukrainian forces had attempted to cross into the village, posting images - as yet unverified by the BBC - of vehicles breaking through tank traps on the border. The reports come after Moscow claimed in April to have regained control of the entire region, nine months after a Ukrainian forces launched a surprise...

Russia has reported that it repelled a drone attack on Moscow as the capital city prepares to host a major military parade with foreign leaders in attendance. Russia’s air defence systems intercepted “four drones flying towards Moscow”, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Monday. The attack appears intended to unsettle Moscow’s preparations for events marking the end of the Great Patriotic War, commonly known as World War II elsewhere, on May 9. -snip- The Kremlin has branded Putin’s declaration of a three-day unilateral ceasefire a humanitarian gesture. Military operations will be paused during the truce, according to Russian authorities, as world...

"The Victory Day parade will not be held in Sevastopol," said Governor of the city of federal importance Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhayev, APA’s Russia bureau reports. According to him, the decision was made due to security concerns.

DICTATOR Vladimir Putin has showed off his private chapel and his favourite drink in a bizarre tour of his Kremlin apartment. The Russian tyrant gave the public a glimpse into his home in an interview marking the 25th anniversary of his first inauguration as president. The bizarre footage shows Putin giving his favourite interviewer, Pavel Zarubin, a tour of the apartment while answering his questions. When asked about his grandchildren from daughters Maria, 39, and Katerina, 37, Putin says they occasionally visit him unexpectedly in his austere apartment. He said: “They can, they can. “But still everyone understands that I...

Two European allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin have fallen ill, according to reports, days before they were set to attend a Victory Day parade in Moscow. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico have had their trips to Russia questioned amid reported health scares.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday he has told former President Donald Trump that Kyiv will pursue nuclear weapons for defense if it doesn’t gain entry to NATO. “In a conversation with Donald Trump, I told him it comes to this,” Zelensky said in Ukrainian while speaking to the European Council in Brussels. “The outcome is either Ukraine will be a nuclear power — and that will be our protection — or we should have some kind of alliance. Other than NATO, today we don’t know of any effective alliances.” Zelensky, 46, emphasized that Ukraine is choosing to pursue membership...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has reportedly told NATO to let his country join the group or it will get nuclear weapons in a shock ultimatum that was allegedly backed by Donald Trump. The leader, 46, declared his bombshell proposal at the EU summit in Brussels - stating either NATO quickly accepts Ukraine into its alliance, or it will once again become a nuclear power, reports Bild. Zelensky had reportedly planned to present what is being dubbed his 'victory plan' to the heads of state and government of the European Union, but instead made the dramatic announcement to stunned reporters on...

The shooting comes in the wake of a blood feud declared by Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov against politicians from Dagestan and Ingushetia. Unidentified gunmen targeted a car carrying Russian counterterrorism officers, killing three. The incident happened on Friday in Magas, the capital city of the Republic of Ingushetia in Russia's North Caucasus. The shooting comes in the wake of a blood feud declared by Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov against politicians from Dagestan and Ingushetia and have sparked fears of growing instability and bloodshed. The gunmen were allegedly aiming to kill Adam Khamkhoyev, the deputy head of Putin's Centre 'E' counterterrorism...

One of Moscow's fighter jets has been shot down by Ukrainian forces, according to a military blogger with links to the Russian air force. Another pro-Moscow milblogger said that the Sukhoi Su-34 aircraft had been downed by a Western-supplied F-16. Neither report has been confirmed and Newsweek has contacted the Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries for comment over the unverified claims which have sparked much speculation on social media. The Telegram channel Fighterbomber posted on Saturday a message which looked like a tribute to a lost Su-34 fighter jet. Next to an image of the supersonic medium-range fighter bomber, which...

Investigators fear the shooting is part of a surge in inter-ethnic tensions between Chechens and the Ingush. Vladimir Putin is facing a potentially serious outbreak of inter-ethnic violence, after a former Chechen and Ingush politician was seriously wounded by a gunman at his home just outside Moscow. Sherip Alikhadzhiev, an aide to Russian State Duma Deputy Vladimir Shamanov, was rushed to hospital with two bullet wounds and is recovering in intensive care. Russia's Investigative Committee said the gunman fired at least four times at the victim’s house in the village of Lapino near Odintsovo, before fleeing the scene. Mr Alikhadzhiev...

