President Donald Trump said he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin is prepared to strike a deal to end the war in Ukraine, even as Moscow warned Wednesday that any Western troops sent to enforce a future peace agreement would be treated as 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 added that, in his view, Putin is “ready to make a deal” to bring the fighting to a close.
On the ground, however, the war showed no sign of slowing, with battles continuing across Ukraine and in Russian-occupied areas.
The rapidly expanding drone war has pushed both sides to find new ways to shoot down unmanned aircraft, at times turning to weapons designed long before modern battlefield drones existed.
Video provided by East2West appears to show a Russian soldier struggling to control a Soviet-era YakB-12.7 rotary machine gun that had been fixed to a makeshift ground platform.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump meet in 2019, before their relationship began to sour. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
The machine gun suddenly spins out of control, pulling the service member with it before flinging him several yards from the mount. A second soldier can be seen ducking as the weapon swings toward him.
East2West reported that no one was injured, though INC News has not independently verified the location, date or circumstances of the footage.
The four-barrel machine gun was originally 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.
An explosion lights up the sky over the city during a Russian missile and drone strike amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine in Kyiv July 2, 2026. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said any multinational force deployed by Ukraine’s allies after 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.
Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a vehicle fire after a Russian drone attack in the Kyiv region, Ukraine, May 5, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service/AP)
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.
