Moscow continues to say that the presence of any western troops in Ukraine is unacceptable, however, and accuses Kyiv and European capitals of trying to undermine the attempts of Mr Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin to end the war and rebuild US-Russia relations.

Russia has yet again ignored Donald Trump’s bid to hold a summit between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky and said attempts to resolve security issues for Kyiv without Moscow’s participation was a “road to nowhere”.

NATO war jets have been forced to scramble after Vladimir Putin unleashed a terrifying drone strike on Odesa. It comes as hopes of ending the gruelling conflict continue to falter after

Ukraine's European allies have prioritized securing security guarantees for Kyiv as a core precondition for any deal to end the Ukraine war.

Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, pronounced himself “excited” over Mr. Trump’s public commitment on Monday at a summit at the White House to some sort of security guarantee, a pledge that the Europeans have been eagerly seeking. He called it “a breakthrough.”

Russia's illegal seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014 was quick and bloodless, and it sent Moscow's relations with the West into a downward spiral unseen since the Cold War. It also paved the way for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022,

Officials in Romania announced Wednesday that NATO deployed two German fighter jets in its airspace in response to a Russian drone attack on Ukraine.