Ukraine-Russia war latest:Conflict will determine future of Europe, Zelensky warns ahead of G7 Summit

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was reconnected to the grid ⁠following repairs carried out under an IAEA-brokered localised ceasefire after the facility lost all ⁠off-site power ​for ⁠nearly three days, the International Atomic Energy Agency ⁠said on Saturday.

The ​outage ⁠marked the 19th ‌time the plant has lost off-site power since the ‌start of the ‌war, after an attack on an electrical substation across the ⁠Dnipro River disconnected the Ferosplavna back-up power line late on Wednesday.

Lasting almost three days, it was one of the site’s longest power ‌loss events, forcing ​the facility to ‌rely on emergency diesel ⁠generators for the ⁠electricity it needs to cool ‌its ​six shutdown reactors.

Donald Trump and French president Emmanuel Macron will meet over dinner at the glittering Palace of Versailles near Paris after the G7 summit of leading industrialised nations next week in France, their governments announced Saturday.

The wars in Ukraine and Iran are also expected to be front and center.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will also be at the summit. A formal meeting between Trump and Zelensky is not currently scheduled, officials told reporters, though they could meet on the sidelines.

Trump, who is trying to make progress on finalising an Iran war deal in the coming days, is expected to have a busy schedule of one-on-one meetings with foreign leaders on the sidelines of the summit in the French lakeside town of Evian-les-Bains, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.

Trump also plans individual meetings on the sidelines of the summit, which opens Monday, with the leaders of Egypt, Qatar and United Arab Emirates to discuss efforts to wind down the Iran war.

Macron’s office said the French president will host Trump for a dinner Wednesday to mark the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States, at the Palace of Versailles, “a historic symbol of Franco-American friendship.”

A person was killed and three were injured in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region in a Ukrainian drone attack, local officials said.

Drone debris sparked a fire at a sea terminal, local governor Veniamin Kondratyev said.

He did not give details, but Russian news outlets reported that a Black Sea export terminal transporting terminal crude oil, petroleum products and liquefied gas in the village of Volna was damaged.

Ukraine’s General Staff did not comment on the Krasnodar strike Saturday, but said that its forces had hit an oil preparation and pumping station overnight in Russia’s Volgograd region, as well as Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

The attack comes after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said his country’s forces had struck several military and energy infrastructure sites deep inside Russia, including a military factory that he said supplied components for Russian drones and missiles.

Russia will be ready to “invade a Nato partner” by 2029, a German army chief has warned.

In an interview with Politico, he said “speed is of the essence” as he urged German leaders to increase investment in the country’s military.

Central to the latest allegations are claims that several communications companies were awarded contracts from the Hungarian government to the tune of €10bn over the past four years – roughly €3.5bn of which the Hungarian Integrity Authority (HIA) believes may be the result of artificially inflated pricing.

In a quiet cafe popular for its free Wi-Fi ​and good coffee, a Russian interior designer logs onto a virtual private network so she can chat with friends abroad using the U.S. messaging service WhatsApp, which is blocked inside Russia.

Later, she toggles off the VPN to buy a ticket on the Russian Railways website, which bars anyone using the tools to obscure their location. She then picks up a second phone to check for messages from clients on the state-controlled app MAX.

Donald Trump will meet with Middle Eastern leaders and attend a working session with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the G7 summit in France next week, senior U.S. administration officials said on Saturday.

Trump is scheduled to travel to Evian, France, for the G7 summit early on Monday after attending Sunday’s mixed martial arts event at the White House. He will speak to a number of European leaders with whom he has squabbled over trade, tariffs, Ukraine and NATO since his return to the White House early in 2025.

Trump will participate in a working session on Tuesday with Zelensky and G7 leaders. The meeting comes at a time when Russian advances in Ukraine have slowed and Ukraine seeks more military funding from its allies.

One of the senior U.S. ‌officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity about Trump’s trip, said Russian gains have “more or less stopped.”

“We want the war to end as quickly as possible,” the official said. Trump has had up-and-down relations with Zelensky. No bilateral meeting was planned with Zelensky but the two leaders could meet on the sidelines of the summit, the officials added.

They said Trump would meet separately with the leaders of Egypt, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, France and India. Trump planned to raise issues of shared importance ‌with leaders at the summit, including economic growth and development, ​supply chain resilience, illegal migration and AI, one of the ‌officials said. He also planned ⁠to work on boosting resilience in the supply chain for ⁠critical minerals needed for advanced technologies.

A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and injured three in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, local officials said Saturday, as part of Kyiv’s campaign of strikes on military and energy targets deep inside Russia.

Drone debris sparked a fire at a sea terminal, local Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said.

He did not give details, but Russian news outlets reported that a Black Sea export terminal transporting terminal crude oil, petroleum products and liquefied gas in the village of Volna was damaged.

Ukraine’s General Staff did not comment on the Krasnodar strike Saturday, but said that its forces had hit an oil preparation and pumping station overnight in Russia’s Volgograd region, as well as Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

The attack comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country’s forces had struck several military and energy infrastructure sites deep inside Russia, including a military factory that he said supplied components for Russian drones and missiles.

He said Wednesday that Ukrainian FP-5 Flamingo long-range missiles had hit the facility in Cheboksary, in the Chuvashiya region, more than 900 kilometers (560 miles) from the front line.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said the Russia–Ukraine conflict will “determine the future of Europe” in comments ahead of anticipated G7 summit next week.

In a post online, the Ukrainian president said his country is making “the greatest sacrifices for Europe” as it fights for its independence.

He wrote: “We are not simply carrying out internal reforms, nor are we simply going through a transformation. We are fighting for our state, for our independence, and for our right to choose our own path and to be Europe.

“That is why the fate of Europe is being decided here – it is being decided in Ukraine, in this war, and in how this war ends – and whether Russia will still have the strength and the desire after this war to threaten the existence of Ukraine and its other neighbors, and the entirety of Europe.”