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Moscow is closely monitoring the West’s supply of weapons to Ukraine, the Kremlin’s spokesperson says shortly after United States President Donald Trump announced the resumption of arms deliveries to Kyiv.

Dmitry Peskov also noted on Wednesday that a new phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was not currently planned but could quickly be arranged, according to Russian news reports.

The comments from the Kremlin came two days after the US president showed growing impatience with Russia over its war in Ukraine.

In his sharpest rebuke of Moscow so far, Trump announced on Monday that Putin had until early September, 50 days, to accept a peace deal or his country would face steep US sanctions.

Trump said they would be secondary tariffs targeting Russia’s trading partners in a bid to isolate it from the global economy.

Russia’s approach, in the meantime, is to “keep calm and carry on” in the face of Trump’s threats, experts said. There’s no certainty the pressure will push Putin towards ending the war.

On the campaign trail before November’s presidential election, Trump boasted that he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office.

However, after at least six phone conversations between Trump and Putin as well as several meetings between US officials and officials from Russia and Ukraine, no ceasefire has been reached.

“My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,” Trump said of his frustration with Putin.

The US leader added that he would supply more weapons to Ukraine with European allies buying “billions and billions” of dollars of US military equipment to be transferred to Kyiv.

Patriot air defence systems are included in the plan, which Ukraine needs to defend itself against Russian missile and drone attacks.

Trump, however, has said Ukraine should not target Moscow after he reportedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy if Kyiv could strike the Russian capital if he provided long-range weaponry.

Trump made the comments after The Financial Times on Tuesday reported that Trump had encouraged Zelenskyy to step up strikes deep inside Russian territory during their phone call on July 4.

The report, which quoted two unnamed people familiar with the discussion, said Trump had also asked his Ukrainian counterpart whether he could hit Moscow and St Petersburg if supplied with weapons with enough range.

In response to a question on Tuesday about whether Zelenskyy should target Moscow, Trump told reporters at the White House that he should not.

Overnight, the Russian military launched 400 drones and one ballistic missile, targeting cities across Ukraine, including Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih and Vinnytsia.

The strikes injured at least 15 people and damaged energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian authorities said on Wednesday.

Power was down for 80,000 families in Kryvyi Rih and other parts of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine’s private energy company DTEK said on Telegram.

The Ukrainian air force stated it had successfully shot down most of the drones but 12 targets were hit by 57 drones and the missile.

In recent weeks, Moscow has increased its aerial bombardments against Ukraine with daily record numbers of drones and missiles being fired.

“Russia does not change its strategy, and to effectively counter this terror, we need a systemic strengthening of defences: more air defences, more interceptor [missiles], more determination to make Russia feel our response,” Zelenskyy wrote on X on Wednesday.

After starting his second presidential term in January, Trump sought to portray Washington’s support for Ukraine as a drain on US resources.

Despite Trump’s more critical stance against Moscow this week, some American politicians continue to express concerns about his approach, warning that Putin could use the 50-day tariff deadline to capture more Ukrainian territory.

In a report that has yet to be independently verified, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday that its army seized the settlement of Novokhatske in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

The European Union is readying a package of tariffs to be levied on 72 billion euros’ ($84bn) worth of goods against the US, even as it steps up efforts to reach a trade deal and avert a transatlantic trade war with President Donald Trump.

The European Commission, which oversees EU trade policy, is understood to have drawn up a list of duties for various US imports, ranging from cars to bourbon, after Trump declared on Sunday that he would levy a 30 percent “reciprocal” tariff on European imports from August 1.

The EU and the US have been locked in trade negotiations for months, after Trump set a reciprocal tariff of 20 percent on EU goods in April. Those were dropped to 10 percent shortly afterwards, pending a three-month pause, before the president’s latest 30 percent salvo.

Following Trump’s announcement, French and German government bond prices fell to lows seldom seen since the eurozone debt crisis of 2009-11, as traders fretted about whether the $1.7 trillion transatlantic trade relationship could remain intact.

What tariffs has Trump announced for the EU?

