U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, was in Kyiv on Monday, a senior Ukrainian official said, as anticipation grew over a possible shift in the Trump administration’s policy on the three-year war.

Trump last week said he would make a “major statement” on Russia on Monday. Trump made quickly stopping the war one of his diplomatic priorities, and he has increasingly expressed frustration about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unbudging stance on U.S-led peace efforts.

Trump has long boasted of his friendly relationship with Putin, and after taking office in January repeatedly said that Russia was more willing than Ukraine to reach a peace deal. At the same time, Trump accused Zelenskyy of prolonging the war and called him a “dictator without elections.”

But Russia’s relentless onslaught against civilian areas of Ukraine wore down Trump’s patience. In April, Trump urged Putin to “STOP!” launching deadly barrages on Kyiv, and the following month said in a social media post that the Russian leader “ has gone absolutely CRAZY!” as the bombardments continued.

“I am very disappointed with President Putin, I thought he was somebody that meant what he said,” Trump said late Sunday. “He’ll talk so beautifully and then he’ll bomb people at night. We don’t like that.”

Russia has pounded Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, with hundreds of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles that Ukraine’s air defences are struggling to counter. June brought the highest monthly civilian casualties of the past three years, with 232 people killed and 1,343 wounded, the U.N. human rights mission in Ukraine said. Russia launched 10 times more drones and missiles in June than in the same month last year, it said.

At the same time, Russia’s bigger army is making a new effort to drive back Ukrainian defenders on parts of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line.

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Trump confirmed the U.S. is sending Ukraine more badly needed Patriot air defence missiles and that the European Union will pay the U.S. for the “various pieces of very sophisticated” weaponry.

While the EU is not allowed under its treaties to buy weapons, EU member countries can and are, just as NATO member countries are buying and sending weapons.

1:42
Russia launches barrage of drones, missiles at Kyiv as US resumes Ukraine weapons deliveries

Germany has offered to finance two new Patriot systems and is awaiting official talks on the possibility of more, government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Monday in Berlin.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was traveling to Washington on Monday to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Germany has already given three of its own Patriot systems to Ukraine, and Pistorius was quoted as saying in an interview with the Financial Times that it now has only six.

A top ally of Trump, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said Sunday that the conflict is nearing an inflection point as Trump shows growing interest in helping Ukraine fight back against Russia’s full-scale invasion. It’s a cause that Trump had previously dismissed as being a waste of U.S. taxpayer money.

“In the coming days, you’ll see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves,” Graham said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” He added: “One of the biggest miscalculations Putin has made is to play Trump. And you just watch, in the coming days and weeks, there’s going to be a massive effort to get Putin to the table.”

Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s envoy for international investment who took part in talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia in February, dismissed what he said were efforts to drive a wedge between Moscow and Washington.

“Constructive dialogue between Russia and the United States is more effective than doomed-to-fail attempts at pressure,” Dmitriev said in a post on Telegram. “This dialogue will continue, despite titanic efforts to disrupt it by all possible means.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was due in Washington on Monday and Tuesday. He planned to hold talks with Trump, Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as members of Congress.

Talks during Kellogg’s visit to Kyiv will cover “defense, strengthening security, weapons, sanctions, protection of our people and enhancing cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” said the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak.

“Russia does not want a cease fire. Peace through strength is President Donald Trump’s principle, and we support this approach,” Yermak said.

1:57
Russia launches record drone attack on Ukraine after Trump slams Putin

Russian troops conducted a combined aerial strike at Shostka, in the northern Sumy region of Ukraine, using glide bombs and drones early Monday morning, killing two people, the regional prosecutor’s office said. Four others were injured, including a seven-year-old, it said.

Overnight from Sunday to Monday, Russia fired four S-300/400 missiles and 136 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine, the air force said. It said that 61 drones were intercepted and 47 more were either jammed or lost from radars mid-flight.

The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its air defences downed 11 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions on the border with Ukraine, as well as over the annexed Crimea and the Black Sea.

—Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

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Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 32 people on Sunday, including six children at a water collection point, while the Palestinian death toll passed 58,000 after 21 months of war, local health officials said.

Israel and Hamas appeared no closer to a breakthrough in indirect talks meant to pause the war and free some Israeli hostages after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Washington visit last week. A new sticking point has emerged over Israeli troops ‘ deployment during a ceasefire.

Israel says it will end the war only once Hamas surrenders, disarms and goes into exile, something it refuses to do. Hamas says it is willing to free all the remaining 50 hostages, about 20 said to be alive, in exchange for an end to the war and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Throughout the war in Gaza, violence has surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Funerals were held there Sunday for two Palestinians, including Palestinian-American Sayfollah Musallet, killed by Israeli settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In central Gaza, officials at Al-Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after an Israeli strike on a water collection point in nearby Nuseirat. Among the dead were six children.

Ramadan Nassar, a witness who lives in the area, told The Associated Press that around 20 children and 14 adults had been lined up to get water. He said Palestinians walk some 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) to fetch water from the area.

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The Israeli military said it was targeting a militant but a technical error made its munitions fall “dozens of meters from the target.”

In Nuseirat, a small boy leaned over a body bag to say goodbye to a friend.

“There is no safe place,” resident Raafat Fanouna said as some people went over the rubble with sticks and bare hands.

Separately, health officials said an Israeli strike hit a group of citizens walking in the street on Sunday afternoon in central Gaza City, killing 11 people and injuring around 30 others.

Dr. Ahmed Qandil, who specializes in general surgery, was among those killed, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. A ministry spokesperson, Zaher al-Wahidi, told the AP that Qandil had been on his way to Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital.

In the central town of Zawaida, an Israeli strike on a home killed nine, including two women and three children, officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said. Later, Al-Awda Hospital said a strike on a group of people in Zawaida killed two.

Israel’s military said it was unaware of the strike on the home, but said it hit more than 150 targets over the past 24 hours, including what it called weapons storage facilities, missile launchers and sniping posts. Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the militant group operates out of populated areas.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says women and children make up more than half of the over 58,000 dead in the war. The ministry, under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The U.N. and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.

The Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war killed some 1,200 people and abducted 251.

Israel’s Energy Minister Eli Cohen told right-wing Channel 14 that his ministry will not help rebuild infrastructure in Gaza. “Gaza should remain an island of ruins to the next decades,” he said.

In the West Bank, which has seen violence between Israeli troops and Palestinians and Israeli settlers’ attacks on Palestinians, funerals were held for a Palestinian-American and a Palestinian friend.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Musallet, from Florida, had been beaten by Israeli settlers. Diana Halum, a cousin, said the attack occurred on his family’s land. The ministry initially identified him as Seifeddine Musalat, 23.

Musallet’s friend, Mohammed al-Shalabi, was shot in the chest, the ministry said.

Israel’s military has said Palestinians hurled rocks at Israelis in the area on Friday, lightly wounding two people and setting off a larger confrontation. Palestinians and rights groups have long accused the military of ignoring settler violence.

Their bodies were carried through the streets on Sunday as mourners waved Palestinian flags and chanted, “God is great.”

Musallet’s family has said it wants the U.S. State Department to investigate his death and hold the settlers accountable. The State Department said it had no comment out of respect for the family.

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