Sir Keir Starmer said allies had agreed a ‘clear plan for the rest of the year’ on supporting Ukraine
More than 20 countries supporting Ukraine have vowed to remove Russian oil and gas from global markets in a coordinated effort to increase pressure on Russia’s Vladimir Putin to end the war.
“We’re choking off funding for Russia’s war machine,” said prime minister Keir Starmer after the “Coalition of the Willing” summit in London on Friday. Sir Keir added that the UK’s missile plan is “accelerating” in a bid to support Ukraine.
The pledge comes just days after the UK and the US sanctioned Russia’s two biggest oil companies, while the EU targeted Moscow’s liquefied natural gas exports to bring Mr Putin to the negotiating table.
Volodymyr Zelensky met with world leaders at the summit in an effort to push for long-range missiles that can strike deep inside Russia. Sir Keir said the group also discussed ways of helping protect Ukraine’s power grid from Russia’s almost daily drone and missiles attacks as winter approaches.
Mr Zelensky added Russia would aim to use the cold winter as a tool to pressure Kyiv as he urged allies to introduce sanctions against all Russian oil companies, its shadow fleet and oil terminals to disrupt Moscow’s ability to fund its war.
1 hour ago
Ukraine strike damage Russian dam, says official
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said that Ukraine had struck a dam on a local reservoir, causing damage.
Vyacheslav Gladkov said that repeated strikes on the dam could risk flooding, and advised residents of parts of two border settlements, Shebekino and Bezlyudovka, to leave their homes for temporary accommodation.
Belgorod region borders Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, and has come under attack by Kyiv’s forces since the outbreak of full-scale conflict between the two sides in 2022.
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar25 October 2025 11:30
2 hours ago
In pics: Helicopter drops water over food warehouses hit by an overnight Russian missile strike
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar25 October 2025 11:00
2 hours ago
Will Trump’s new sanctions on Russian oil companies actually work to stop Putin?
Donald Trump hit Russia with a new raft of sanctions targeting major oil companies on Wednesday in an apparent effort to strong-arm the Kremlin into sitting down for peace talks over Ukraine.
The new sanctions were unveiled one day after plans for a summit between Trump and Vladimir Putin fell apart, with the US leader expressing doubt in Russia’s commitment to ending the war.
The US Treasury Department said Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, were targeted in a bid to damage Moscow’s ability to fund its war machine.
More here.
Will Trump’s new sanctions on Russian oil companies actually work to stop Putin?
New sanctions unveiled just a day after Trump said he would cancel ‘wasted’ meeting with Putin in Budapest
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar25 October 2025 10:30
3 hours ago
Recap: Zelensky urges US to broaden Russian oil sanctions and seeks long-range missiles
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday urged the United States to expand sanctions on Russian oil from two companies to the whole sector, and appealed for long-range missiles to hit back at Russia.
Zelensky was in London for talks with two dozen European leaders who have pledged military help to shield his country from future Russian aggression if a ceasefire stops the more than three-year war.
The meeting hosted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer aimed to step up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding momentum to recent measures that have included a new round of sanctions from the United States and European countries on Russia’s vital oil and gas export earnings.
The talks also addressed ways of helping protect Ukraine’s power grid from Russia’s almost daily drone and missiles attacks as winter approaches, enhancing Ukrainian air defenses, and supplying Kyiv with longer-range missiles that can strike deep inside Russia. Zelensky has urged the US. to send Tomahawk missiles, an idea U.S. President Donald Trump has flirted with.
The Ukrainian leader said Trump’s decision this week to impose oil sanctions was “a big step,” and said “we have to apply pressure not only to Rosneft and Lukoil, but to all Russian oil companies.”
“Besides, we are carrying out our own campaign of pressure with drones and missiles specifically targeting the Russian oil sector,” he said during a news conference at the Foreign Office in London.
Trump also has put on hold a plan for a swift meeting with Putin in Budapest, because he didn’t want it to be a “waste of time.”
Bryony Gooch25 October 2025 10:00
3 hours ago
Trump and Putin meeting not cancelled, says Russian envoy
Kirill Dmitriev, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, said yesterday he believes his country, the US and Ukraine are close to a diplomatic solution to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Speaking to CNN after arriving in Washington for talks with US officials, Mr Dmitriev said that a meeting between Donald Trump and Mr Putin had not been cancelled, as the US president described it, and that the two leaders will likely meet at a later date.
The planned summit was put on hold on Tuesday, as Russia’s rejection of an immediate ceasefire cast a cloud over attempts at negotiations. Trump said he cancelled the planned meeting with Putin in Budapest because of a lack of progress in diplomatic efforts toward ending the war and a sense that the timing was off.
However, Mr Dmitriev said, “I believe Russia and the US and Ukraine are actually quite close to a diplomatic solution.”
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar25 October 2025 09:30
4 hours ago
Three killed in Russian airstrike
Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine overnight have killed at least three people and wounded 17 others, local officials said.
One person was killed and 10 wounded in a ballistic missile attack on the capital Kyiv today, said Timur Tkachenko, head of the city military administration.
Three of the wounded were taken to hospital, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.