President Trump said he would impose a 30 percent tariff on goods imports from the EU starting on August 1. He says he wants to rebalance the $235.6bn trade deficit – whereby imports exceed exports – that the US has with the EU.

EU officials had been hoping they could limit the damage by agreeing a baseline tariff of about 10 percent – the level of the one currently in place – with additional carve-outs for key sectors like cars. But Trump’s recent announcement, which came via a letter, dashed those hopes.

Trump has sent similar letters to 23 other trading partners over the past eight days, including Canada, Japan and Brazil, setting blanket tariff rates ranging from 20 percent to 50 percent, as well as a blanket 50 percent tariff on copper imports from all countries.

Earlier this year, Trump also slapped a 25 percent tariff on European steel and aluminium as well as cars, in an effort to reduce US dependence on imports and encourage more domestic production.

In response to that, the EU announced retaliatory tariffs on $23.8bn worth of US goods (totalling 6 percent of US imports), with EU officials describing the US tariffs as “unjustified and damaging”. The implementation of these EU tariffs was delayed, however, as a gesture of goodwill during ongoing trade talks.

On April 7, the head of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, offered Trump an alternative in the form of a zero-for-zero tariffs deal on industrial goods, including cars. But Trump said her proposal did not address US concerns about the trade deficit.

How has the EU responded to the new US tariff?

Von der Leyen has previously indicated that the 27-member bloc will continue negotiating until the August 1 deadline.

On Monday, however, the EU commissioner for trade, Maros Sefcovic, said there was still a “big gap” between the two sides and it would be “almost impossible to continue the trading as we are used to in a transatlantic relationship”, with the new 30 percent rate. “Practically, it prohibits the trade,” he said.

The EU, therefore, is now readying retaliatory tariffs in the event that talks break down before the deadline, Sefcovic said. “We have to protect the EU economy, and we need to go for these rebalancing measures.”

Before a meeting with EU ministers to discuss trade, he told reporters: “Therefore I think we have to do, and I will definitely do, everything I can to prevent this super-negative scenario.”

The EU’s latest tariff list, which covers 72 billion euros’ ($84bn) worth of goods, has been seen by Politico and Bloomberg.

Though tariff rates are as yet unknown, they will apply to 11 billion euros’ ($13bn) worth of US aircraft and parts. Other items include cars, machinery, electrical products and chemicals.

The list also covers agricultural products, including fruit and vegetables, as well as alcoholic drinks, such as bourbon and rum. Looking ahead, the Commission’s trade policy committee will have to formally approve the list before any retaliatory measures can be applied.

The bloc is understood to be rife with disagreement over US trade, however. While Germany has urged a quick deal to safeguard its industries, other EU members – particularly France – insist that EU negotiators must not cave in to an “asymmetric” deal in favour of the US.

On Monday, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told reporters in Brussels it was too early to impose countermeasures, “but we should prepare to be ready to use all the tools”. He added: “If you want peace, you have to prepare for war. And I think that’s where we are.”

What and how much does Europe sell to the US?

In 2024, the US-EU goods trade reached nearly $1 trillion, making the EU the biggest trading partner of the US.

Overall, the US bought $235.6bn more in goods than it sold to the 27 countries that make up the EU. Trump has made no secret of wanting to reduce that trade deficit. On the other hand, the US earns a surplus on services with the EU.

The US mainly buys pharmaceutical products from the EU, as well as mechanical appliances, cars and other non-railway vehicles – totalling roughly $606bn. The US alone accounts for 21 percent of EU goods exports.

For its part, the US mainly exports fuel, pharmaceutical products, machinery and aircraft to the EU – to the tune of some $370bn.

How would tariffs affect the US and Europe’s economies?

Economists at Barclays estimate that a US tariff on EU goods of 35 percent, covering both reciprocal and sectoral duties, along with a combined 10 percent theoretical retaliation from Brussels, would shave 0.7 percent from the eurozone output, lowering it to just 0.4 percent annual growth.

This could derail much of the eurozone’s already meagre growth. The EU struggled to regain its footing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the surge in energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added to the strain.

