Vladimir Putin aide Kirill Dmitriev will meet US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Washington DC this week, according to reports. Elsewhere, Russia claimed to have advanced on the battlefield.
Thursday 3 April 2025 05:35, UK
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We’re pausing our live coverage of the Ukraine war for now.
But there’s still plenty to dig into across Sky News – including the Q&A with our security and defence analyst, Michael Clarke, from earlier today (see more on that in our last post).
Attention is turning elsewhere for now, though – with Donald Trump expected to explain details of his sweeping tariff plans at around 9pm UK time.
The measures could have a seismic impact on the global economy.
Follow the latest in our dedicated US and tariffs live page below…
We held another question and answer session with our security and defence analyst Michael Clarke earlier.
Every week, he answers your questions about the war in Ukraine.
Some of the topics he covered included:
You can submit your questions for next week’s Q&A in the form at the top of the page.
Read through the best answers by clicking below…
WARNING: The last picture in this post is a graphic image of a wounded Ukrainian soldier
Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited a medical facility for injured soldiers in the city of Dnipro yesterday and presented them with state awards.
He later wrote on Telegram: „Thank you to every soldier for the important struggle, for courage, service and defence of our country.“
Zelenskyy’s visit comes ahead of his meeting on Friday with representatives from a small group of countries ready to contribute to a foreign contingent of troops in Ukraine.
He told a news conference with Germany’s foreign minister that he was awaiting „more concrete“ answers from Kyiv’s allies on their readiness to contribute to such a force, an initiative Russia strongly opposes.
Stepping away from the war, Russia’s central bank has made some comments on the US tariff hikes that will be announced by Donald Trump later.
The bank said the hikes may slow down world economic growth and fuel inflation, and oil prices could be lower than forecast for several years as a result of reduced global demand.
„The increase in import duties in the USA and the retaliatory measures by other countries have raised the risks of a slowdown in global economic growth and an acceleration of inflation,“ the Russian regulator said.
„Expectations of lower global demand are already putting pressure on prices in commodity markets. The risks that oil prices in the coming years will be lower than the February baseline forecast have somewhat increased,“ it added.
As we reported earlier, later today Trump is set to impose sweeping new tariffs, escalating a trade war with global partners and risking cost increases.
More than 8,000 ex-convicts are currently serving in the Ukrainian army, the country’s ministry of justice reports.
The ministry states that as of April, more than 8,000 volunteers, who had previously served prison sentences, had joined Ukrainian troops on the battlefield.
This became possible after a law adopted in May 2024 allowed for the early release of former convicts.
The first groups of volunteers joined combat units in August last year.
There are also 900 additional applications for parole to serve in the Ukrainian army.
What do we know about soldier recruitment?
The figure comes amid a drive by both Ukraine and Russia to recruit more soldiers.
In February, Ukraine’s defence ministry launched a recruitment drive for young people, encouraging 18 to 24-year-olds to serve in the military for a year.
This is because Ukraine’s armed forces are heavily outnumbered by their Russian adversaries on the frontlines.
And last year, under pressure to bring more soldiers into the military, Ukraine’s parliament approved a new law on mobilisation, reducing the draft age from 27 to 25.
Elsewhere, Vladimir Putin yesterday ordered a further 160,000 Russian men between the ages of 18 and 30 to be called up, with the new order to be completed by 15 July.
German wind farms off the country’s northern coast have been asked to install radar facilities in an attempt to boost the surveillance of ships and drones.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has heightened security concerns in European waters, with attacks on infrastructure and the discovery of ageing oil tankers.
Now, a spokesperson for Germany’s federal maritime agency, the BSH, has confirmed a Bild newspaper report that offshore wind farms had been asked to install radar.
The 2025 standards, published by the BSH in late January, call for wind farm operators to install radar systems at suitable structures and deliver the collected data to authorities.
„The data is primarily used to secure transport routes,“ BSH official Nico Nolte told Bild.
