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.

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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 airstrikes killed at least 28 Palestinians including four children in the Gaza Strip, while 24 others were fatally shot on their way to an aid distribution site, Palestinian hospital officials and witnesses said Saturday.

The children and two women were among at least 13 people killed in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, after Israeli airstrikes pounded the area starting late Friday, officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said. Fifteen others died in airstrikes in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital.

Israel’s military did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment.

At least 24 people were killed on their way to a food distribution site near Rafah run by an Israeli-backed American organization, hospital officials and witnesses said. Israel’s military said it fired warning shots toward people it said were behaving suspiciously to prevent them from approaching. It said it was not aware of any casualties.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said no incident occurred near its sites.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he is closing in on another ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas that would bring the release of more hostages from Gaza and potentially wind down the war. But after two days of talks this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, there were no signs of a breakthrough. The militant group still holds some 50 hostages, with at least 20 believed to remain alive.

The 21-month war has left much of Gaza’s population of over 2 million reliant on outside aid while food security experts warn of famine. Israel blocked and then restricted aid entry after ending the latest ceasefire in March.

The fatal shootings of 24 people occurred in the Rafah area of southern Gaza, hundreds of meters from the food distribution site, Israel’s military said.

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A GHF spokesperson, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the group’s policies, said: “We checked with our extended team and this incident didn’t happen near our sites.”

Witnesses said they were shot at while on their way to the site seeking food.

Abdullah al-Haddad said he was 200 meters from the aid distribution site run by the GHF close to the Shakoush area, west of Rafah, when an Israeli tank started firing at crowds of Palestinians.

“We were together, and they shot us at once,” he said, writhing in pain from a leg wound at Nasser Hospital.

Mohammed Jamal al-Sahloo, another witness, said Israel’s military had ordered them to proceed to the site when the shooting started.

Sumaya al-Sha’er’s 17-year-old son, Nasir, was killed in the shooting, hospital officials said.

“He said to me, ‘Mom, you don’t have flour and today I’ll go and bring you flour, even if I die, I’ll go and get it,’” she said. “But he never came back home.”

Until then, she said, she had prevented the teenager from going to GHF sites because she thought it was too dangerous. But food supplies were running out.

Witnesses, health officials and U.N. officials say hundreds have been killed by Israeli fire while heading toward GHF distribution points through military zones off limits to independent media. The military has acknowledged firing warning shots at Palestinians who it says approached its forces in a suspicious manner.

The GHF denies there has been violence in or around its sites in the past. But two of its contractors told the AP that their colleagues have fired live ammunition and stun grenades as Palestinians scramble for food, allegations denied by the foundation.

In a separate effort, the U.N. and aid groups say they are struggling to distribute humanitarian aid because of Israeli military restrictions and a breakdown of law and order that has led to widespread looting.

The first fuel — 150,000 liters — entered Gaza this week after 130 days, a joint statement by U.N. aid bodies said, calling it a small amount for the “the backbone of survival in Gaza.” Fuel runs hospitals, water systems, transport and more, the statement said.

Israel’s military said that over the past 48 hours, troops struck approximately 250 targets in Gaza including militants, booby-trapped structures, weapons storage facilities, anti-tank missile launch posts, sniper posts, tunnels and additional Hamas sites.

Also on Saturday, the military announced strict restrictions along Gaza’s Mediterranean coast and called on fishermen, swimmers and divers not to go to sea.

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

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed over 57,800 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which is 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.

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