The economic forecasting consultancy, Oxford Economics, estimated on Monday that a 30 percent tariff could push the EU “to the edge of recession”.

An April estimate, meanwhile, by German economic institute IW, found that reciprocal and sectoral tariffs ranging from 20 percent to 50 percent would cost Germany’s 4.3 trillion euro ($5 trillion) economy – the largest in the Eurozone – more than 200 billion ($232bn) euros between now and 2028.

“We would have to postpone large parts of our economic policy efforts because it would interfere with everything and hit the German export industry to the core,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said of the potential US 30 percent reciprocal rate.

Gaza’s children and elderly are bearing the brunt of the devastation inflicted by Israel’s war on the enclave, as the United Nations warns of a sharp rise in amputations, long-term disabilities and severe hunger.

More than 40,000 children have been injured since the conflict began, and nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s population has been displaced, often multiple times.

Amid worsening conditions, aid workers are also reporting a sharp rise in malnutrition among children, and growing hardship for elderly people, who are even less able to access food, care and essential medical support than the general population.

One in 10 Gaza children tested in UNRWA clinics malnourished

On Tuesday, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said: “One in 10 children screened in UNRWA medical facilities is malnourished.” He warned that child malnutrition is rising rapidly in Gaza amid severe shortages of food and medical supplies.

“Salam, a seven-month-old baby, died of malnutrition last week,” he added, addressing the growing urgency of the crisis.

He added that more than 870 Palestinians have been killed while trying to access food from aid distribution points set up by the highly criticised GHF, a private contractor backed by Israel and the United States.

Before the war began on October 7, 2023, about 500 trucks of humanitarian aid entered Gaza every single day.

That number collapsed following Israel’s assault on the besieged enclave, dropping to fewer than 80 trucks per day.

In March, Israel imposed a nearly three-month blockade, halting aid deliveries altogether.

On May 27, the GHF assumed control of aid operations, replacing 400 local distribution points with just four “mega-sites”.

These locations have become scenes of deadly violence, as Israeli forces have reportedly opened fire on Palestinians gathering for food, many of whom must walk several kilometres to reach the sites.

The more than 870 people who have been killed trying to collect aid from GHF points include at least 94 children and 11 elderly people. Despite mounting criticism, GHF remains the sole provider of food in the Gaza Strip.

Since January 2024, UNRWA has screened more than 240,000 boys and girls under the age of five in its clinics, adding that before the war, acute malnutrition was rare in Gaza.

“As malnutrition among children spreads across the war-torn enclave, UNRWA has over 6,000 trucks of food, hygiene supplies, medicine, medical supplies outside of Gaza. They are all waiting to go in,” UNRWA’s communications director, Juliette Touma, said in a press statement on Monday.

More than 139,000 people injured, including at least 40,500 children

As of July 1, 2025, more than 139,000 Palestinians have been injured in Gaza since the war began, and more than 40,500 of them are children, according to the Global Protection Clusters July report.

At least 58,479 people have been confirmed killed since the start of the war in October 2023, with an estimated 11,000 more buried under rubble, their bodies unrecovered due to restrictions on rescue teams or because it is simply impossible to reach them.

Roughly one in four of the injured are expected to require long-term rehabilitation care.

Children are especially vulnerable: 10 children lose one or both limbs each day, and 15 children per day are left with potentially life-altering disabilities.

By the end of 2024, more than 5,200 children were known to require significant rehabilitation, and at least 7,000 were living with permanent disabilities. The true number is believed to be far higher due to the collapse of Gaza’s health system.

Children with disabilities are among those most at risk in Gaza’s child protection caseload.

Of the 5,160 cases registered, 849 (16.5 percent) involve children with physical, sensory, intellectual or psychosocial disabilities.

Nearly half of these cases (49 percent) are children aged seven to 12, with a slight majority being boys (53 percent). These children face increased risks of violence, neglect, exclusion from essential services and deep social isolation in the current crisis.

Conditions like loss of hearing and vision are also on the rise. Based on screenings conducted between 2023 and this year by the Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children, UNRWA said about 35,000 people are at risk of temporary or permanent hearing loss due to constant bombardment and explosions.

