Donald Trump has said “something may come out of” the CIA director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow on Tuesday.

The US is “working very hard” to end the war in Ukraine, he said.

“We would like to see the Ukraine war end.”

Answering a question on Ratcliffe’s visit to Russia, Trump said that the CIA director made a visit to Russia on a “very semi-routine” basis.

“Something may come out of it,” Trump said, calling Ratcliffe a “fantastic guy”.

Russia is considering stepping up its ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv, including targets in the city centre, and on critical infrastructure elsewhere in Ukraine after concluding that efforts to negotiate a peace deal have reached a dead end, said three people close to the Kremlin.

Speaking to Bloomberg, they said negotiation frameworks had effectively collapsed, while president Vladimir Putin remained unlikely to end the ‌war in response ​to sanctions ‌or Ukrainian ⁠strikes on Russian refineries ⁠and logistics networks.

Up to 70 vessels are waiting near the Danube’s Sulina Canal for access to Ukrainian ports to load grain for export, traders and analysts said on Wednesday, with a shortage of pilots and priority given to other cargoes creating long delays.

After Russian attacks effectively blocked Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, which had handled 90 per cent of the country’s grain exports, some shipments were rerouted through Danube river ports, which have much lower capacity.

Grain cargoes are competing for access with higher-priority shipments such as fuel, slowing exports. Frequent air raid alerts, which force the suspension of all port operations, have added to the disruption.

Ukraine is one of the world’s biggest grain exporters and disruptions to its shipments can drive up global prices.

A US senator sponsoring a bill for wide-ranging sanctions on Russia said on Wednesday he was hopeful it would pass the House of Representatives next month, and be a “sledgehammer” to president Vladimir Putin’s efforts to fund his war in Ukraine.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut who met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and senior officials during a visit to Kyiv, said the bill ⁠had strong Republican support in ​the House, ⁠after comfortably passing an initial Senate vote last month.

“Putin understands only force,” Blumenthal told a news conference. “And the Russia sanctions bill is a sledgehammer that can have the kind of force Putin understands.”

Though Democrats are broadly supportive of the sanctions, some have expressed concern that it would give Republican president Donald ‌Trump leeway to impose additional tariffs, including ‌on US allies.

A civilian vessel was damaged overnight at the Danube River port of Reni near Ukraine’s Izmail, local Ukrainian authorities said this morning.

The vessel was damaged due to falling debris likely from an intercepted drone.

It is not immediately clear if the incident caused any casualties.

Reni sits close to Ukraine’s borders ‌with ​Romania ‌and Moldova.

Explosions were heard in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, ⁠a Reuters witness said, as Russia was hitting Ukraine with drones and ⁠missiles in ​the ⁠early hours today.

Kyiv authorities, who earlier issued a drone attack alert, said on Telegram that debris had fallen in the courtyard of a residential building and damage was being clarified.

Ukraine’s Armed Forces separately ⁠issued a ballistic missile alert for Kyiv.

In Kryvyi Rih, a steel-and-mining hub in central Ukraine and president Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, ‌two were injured as ​missiles hit an ‌industrial facility ⁠and three more were ⁠wounded in Zaporizhzhia, officials said.

The recent release of Marine veteran Robert Gilman from Russian custody ended more than four years of imprisonment, but his visibly frail condition has raised alarming questions for the families of Americans still detained there.

Watching the news coverage from the United States, Harold Jezler saw Gilman’s gaunt appearance and immediately worried about what it meant for his 36-year-old wife, Olga, who has been held in Russia since 2022 while suffering from her own deteriorating health issues.

Although Gilman’s freedom follows a series of prisoner releases over recent years, numerous Americans remain incarcerated in Russia. Relatives and advocates report that several suffer from unaddressed or inadequately treated medical conditions, escalating the urgency of diplomatic efforts to secure their freedom.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and Syrian president Ahmed al- Sharaa on Wednesday spoke by phone and discussed deepening political dialogue and cooperation in trade and other areas, the Kremlin said.

It said in a statement that the two leaders had noted the importance of an August 9 memorandum of understanding to settle the future ​of Russia’s bases at Tartus and Hmeimim after 18 ‌months of negotiations.

Andy Burnham was reportedly warned that Russia is plotting retaliation against Britain for its continued support for Ukraine.

Security experts were said to have told the prime minister to be ready for a ‘direct response’, according to the Daily Mail.

Mr Burnham travelled to Kyiv on Monday for his first overseas trip since taking office last month and said London and Paris would provide long-range missile technology to Ukraine.

A unnamed senior security source told the Mail: “An attack on the UK’s defence and security infrastructure is inevitable, based on our high profile support for Ukraine.

“Ourselves and the French are front and centre, and Burnham’s visit to Kyiv and his forthright stance will have been noticed at the Kremlin,” they assessed.

“There had been some optimism in Moscow that he would be softer than Starmer on Ukraine. That was not the case.”