Ukraine war live: 11 killed in Donetsk as Russia steps up attacks after Trump defends Putin

The Guardian

08-03-2025

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Welcome to our live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. Here's a snapshot of the latest to bring you up to speed.
At least 11 people were killed and 30 wounded in Russian strikes on eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region late on Friday, the country's emergency service said on Saturday, raising the earlier death toll of four.
At least nine buildings were damaged in the attack on the centre of Dobropillia, it said on Telegram.
The regional governor said earlier that Russian forces had launched three night-time strikes on the town north of Pokrovsk, a focal point of their advance through eastern Ukraine, and according to initial information high-rise apartment buildings were involved. Emergency crews were at the site, Vadym Filashki said on Telegram.
Meanwhile in Russia, thousands of Ukrainian troops who stormed into the country's Kursk region last August are almost surrounded by Russian forces there in a major blow to Kyiv, which hoped to use its presence as leverage over Moscow in any peace talks, Reuters has reported, citing open source maps.
The news agency said the maps showed Ukraine's situation in Kursk had deteriorated sharply in the past three days, after Russian forces retook territory as part of a gathering counteroffensive that has nearly cut the Ukrainian force in two and separated the main group from its principal supply lines.
The situation for Ukraine comes after Washington suspended its intelligence sharing with Kyiv and raises the possibility that its forces may be forced into a retreat back into Ukraine or risk being captured or killed. Military personnel carry the caskets of two soldiers killed by a glide bomb in Kursk, Russia, during their joint military funerals in Fastiv, Ukraine, last month. Photograph:In other developments: Russia carried out huge ballistic missile and drone strikes across Ukraine a day after the US stopped sharing intelligence with Kyiv which had previously given advance warnings of attacks . The strikes came early on Friday as a Ukrainian delegation prepared to meet with US counterparts in Saudi Arabia next week for talks about a possible end to the war, report Luke Harding and Dan Sabbagh . In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump appeared to criticise Russia's latest bombardment. The US president posted: 'Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely 'pounding' Ukraine on the battlefield right now, I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.'
Separately, Trump said after the strikes that Vladimir Putin was 'doing what anybody would do'. 'I think he wants to get it [the war] stopped and settled and I think he's hitting them harder than he's been hitting them and I think probably anybody in that position would be doing that right now,' he told reporters in the White House. Trump also said he found it 'easier' to deal with Russia than with Ukraine in efforts to end the war and that he trusted Putin, the Russian president. 'I believe him,' Trump said. 'I'm finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine and they don't have the cards. It may be easier dealing with Russia.'
Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to Russia's strikes by calling for a truce covering air and sea . 'The first steps to establishing real peace should be forcing the sole source of this war, Russia, to stop such attacks,' the Ukrainian president said on Telegram. Moscow has rejected the idea of a temporary truce, which has also been proposed by Britain and France.
US aerospace company Maxar Technologies disabled Ukraine's access to its satellite images after a request from the Trump administration . Maxar said it had contracts with the US government and dozens of allied and partner nations and 'each customer makes their own decisions on how they use and share that data'.
Zelenskyy's approval rating in Ukraine has risen by 10 percentage points since his White House spat with Trump , a survey by a leading Ukrainian pollster showed on Friday. The poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology – conducted from 14 February to 4 March – found 67% of respondents trusted Zelenskyy in March, up from 57% a month earlier.
Iran's foreign ministry denied accusations by Emmanuel Macron that Tehran had supplied equipment to Russia for use in the Ukraine war, calling the French president's remarks 'baseless and false'. Share