Russian drones killed two ⁠people near Ukraine’s second-largest city ⁠of ​Kharkiv ⁠overnight, Regional governor ⁠Oleh Syniehubov ​said ⁠on ‌Telegram on Wednesday.

Another 11 ‌people suffered ‌stress reactions ⁠in the attack that struck private houses and caused ‌other ​damage, ‌he ⁠added.

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, a US official told Reuters.

The report followed Witkoff’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Norway on Tuesday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Ukraine brought forward new ideas and proposals and the goal in discussions with Putin is to build on progress made with Ukraine and Europe and discuss the proposals with Russia.

This is the moment when the West must stand apart and stand up to the US administration. Russia’s president has a proxy in the White House who seemingly acts entirely and only in the interests of Russia.

The Kremlin is an active enemy to Europe, and beyond. And so it is time for Nato’s European countries, Canada, Japan, South Korea and for the leaders of the free-thinking world to shut down and stop Trump’s ludicrous plan.

He, his secretary of state and “secretary of war” have all insisted that the US has given “hundreds of billions” to Ukraine’s war effort and “got nothing back”. The US has not given that much and, since Trump came to power, has given no military aid. Joe Biden gave and authorised about $127bn. Europe and the UK have given about $260bn in assistance.

The Independent’s world affairs editor Sam Kiley reports:

Relations between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky have reached a new low after the US president tore up sanctions on Russia and struck a highly controversial deal to purchase Russian diesel.

The latest fracture followed months of careful positioning by the Ukrainian president and his allies in Europe to avoid upsetting Trump and the US abandoning the country altogether.

But with Ukraine facing another brutal winter of Russian strikes, Washington’s commitment to sharing vital intelligence and interceptor missiles is again in question.

And where Zelensky would once have tried to court the American president with open displays of praise and gratitude, this time he has stood his ground.

As US special envoy Steve Witkoff meets the Ukrainian president in Oslo in a bid to repair ties, The Independent looks back on the key moments that have shaped the rocky relationship between the two leaders:

Elon Musk ordered the slowdown of a military-grade version of Starlink SPCX.O relied on by Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing US officials and people familiar with the matter.

He had previously suggested that he was not responsible for the outage.

“Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and POTUS,” Musk wrote on X in response to a post by Ukraine’s foreign minister Mykhailo Fedorov saying that the technology was “critical” for the country.

Defence secretary Pete Hegseth had denied that the US was responsible, saying: “We haven’t pulled anything back. There are terms of service that ultimately need to be complied to, and that’s where Starlink has the option to make those decisions.”

President Donald Trump has urged Ukraine to “settle” with Russia as tensions with Kyiv continued to escalate on Tuesday.

“Ukraine has to want to settle this war,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office and insisted that Moscow wanted to get the deal “done”.

“Russia is a big machine — they just keep grinding forward, and that’s what they’ve done. They’ve taken a very large piece of land.”

He added: “We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. We’ve gotten absolutely nothing back except grief, death, tremendous monetary loss.”

Volodymyr Zelensky has seen a significant boost in his trust rating among Ukrainians amid an escalating war of words with Donald Trump, who has piled pressure on Kyiv to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries.

A new poll published by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on 20 October revealed that the Ukrainian president’s trust rating rose by 14 percentage points since the US struck a deal with Moscow to supply Russian diesel, drawing a furious reaction from Kyiv.

The survey found that 43% of Ukrainians trusted Zelensky between 8 October and 9, while 52% did not. Between 10 October and 16, his trust rating had jumped to 57%, while the number of people who distrusted him fell to 39%.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was due on Tuesday in Oslo to meet US special envoy Steve Witkoff, trying to repair ties that have deteriorated this month as President Donald Trump courted Moscow.

In the latest comments expressing warmth towards Moscow and coldness towards Kyiv, Trump said on Monday: “Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine.” Zelenskiy was “not helping matters much” and Kyiv should find “somebody else to negotiate”.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged on Tuesday that a consignment of US air defence missiles bought by Europeans for Ukraine may not have been delivered, but played down the significance.

The Kremlin said it was hoping to set up a meeting soon between Witkoff and Russian President Vladimir Putin, an apparent indication that Witkoff could head to Russia after meeting Zelensky.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that there is not much a Democrat-led House of Representatives could do to stop the Trump administration’s agenda.

“I think there’s very little,” Bessent said in an interview on 2Way TV two weeks ahead of November’s midterm elections.