The war has also severely affected older adults in Gaza. Of 111,500 people aged 60 and above, 97 percent report health problems, 96 percent have chronic illnesses and 86 percent live with disabilities – conditions made worse by medicine shortages, deteriorating hygiene and the destruction of health facilities.

At least 3,839 older people have been killed since the war began.

90 percent of the population of Gaza displaced

Across Gaza, 90 percent of the total population has been forcibly displaced – many of them multiple times; some 10 times or more. Since mid-March 2025, more than 665,000 people have been uprooted, often finding themselves with little or no access to food, water, shelter, healthcare or any basic life necessities.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 86 percent of Gaza’s territory is either within an Israeli-imposed no-go zone or under active forced evacuation orders.

Older people and those with disabilities face extreme hardship as a result of displacement. Many cannot flee at all due to mobility challenges, illness or the loss of assistive devices – with more than 83 percent reporting that their wheelchairs, walkers, hearing aids or prosthetics have been lost or destroyed.

The terrain has become highly dangerous and inaccessible: Israeli forces have built sand mounds at checkpoints, making movement nearly impossible for families with someone who has a mobility impairment. At the same time, high levels of unexploded ordnance contaminate many of Gaza’s roads and disproportionately endanger those with physical, sensory or cognitive disabilities.

A ceasefire in Suwayda in Syria has collapsed, as fighting between Druze groups and Syrian forces continues. Israel, which says it wants to protect the Druze, has carried out more air strikes on Syrian troops.

United States President Donald Trump threatened to impose “very severe tariffs” on Russia on Monday if a peace agreement to end the Ukraine war is not reached in the next 50 days.

Trump has also unveiled a new agreement to supply Ukraine with more weapons.

On the campaign trail ahead of last year’s presidential election, Trump boasted that he would end the war in Ukraine within his first 24 hours in office.

However, after at least six phone conversations between Trump and his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, as well as several meetings between US officials and officials from Russia and Ukraine, no ceasefire deal has been reached.

In May, Putin refused to travel to Istanbul to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for peace talks. The two countries sent delegations instead, resulting in prisoner exchange agreements, only.

So, will Trump’s latest threat convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to change his stance on Ukraine?

What did Trump say about Russia and Ukraine this week?

Weapons for Ukraine

At a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he was “disappointed” in Putin and that Ukraine would receive billions of dollars’ worth of US weapons.

“We’re going to make top-of-the-line weapons, and they’ll be sent to NATO,” Trump said, adding that NATO would pay for them. He added that this would include the Patriot air defence missiles that Ukraine has sought urgently.

“We have one country that has 17 Patriots getting ready to be shipped … We’re going to work a deal where the 17 will go, or a big portion of the 17 will go to the war site,” Trump said.

New tariffs for Russian goods

Trump said if Putin fails to sign a peace deal with Ukraine within 50 days of Monday this week, he will impose “very severe” trade tariffs on Russia, as well as secondary tariffs on other countries.

“We’re going to be doing secondary tariffs,” Trump said. “If we don’t have a deal in 50 days, it’s very simple, and they’ll be at 100 percent.”

Since the start of the Ukraine war, the US and its allies have imposed at least 21,692 separate sanctions on Russian individuals, media organisations and institutions, targeting sectors including the military, energy, aviation, shipbuilding and telecommunications.

While the trade relationship between US and Russia might be relatively marginal, “secondary tariffs” – first threatened by Trump in March but not implemented – would affect countries such as India and China purchasing Russian oil.

In 2024, Russian oil made up 35 percent of India’s total crude imports and 19 percent of China’s oil imports. Turkiye also relies heavily on Russian oil, sourcing up to 58 percent of its refined petroleum imports from Russia in 2023.

Some Western countries could also be hit by secondary tariffs. In 2024, European countries spent more than $700m on Russian uranium products, according to an analysis by the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, which used data from the European Union’s statistical office, Eurostat.

How has Russia responded to Trump’s latest threats?

Putin has not responded personally.

However, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday: “The US president’s statements are very serious. Some of them are addressed personally to President Putin. We certainly need time to analyse what was said in Washington.”

Peskov stated, however, that decisions made in Washington and other NATO countries were “perceived by the Ukrainian side not as a signal for peace, but as a signal to continue the war”.

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and current deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, wrote in an X post on Tuesday that Russia did not care about Trump’s “theatrical ultimatum”.

Trump issued a theatrical ultimatum to the Kremlin.
The world shuddered, expecting the consequences.
Belligerent Europe was disappointed.
Russia didn’t care.

Sergei Ryabkov, a senior Russian diplomat, said on Tuesday: “We first and foremost note that any attempts to make demands – especially ultimatums – are unacceptable for us,” Russia’s TASS news agency reported.

The Russian stock market appeared untroubled by Trump’s threat, rising 2.7 percent on Monday, according to the Moscow Stock Exchange.

The Russian rouble initially lost value against the US dollar but then recovered after Trump threatened new tariffs on Russia. According to data from financial analysis group LSEG, the rouble was just 0.2 percent weaker at the end of the day, trading at 78.10 to the US dollar after weakening to 78.75 earlier in the day.

The rouble gained 0.9 percent to 10.87 against the Chinese yuan, the most traded foreign currency in Russia. This was after it had weakened by more than 1 percent on Friday.

Will US weapons help Ukraine significantly?

Marina Miron, a postdoctoral researcher at the defence studies department at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that the Patriot missile systems that Trump has pledged to sell to Ukraine are long-range air defences best suited for shooting down ballistic missiles such as Russia’s Iskander M.

“But Ukraine will need short- to medium-range systems as well as multiple rocket launchers in order to defend itself. So it’s more of a political move for Trump rather than anything else,” Miron said.

She added that the significance of these weapons depends on several factors, including whether Ukraine will get 17 systems as allegedly promised, and where the systems would be placed.

How has Trump changed his stance on aiding Ukraine?

A month into his presidential term, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, blaming Zelenskyy for continuing the war with Russia and saying the Ukrainian president “talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start”.

The US has sent Ukraine about $134bn in aid so far – not $350bn – according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) base has also been critical of US funding for Ukraine.

In early July, the Trump administration announced a decision to “pause” arms deliveries to Kyiv, but reversed this a week later. When Trump announced the reversal on July 8, his supporters voiced criticism.

Derrick Evans, one of Trump’s supporters who was among the throng which stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and who was later arrested but then pardoned by Trump in January this year, wrote on X: “I did not vote for this.” Conservative social media duo Keith and Kevin Hodge posted on X: “Who in the hell is telling Trump that we need to send more weapons to Ukraine?”

Trump appears to be attempting to address these criticisms by saying that instead of supplying weapons to Ukraine, he will sell them to NATO.

Furthermore, Miron said, the US is not losing anything by selling weapons, since NATO will be paying for them. “There are not enough systems being provided to make a substantial difference,” she said.

Could Trump’s latest threats force Putin to change his policy?

While Putin has repeatedly voiced his determination to achieve his war aims, he has not specifically stated what they are. Broadly, he has sought territorial gains within Ukraine and has opposed Ukraine’s membership in NATO – these have not changed and are unlikely to do so, according to observers.

“If you were to describe Russia’s approach, it’s ‘keep calm and carry on,’” Miron said, referring to the fact that most Russian officials have not responded to Trump’s threat.

“So they are not going for this informational trap,” she said.

Has Putin changed his stance at all since Russia invaded Ukraine?

Miron said Putin has expanded his goals since Ukraine’s major cross-border incursion to the Kursk region in August last year. Ukraine’s push into Kursk, which took the Kremlin by surprise, marked the most significant Ukrainian attack inside Russian territory since the war began.

In May this year, Russian troops were tasked with establishing a buffer zone stretching up to 10km (6 miles) into Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, in an interview with Bloomberg published on July 11.

“I have already said that a decision was made to create the necessary security buffer zone along the border. Our armed forces are currently solving this problem. Enemy firing points are being actively suppressed, the work is under way,” Putin said back then.