A fire broke out in a non-residential building in one location, while debris from intercepted missiles fell in an open area at another site, damaging windows in nearby buildings, the emergency service added.
“Explosions in the capital. The city is under ballistic attack,” mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote during the onslaught.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, two people were killed and seven wounded, acting regional governor Vladyslav Haivanenko said, adding that apartment buildings, private homes, an outbuilding, a shop and at least one vehicle were damaged.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched nine missiles and 62 drones, and air defences intercepted four missiles and 50 drones.
Russia’s defence ministry said its own air defences shot down 121 Ukrainian drones over Russia overnight.
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar25 October 2025 09:00
4 hours ago
Russia faces a shrinking and aging population and tries restrictive laws to combat it
For a quarter century, President Vladimir Putin has faced the specter of Russia’s shrinking and aging population.
In 1999, a year before he came to power, the number of babies born in Russia plunged to its lowest recorded level. In 2005, Putin said the demographic woes needed to be resolved by maintaining “social and economic stability.”
In 2019, he said the problem still “haunted” the country.As recently as Thursday, he told a Kremlin demographic conference that increasing births was “crucial” for Russia.
Putin has launched initiatives to encourage people to have more children – from free school meals for large families to awarding Soviet-style “hero-mother” medals to women with 10 or more children.
“Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight, and even more children,” Putin said in 2023. “Let’s preserve and revive these wonderful traditions. Having many children and a large family must become the norm.”
Russia is trying new restrictions to halt the backslide and embrace what it calls “traditional family values” with laws banning the promotion of abortion and “child-free ideology” and outlawing all LGBTQ+ activism.
Officials believe such values are “a magic wand” for solving demographic problems, said Russian feminist scholar Sasha Talaver.
In the government’s view, women might be financially independent, but they should be “willing and very excited to take up this additional work of reproduction in the name of patriotism and Russian strength,” she said.
Associated Press25 October 2025 08:30
5 hours ago
Ringleader of Wagner-directed UK arson on Ukrainian business jailed
The ringleader of an arson attack on Ukraine-linked businesses in London last year was on Friday jailed for 17 years for what prosecutors described as “a sustained campaign of terrorism and sabotage on UK soil”.
Dylan Earl, 21, admitted aggravated arson over the 2024 blaze which targeted companies delivering satellite equipment from Elon Musk’s Starlink to Ukraine, which is vital for its defence against Russia’s continuing invasion.
He also became the first person convicted under the National Security Act for his role in a plot targeting a wine shop and restaurant in London’s upmarket Mayfair district, with plans to kidnap the owner, a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Prosecutors said that Earl also discussed with his handler from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group plans to kidnap the co-founder of finance app Revolut and torch a warehouse in the Czech Republic.
Earl appeared in the dock at London’s Old Bailey court alongside Jake Reeves, 24, who had also pleaded guilty to aggravated arson and a National Security Act charge of obtaining a material benefit from a foreign intelligence agency.
“This case is all about the efforts of the Russian Federation to gain pernicious global influence using social media to enlist saboteurs vast distances from Moscow,” Judge Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said.
She sentenced Earl to 17 years in prison for arson and National Security Act charges, along with a separate drugs charge. Reeves was sentenced to 12 years.
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar25 October 2025 08:00
5 hours ago
Ukraine reveals ‘sea baby’ drones that could change the war with Russia
Ukraine’s state security service has unveiled a significantly upgraded sea drone, the “Sea Baby,” which it claims can now operate across the entire Black Sea, carry substantially heavier weaponry, and utilise artificial intelligence for precision targeting.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has previously credited these unmanned naval vessels with compelling a strategic shift in Russia’s Black Sea operations, having used them to target Russian shipping and infrastructure.
The SBU confirmed the Sea Baby’s operational range has been extended from 1,000km to 1,500km, with its payload capacity now reaching up to 2,000 kilograms.
More here.
Ukraine reveals ‘sea baby’ drones that could change the war with Russia
The craft are operated remotely from a mobile control center inside a van
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar25 October 2025 07:40
5 hours ago
Ukraine foiled plans to reconnect Zaporizhzhia power plant in time for Putin’s birthday
Ukrainian forces operating behind enemy lines derailed Russia’s hopes of reconnecting the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station before Vladimir Putin’s birthday earlier this month, sources have claimed.
Ukrainian sources told The Guardian that they believed Russia was trying to bring power back to the plant in time for the president’s birthday on 7 October, after it lost external power in late September.
Europe’s largest power station, which has been in Russian control since early in the invasion, was forced to operate on diesel backup generators after its last remaining external power line was severed on 23 September. Russia and Ukraine blamed each other.
James C. Reynolds has more.
Ukraine foiled plans to reconnect Zaporizhzhia plant in time for Putin’s birthday
The power plant in Russian-occupied Ukraine was without external power for a month before repairs were made
Alisha Rahaman Sarkar25 October 2025 07:10
Credit: www.independent.co.uk
Stay ahead with the latest updates!
Join The Podium Media on WhatsApp for real-time news alerts, breaking stories, and exclusive content delivered straight to your phone. Don’t miss a headline — subscribe now!
Chat with Us on WhatsApp