The Kremlin is reported to have lost control of the situation and is preparing for a war between the two republics. Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov has announced a blood feud against three politicians from Russia's volatile North Caucasus region, sparking fears of a major interethnic conflict. The North Caucasus is populated by a variety of different ethnic groups, the majority of whom are Muslim and who live in several republics - these include Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia. Relations between Chechnya and Dagestan have been tense for years over a land and border dispute, that is threatening to explode. Chechnya's brutal...

The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has criticized tightening of the migration policy in Russia. "There's a sense that someone is deliberately trying to pit Russia against its neighboring brotherly regions. If migration policy is to be changed, it shouldn’t be done in such a repulsive manner, where people are fiercely attacking anyone who looks foreign. Detentions are carried out without any ceremony, and recently, these actions have become very harsh," Kadyrov wrote in a post on his Telegram channel. In his view, migration issues cannot be resolved through "mass deportations of foreign citizens," and the problems did not arise...

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has accused Russian lawmakers from neighbouring regions of attempting to commission his assassination, and threatened them with a "blood feud" unless they prove otherwise, state news agency TASS reported. TASS cited Chechen-language comments by Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to a meeting of Chechen security officials. Video of the meeting was published on Kadyrov's personal Telegram channel on Wednesday. The news agency translated Kadyrov's comments as: "There are witnesses, there are people from whom they tried to commission, whom they asked how much they would take for the order." TASS cited Kadyrov...

Huge plumes of smoke and fierce fires erupted into the skies above the Russian city of Voronezh last night. Local residents in the southwestern Russian city recorded the devastating aftermath of an overnight Ukrainian drone strike. Videos showing a large fire in which explosions can clearly be heard were shared across Telegram. The explosive attack reportedly blew up an ammunition depot - the second time a drone strike has hit an ammunition depot in Voronezh in just two weeks. At the end of August, Ukrainian drones managed to blow up almost 5,000 tonnes of Russian weapons. Following this attack, explosions...

In Zaluzhny’s World War I stalemate analogy Ukraine would play Germany’s old role, losing for lack of supplies Volodymir Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, is at war – with his generals. He has admonished the head of the Ukrainian armed services, Valery Zaluzhny, who last week told The Economist that “just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate. There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.” Even The New York Times, a US administration mouthpiece on Ukraine, has written about the clash between Zelensky and his generals. Zelensky...

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin-connected businessman who controls the notorious Wagner mercenary group, has accused “decision-makers” in Russia of treason for not providing his troops and military units of Russia's regular armed forces with ammunition needed to fight in Ukraine. "A criminal group did not give us ammunition,” Prigozhin said in a five-minute audio statement posted on Telegram on April 26 in which he reiterated his claim that ammunition is being stockpiled in depots but not delivered to the battlefield. Prigozhin claimed his troops have no ammunition to fight against Ukrainian artillery because of "treason" by unspecified top Russian officials, pledging...

The head of Russia's mercenary Wagner Group threatened to withdraw his troops from the embattled city of Bakhmut in Ukraine amid heavy casualties. Yevgeny Prigozhin told military blogger Semyon Pegov losses were five times higher than necessary because of the lack of artillery ammunition. "Every day, we have stacks of thousands of bodies that we put in coffins and send home," Prigozhin said in the interview published on Saturday. He had written to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu asking for supplies. "If the ammunition deficit is not replenished, we are forced, in order not to run like cowardly rats afterwards,...

Russia's private Wagner militia, which is leading the assault on Bakhmut in Ukraine and has been active in Africa, could soon cease to exist, founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said in video remarks to a blogger that were released on Friday. It was not immediately clear when Prigozhin had spoken and how serious he was being. Earlier this week he withdrew comments about the frontline he said had been a joke. Prigozhin has complained repeatedly about how Russia is conducting the war in Ukraine. He often says the regular armed forces are not giving his men the ammunition they need and sometimes...

The Russia government has ordered that the publication of statistics on oil, gas and condensate production be suspended until April 1, 2024, Tass news agency said on Friday. It did not give any details. Russia's statistics agency Rosstat omitted monthly oil production data from its latest economic report published on Wednesday.