We brought you reports earlier that senior Russian negotiator is Kirill Dmitriev is expected to visit Washington this week (see post at 6.51am).
The Kremlin has now said that the visit is „possible“ and that contacts with the US were continuing.
So what do we know about the Kremlin official?
Born in Kyiv, in Soviet Ukraine, Kirill Dmitriev is the chief of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Russian Direct Investment Fund.
He studied at Stanford University in California and was later awarded an MBA with distinction at Harvard.
After Stanford, he worked at Goldman Sachs in New York before moving to Moscow, where he worked as CEO for Delta Private Equity Partners, an investment management company.
The Russian Direct Investment Fund, led by Dmitriev since 2011, organised the production of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US sanctioned him and cast him as „a known Putin ally“.
He was not sanctioned by the European Union.
But CNN reported that the US will temporarily lift the sanctions for his visit.
Why is he an important figure?
Dmitriev has regular meetings with Putin and also has close relations to some key members of the Trump team.
He played a role in early contacts with the US when Trump was first elected president in 2016, as well as in building relations with Saudi Arabia, having met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman dozens of times.
He also met US special envoy Steve Witkoff when he visited Moscow.
Russia has blamed Ukraine after it put restrictions on Black Sea oil exports, via the Caspian pipeline.
The Black Sea terminal handling Kazakhstan’s oil exports, pumped by US majors Chevron and Exxon Mobil, closed two of its three moorings earlier this week following inspections by Russia’s transport watchdog.
The Novorossiisk Black Sea port has also been suspended.
Kremlin: ‚We must not forget enormous damage‘
Russia said Ukrainian drone attacks were to blame.
Speaking to reporters, Kremlin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov said: „This is due to the damage that was caused to the CPC infrastructure after the strikes by Ukrainian drones.
„We must not forget that enormous damage was done there, very complex damage in technological terms. And this cannot, of course, not have consequences for the functionality of the entire system, unfortunately.“
For context: The attacks have occurred amid efforts mediated by Donald Trump’s administration to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
As we reported earlier (see 9.32 post), Ukraine and Russia are meant to have agreed a ceasefire in the Black Sea, brokered by the US – but both sides disagree about when it became active.
On Monday, Trump said he would impose secondary tariffs if Putin did not cooperate – targeting Russian oil.
But observers are sceptical about whether Trump would actually target Russia.
Russia claims it has captured a village in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The Kremlin’s defence ministry said its forces had taken control of Rozlyv – which has become the focal point of their advance through the area.
Sky News cannot independently verify this report.
Ukraine’s military has said Russian forces had launched five attacks on Rozlyv and the nearby village of Kostiantynopil, but made no acknowledgement that Rozlyv was now in Russian hands.
Elsewhere, in the eastern Ukrainian town of Maryinka, images are emerging of crumbling buildings and rubble-strewn roads after a Russian strike there…
The eastern flank of Ukraine – which is made up of Donetsk and Luhansk – is where fighting is intense, with Russia intent on capturing it all.
But they have not made any breakthrough in the region.
Russia’s demands for peace contradict what Donald Trump wants to achieve, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports.
In its latest update, the US-based thinktank notes that senior Russian officials are continuing to reiterate the Russian demand for the elimination of the „root causes“ of the war in Ukraine as a precondition for a peace agreement.
This is a „reference to Russia’s initial war demands“ that contradict Donald Trump’s goal to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine,“ the ISW says.
The ISW states that Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov had claimed on 1 April that the Trump administration is attempting „some kind of scheme“ to get a ceasefire before moving on to achieve an end to the war.
The Kremlin official claimed that the Trump administration’s plan to resolve the war in Ukraine does not address the „root causes“ of the war and that Russia cannot accept the US proposal.
The Kremlin’s demands for the „full capitulation of Ukraine with the installation of a pro-Russian government in Ukraine and long-term commitments of Ukrainian neutrality“ are the same demands Putin made at the beginning of the war, the ISW points out.
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