President Donald Trump said he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to reach an agreement ending the war in Ukraine, even as Moscow warned Wednesday that Western troops deployed to enforce any eventual peace deal would become Russian military targets.
"I say, ‘Vladimir, it’s time for you to stop. It’s time for this war to end,’" Trump told Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst in an interview released Tuesday.
Trump said he believed Putin was "ready to make a deal" to end the fighting.
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Meanwhile, fighting continued across Ukraine and Russian-occupied territory. The intensifying drone war has forced both militaries to search for additional ways to intercept unmanned aircraft — sometimes using weapons designed decades before modern drones emerged, as seen in the video supplied by East2West that shows a Russian soldier apparently losing control of a Soviet-era YakB-12.7 rotary machine gun mounted on an improvised ground platform.
The weapon begins spinning violently, dragging the service member around before throwing him several yards from the mounting. Another soldier is seen ducking as the gun swings in his direction.
East2West reported that no one was injured, though Fox News Digital has not independently verified the location, date or circumstances of the footage.
The four-barrel machine gun originally was developed for use aboard the Soviet-designed Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter. Russian forces have reportedly attempted to repurpose such weapons as ground-based defenses against Ukrainian drones, East2West news reported.
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On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said any multinational force deployed by Ukraine’s allies following a ceasefire would be unacceptable to Moscow.
"We would regard such units as legitimate military targets," Zakharova said, according to a Reuters report published Wednesday.
Members of the Western "coalition of the willing" reaffirmed at a meeting in Paris this week that they intend to deploy a multinational force after hostilities end. The proposed force would seek to reassure Ukraine and help Kyiv rebuild its military.
Ukraine’s military said Wednesday that its forces struck the Balaklava thermal power station in Russian-occupied Crimea, a facility that accounts for nearly half of the peninsula’s electricity generation, according to Reuters.
Russia, meanwhile, launched another major drone and missile attack against Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, killing three people, regional governor Oleh Kiper said. He said civilian, industrial and port infrastructure had been targeted during five consecutive days of Russian attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said Wednesday that Ukraine expects to develop the technical capability to manufacture missiles for U.S.-made Patriot air-defense systems by the end of 2026.
Reuters contributed to this story.
