Ukraine war news: Putin believes Trump is serious about ending the war while Moscow conducts nuclear drills

Vladimir Putin said he believes Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is serious about his desire to end the war in Ukraine, but expressed ignorance about the former US president’s plans.

“We take the fact that Mr. Trump, as a presidential candidate, declares that he is ready and wants to end the war in Ukraine very seriously,” the Russian president said at a press conference in Kazakhstan.

“I don’t know of any possible proposals as to how he intends to do that, of course. That’s the key question. But I have no doubt that he is serious and we support it,” he said when asked about Trump’s statement.

The Washington Post In April, it was reported that Trump had discussed in confidential talks allowing Russia to retain Crimea, annexed in 2014, and the Donbass region, which is partly controlled by Russian forces, in return for peace. However, Trump’s campaign team has not confirmed this.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its armed forces are currently conducting exercises with mobile nuclear missile launchers, the Interfax news agency reported this morning.

The crews of the Yars missile launchers from two units will move over a distance of more than 100 kilometers and practice camouflage and deployment, it said, and more crews will take part in the exercises in the future.

Two people were killed and 26 injured in Russian attacks in regions from the south to the east and northeast of Ukraine, local authorities said yesterday.

A rocket attack in the southern Odessa region killed one woman, injured seven people and damaged port infrastructure, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, a second woman was killed and a man injured in a Russian guided bomb attack on the village of Ruska Lozova, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.

Nine other people, including four children, were injured in a drone attack and artillery shelling in the town of Novohrodivka in the frontline Donetsk region, said Governor Vadym Filashkin.

The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, reported seven injured in the southern city of Nikopol. He had previously said that Russian forces had attacked areas near Nikopol with drones and artillery on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.

Around 190,000 recruits have signed contracts to join the Russian army so far this year, the state news agency RIA quoted former President Dmitry Medvedev as saying.

Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said the current average recruitment rate is about 1,000 people a day.

Russia encourages people to volunteer for the war in Ukraine by paying them wages well above average.

President Vladimir Putin has said there is no reason for Moscow to impose a new round of forced mobilization because so many men are enlisting voluntarily.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that his preference for Joe Biden as the next US president remains unchanged.

When asked by a state television reporter whether Biden or Trump was better and whether his publicly stated preference for Biden had changed after the debate, Putin said: “Nothing has changed.”

“Didn’t we know what was coming? We knew,” he added.

He wished Americans a happy 4th of July and wrote: “We know what independence means to you, Americans, and you can see that it means the same to us, Ukrainians…

“True independence is always the result of battles won, and freedom must be strengthened by victories every time tyranny tries to destroy it.

“Different generations of Americans and Ukrainians have experienced this firsthand, and it is vital that today’s generations pass on to their children and grandchildren a sense of confident independence and guaranteed freedom.”

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A Russian missile attack killed one person, injured seven and damaged port infrastructure in the southern Ukrainian region of Odessa, the regional governor said.

Oleh Kiper did not specify where the attack took place, but said port facilities as well as administrative and other buildings had been damaged.