Ukraine-Russia war live: Frontline ‘very, very difficult’, says Zelensky as Putin issues new conscription order

New Nato chief Mark Rutte has doubled down on his commitment to Ukraine as he takes charge at a critical time for the Western alliance.

The former Dutch prime minister replaced Jens Stoltenberg as Nato secretary general on Tuesday, where he pledged continued support for Kyiv’s fight against Russia.

Mr Rutte’s appointment comes just before a pivotal US presidential election in November, with Nato-sceptic Donald Trump, who declined to say whether he wants Ukraine to win the war, on the Republican ticket.

“We have to make sure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent, democratic nation,”  Mr Rutte said at Nato’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

Speaking about the prospect of former US president Donald Trump’s re-election, Mr Rutte added: “I’m not worried.

“I worked for four years with Donald Trump. He was the one pushing us to spend more on defence and he achieved this.

“Because indeed, at the moment, we are now at a much higher spending level than we were when he took office.”

New Nato chief Mark Rutte said he was determined to prepare the transatlantic alliance for the challenges of the future.

He added that the group must deliver on the promises it made to Ukraine to help the country in its war against Russia. The conflict in Ukraine is not contained to the front lines, Mr Rutte said.

Russia will not sign a new treaty with the United States to replace the agreement limiting each side’s strategic nuclear weapons that expires in 2026, the Izvestia newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing an unidentified senior Russian source.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New Start, is the last remnant of efforts to slow the nuclear arms race between the former Cold War superpowers and increase transparency by imposing verifiable limits on the number of weapons.

President Vladimir Putin in 2023 suspended Russian participation in the treaty due to U.S. support for Ukraine, though Moscow has kept to the warhead, missile and bomber limits imposed by the agreement - as has the United States.

At least five people were killed when Russian forces struck a market in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Tuesday morning, the regional governor said.

Another three people were wounded in the attack, Oleksandr Prokudin said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is waging war to try and wipe Ukraine off the map, the country’s top tennis player has warned.

Elina Svitolina, 30, accused Russia of genocide and urged the West to help bring back roughly 20,000 Ukrainian children deported to Russian camps since Putin’s invasion in February 2022.

More than 70 camps used to forcibly “re-educate” children have been found across Russia, Belarus and occupied Crimea, according to the Ukrainian government.

Svitolina stunned the sporting world in 2023 after she beat world No 1 Iga Swiatek in the Wimbledon quarter-finals just eight months after giving birth to her daughter.

Ukraine’s defence minister Rustem Umerov said he has submitted to the government a request to dismiss three of his deputies in a new military shake-up.

Mr Umerov also added that he has requested the dismissal of Liudmyla Darahan, the state secretary of the defence ministry.

Ukraine’s military shot down 29 out of 32 drones launched by Russia during an overnight attack, Kyiv’s air force said today.

It added that the Iranian-made “Shahed-type” drones were downed over parts of central, southern and northeastern Ukraine.

Donald Trump has said he “likes” president Volodymyr Zelensky, a week after he called the war-time leader a “great salesman”.

The two met in New York on Friday as Mr Zelensky wrapped up his bilateral visit to the US, seeking a boost in support for fast military action from Kyiv’s most important ally.

Mr Trump did not meet with the Ukrainian leader till the last day of his trip and at one stage it looked like the meeting might not happen.

“I had a good relationship with Zelensky…I like him. Because during the impeachment hoax … he could have said he didn’t know the [conversation] was taped. … But instead of grandstanding and saying, ‘Yes, I felt threatened,’ he said, ‘He [Trump] did absolutely nothing wrong’,” the Republican presidential candidate told the Washington Post in an interview.

Mr Trump has been consistently critical of US spending on Ukraine since Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Two days before meeting Zelensky, he described Ukraine in bleak and mournful terms, referring to its people as “dead” and the country itself as “demolished”.