Ukraine war briefing: China lauds Trump’s Russia peace talks – The Guardian

China’s foreign minister said Beijing supported Donald Trump’s bid to work with Russia to end the war. Speaking at the G20 meeting in Johannesburg, Wang Yi did not reiterate a point he made a week earlier at a meeting in Munich, that Ukraine must be involved in any further peace talks. “China supports all efforts conducive to peace [in Ukraine], including the recent consensus reached between the United States and Russia,” Wang said, according to a statement from his ministry. “China is willing to continue playing a constructive role in the political resolution of the crisis,” he added. Wang met Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20, and said relations between their two countries were “moving towards a higher level and broader dimension”. Both men will meet in Moscow soon for their next talks, Lavrov said earlier.

Elon Musk launched a tirade against Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claiming the Ukrainian president is “despised by the people of Ukraine” and would lose an election if the country held one. The tech tycoon made his comments on X, which he owns, as he defended US president Donald Trump’s decision to sideline Ukraine from US-Russia talks aimed at ending the war. Musk also repeated Trump’s false claim that Zelenskyy has low approval ratings in his country. In fact, the most recent poll available shows Zelenskyy at 57% – an extremely high approval rating when set against his peers across Europe.

In the same post, Musk also vowed to “fix” the Community Notes feature on X that allows users to fact-check potentially misleading posts, after the platform was flooded with people – including European officials and journalists – defending Ukraine and Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy said his meeting with the US special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, “restores hope”. After the talks, Zelenskyy said he was ready to work quickly to produce a strong agreement on investments and security with the US. It comes after the Ukrainian president exchanged insults with Trump. The Ukrainian president had said Trump was “trapped” in a “Russian “disinformation bubble” and echoing the Kremlin’s talking points on the war. Trump called Zelenskyy a “dictator”.

White House officials told Ukraine to stop badmouthing Trump and sign a deal handing over $500bn worth of natural resources – half the country’s mineral wealth – to the US to repay it for wartime aid. The US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told reporters that Trump was “obviously very frustrated with Zelenskyy” for not accepting the deal.

The Trump administration could adjust its sanctions against Russia in response to potential peace talks on Ukraine, the US treasury secretary told Bloomberg. Scott Bessent also joined the growing chorus of US voices criticising Zelenskyy for his criticism of Trump, saying that “he unfortunately escalated” and “put some daylight” between Ukraine and US.

The upheaval in Washington’s Ukraine policy has triggered a flurry of diplomatic activity. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is scheduled to visit the White House on Monday, and the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, is to visit on Thursday.

The UK foreign secretary warned the west should not be “fooled” by Vladimir Putin’s attempts to dress up imperialism as pragmatism ahead of any further talks on the war. Speaking at the G20 in Johannesburg, David Lammy said: “If Putin is serious about a lasting peace, it means finding a way forward which respects Ukraine’s sovereignty and the UN charter, which provides credible security guarantees, and which rejects tsarist imperialism, and Britain is ready to listen. But we expect to hear more than the Russian gentleman’s tired fabrications.”

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, assured Zelenskyy in a call that any talks to end the war with Russia must include Kyiv. Trudeau reiterated Canada’s support for Ukraine and “emphasised that there can be no sustainable peace in Europe without security for Ukraine,” according to a statement from Trudeau’s office.

In Greece, the prime minister has highlighted the need for Europe to augment its defence capabilities. Kyriakos Mitsotakis told Bloomberg TV: “This is really the time when we need to move more from words to actions.” The centre-right leader has long advocated that the continent spend more on defence.

Former Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin has warned that Putin’s Russia will not stop at Ukraine if it is allowed to continue its aggression and could attack other neighbours and eventually Nato allies. Speaking in London, she warned that “the world seems very dangerous” now as she called for further support for Ukraine.