Ukraine-Russia war latest: UK attends Nato summit over sending troops to police peace

Beijing has warned Ukraine and its Western allies to refrain from making any irresponsible remarks about Chinese involvement in Russia’s war effort.

Volodymyr Zelensky claimed China was turning a blind eye to Russian recruitment of Chinese citizens via social media, adding that Ukraine’s intelligence shows at least 155 fighting for Russia.

But there has been no indication, or explicit allegations, that the Chinese government has been directly involved in sending troops to Ukraine.

The Chinese foreign ministry has demanded that all parties remain “sober” about China’s role in the war.

With ongoing uncertainty around the extent to which the US will engage in any peacekeeping efforts, the coalition of the willing is a key test of whether Europe is ready to defend itself alone.

Its makeup is so far unclear, and exactly which countries would put troops on the ground on Ukrainian territory has not been clarified.

But leaders in London and Paris have discussed the possibility of force numbering tens of thousands, with around 10,000 to 30,000 the most commonly quoted figure. This is a far-cry short of Volodymyr Zelensky’s earlier suggestion that 200,000 peacekeepers may be needed to secure Ukraine.

The lack of commitment from Washington to actively support peacekeeping efforts has caused some reluctance among European countries to contribute personnel – a reluctance which Britain and France will hope to address at today’s meeting.

Britain and France will meet with defense ministers from around 30 countries on Thursday as they push forward with ‘coalition of the willing’ peacekeeping plans for Ukraine.

The meeting at Nato headquarters will look to outline steps towards deploying troops to the war-torn country to help police any future ceasefire agreement between Kyiv and Moscow.

It is the first meeting between defense ministers in the coalition, and seeks to flesh out an agreement reached at an earlier meeting in Kyiv last week by senior military officers from Britain and France.

The US will not take part in the discussions – as usual – although leaders in Britain and France have repeatedly emphasised that the success of the peacekeeping operation would depend on military backup from Washington.

At least four Ukrainian soldiers taken prisoners of war were shot dead by Russian soldiers, drone footage appears to show.

The incident was captured on camera by two drones – one Ukrainian and one Russian – that recorded the scene from high above the southern Ukrainian village of Piatykhatky.

The footage shows the Ukrainian soldiers clambering out of a ruined house at gunpoint – one with arms raised in surrender to the Russian troops – and lying face-down in the early spring grass.

The Ukrainian drone video, which AP obtained from European military officials, shows soldiers with Russian uniform markings raising their weapons and shooting each of the four Ukrainians in the back with such ferocity that one man was left without a head.

The Russian drone video, which was posted on pro-Kremlin social media, cuts off abruptly with the men lying on the ground – still alive. Another video, however, shows them dead.

“Out of all the executions that we’ve seen since late 2023, it’s one of the clearest cases,” said Rollo Collins of the Center for Information Resilience, a London group that specialises in visual investigations and reviewed the video for the Associated Press.

Russia launched at least 145 drones during its overnight attack on Ukraine, its air force said.

The Ukraine air force shot down 85 drones and another 49 did not reach their targets likely due to the electronic warfare countermeasures, it said.

It did not specify what happened to the remaining 11 drones.

Russian drones attacked the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and the southern city of Mykolaiv overnight, injuring at least 12 people, authorities said this morning.

At least two women were injured in the capital where drones also sparked a fire at a storage facility and damaged residential buildings, Kyiv city military administration said.

Authorities recorded 30 drones in the airspace over the capital, 16 of which were destroyed and the rest either left the airspace or were “lost”.

The overnight attack also injured 10 people in the southern city of Mykolaiv, its regional governor Vitalii Kim said.

The Russian assault also damaged nine apartment buildings, 30 garages and an administrative building, he added.

Russian air defence systems destroyed 48 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions overnight and this morning, Russia’s defence ministry said.

Of these, 13 drones were downed each in Bryansk region and Kursk region, 12 drones – over Kaluga region, the other were shot down in Belgorod, Moscow and Oryol regions and over Russia-annexed Crimea, the defence ministry said.

Only president Donald Trump will make decisions about the future of US troops in Europe, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth said yesterday, when asked if he would keep troop levels at their current levels.

“The only person that will make a determination about force structure of US troops in Europe will be President Trump, the commander-in-chief,” Mr Hegseth told reporters during a trip to Panama.

“And we will continue to have ongoing discussions, including inside the context of Ukraine-Russia negotiations, of what our force posture should be on the continent that best addresses American interests and ensures burden sharing in Europe as well.”

Mr Hegseth’s remarks came a day after the top US general in Europe said the United States should keep its military presence on the continent as it is now, as the Pentagon reviews its global footprint under Mr Trump.