Hungarian Viktor Orbán asks other European leaders to “move from war to peace”

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Billionaire Elon Musk participated in the call on Wednesday between Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump, an official within the Ukrainian presidency told AFP on Friday. “I can confirm it,” said this official, on condition of anonymity, when asked about information from the American media Axios. Another high-ranking Ukrainian source claimed that Donald Trump “passed the phone” to Elon Musk who then spoke “briefly” with Volodymyr Zelensky.

NATO and its partners in Asia (South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand) “strongly” condemned on Friday North Korea’s engagement alongside Russia in its “war of aggression” against Ukraine.

“The deployment of thousands of fighters (from North Korea) constitutes a dangerous intensification of the already substantial support provided by this country to the war of aggression that Russia is waging, completely illegally, against Ukraine,” indicated the Atlantic Alliance in a press release, specifying that its partners in Asia, and Ukraine, had joined this text.

The building where the Estonian ambassador lives in kyiv was hit by a Russian drone. “In a new attack on kyiv early yesterday morning, a Russian drone struck the building where Estonia’s ambassador to Ukraine, Annely Kolk, lives,” the Estonian Foreign Minister said in a statement. “She and her husband are unhurt,” said Magnus Tsahkna, stressing that this attack constituted “new proof that no one is safe in Ukraine as long as Russia continues its aggression by deliberately targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure “.

At least one person was killed and more than forty injured this Friday during a series of strikes targeting the cities of Kharkiv, Odessa and kyiv, Ukrainian authorities announced Friday.

This is the first meeting of this kind since January 2025. The Russian and Ukrainian human rights mediators announced on Friday that they had met in Belarus to discuss humanitarian issues.

According to Russian mediator Tatiana Moskalkova, the two sides exchanged lists of prisoners of war and letters from their families to them and “discussed continued humanitarian cooperation to provide assistance to civilians.”

A 91-year-old woman living in Ukraine was also repatriated to Russia, to her family, on the sidelines of this meeting. “We delivered letters from Ukrainian relatives to Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia,” said Ukrainian mediator Dmytro Loubinets.

A rare condemnation in Russia, which usually denies any abuse by its soldiers. Two Russian soldiers were sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering an entire family of nine people, including two children, in October 2023, the state news agency Tass reported on Friday. The massacre took place in an occupied town in the Donetsk region.

The sentence was handed down by a military court in Rostov-on-Don, in southern Russia.

She was denounced by the mother of one of her little patients, with whom she criticized the war in Ukraine in a private conversation. Pediatrician Nadejda Bouïanova, 68 years old and imprisoned since April, is on trial this Friday before a Moscow court. The Russian prosecutor’s office requested six years in prison against her. The prosecutor asked the judge to “convict Bouyanova and impose a sentence of six years of deprivation of liberty in a penal colony”.

Ukrainian authorities announced Friday that Russia had handed over the bodies of 563 soldiers killed on the front, without saying whether it was an exchange. Some “320 bodies of soldiers killed in the Donetsk sector and 89 soldiers who fell in the Bakhmout sector were repatriated. We also managed to repatriate 154 bodies from morgues in Russia,” said the Ukrainian coordinating organization for prisoners of war.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called on Europeans on Friday to recognize the new situation created by the election of Donald Trump, by agreeing to “move from war to peace” in Ukraine, despite their reaffirmed support for kyiv.

“The situation on the battlefield is obvious, it is a military defeat” for Ukraine, he said on Friday before welcoming the heads of state and government of the 27, gathered in Budapest for a informal summit. Donald Trump “hates war” and therefore, “for us Europeans, the situation is evolving,” he added on Hungarian radio. And for the Hungarian leader, who is pleading for a ceasefire, there is only one way to respond: “Let us adapt quickly and move from war to peace.”

The Kremlin once again evaded on Friday the question of the presence of North Korean soldiers in Russia alleged by kyiv. According to Ukrainian authorities, some 11,000 North Korean troops are deployed in Russia and have started fighting and suffering losses in the Russian region of Kursk.

“This is a question directly related to the conduct of the special military operation (in Ukraine), which must therefore be posed to the Ministry of Defense,” reacted the spokesperson for the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, not denying the deployment of these North Korean soldiers which would constitute an international escalation of the conflict.

The German government assured Friday that bilateral aid to Ukraine was assured, despite the political instability linked to the fall of Olaf Scholz’s coalition which is hampering budgetary discussions.

“It is important to say that aid to Ukraine – military support, financial support – is assured and that we provide significant assistance both domestically and within the framework of the G7,” said one German government spokespersons, Christiane Hoffmann, during a press conference.

Four people were injured near kyiv, where AFP journalists heard air raid sirens sounding and at least one explosion echoing above the Ukrainian capital.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia fired five missiles, 92 drones and glide bombs overnight, with four missiles and 62 drones shot down.

A Russian was sentenced to thirteen years in prison for “high treason”, guilty of having financially supported the Ukrainian army, the Ria Novosti agency specifying on Friday that it involved a transfer of 50 euros. A Moscow court found Alexander Kraitchik “guilty of high treason for having provided financial support to a foreign state”, for “motivations of political and ideological hatred”.

He will have to serve thirteen years in prison in a “high-security penal colony”, according to the verdict which dates from November 1 but was made public on Friday.

Citing the court’s communications service, the public press agency Ria Novosti specified that Alexander Kraitchik had “made a transfer of 50 euros to a German bank account set up by the Ukrainian army two days” after the launch of the Russian assault in Ukraine, February 24, 2022.

In the port city of Odessa, Ukrainian emergency services said one person died following strikes overnight from Thursday to Friday.

“According to initial information, one person died and nine were injured,” emergency services said on Telegram, reporting fires in houses and warehouses.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday rejected the idea of ​​discussing a ceasefire with Russia or making the slightest “concession”, after Moscow urged the West to negotiate under penalty of “destruction of the Ukrainian population.

“We can’t just say ‘a ceasefire now and then we’ll see.’ This is not sustainable. And the worst thing is that it is irresponsible,” Volodymyr Zelensky said during a press conference on the sidelines of a summit of the European Political Community in Budapest, referring to “very dangerous rhetoric”. The Ukrainian president assured earlier Thursday that making “concessions to Putin” was “unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for all of Europe”, partly repeating a speech made a little earlier.

Calls for negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are becoming more insistent after more than two and a half years of a devastating war, including among some of kyiv’s allies.

At least 25 people were injured overnight from Thursday to Friday in a Russian strike on a residential building in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, in the northeast of the country, the mayor announced.

“A 12-story apartment was hit by a guided bomb attack. A section of the first and third floors was partially destroyed. Buildings were destroyed in the surrounding area,” said Igor Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv on his Telegram account. “The number of injured continues to increase. Now there are 25,” he later clarified.

The mayor previously reported “people stuck on the third floor of the apartment building”, specifying that rescue operations were underway.

The death toll from Russian strikes on Thursday on the town of Zaporizhia, in southern Ukraine, rose to four to eight dead, including a small child, the region’s governor said on Friday.

“The number of deaths resulting from the Russian attack on Zaporizhia has increased to eight, including a one-year-old boy,” declared the governor, Ivan Fedorov, reporting 42 injured

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he was “ready to resume contact” with Donald Trump after the Republican’s victory in the American presidential election, for which he congratulated him.

“If anyone wants to get back in touch, I don’t mind. I am ready,” declared Vladimir Putin during a forum, about Donald Trump. “I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate him on his election to the presidency of the United States.”

Before the American election, Vladimir Putin publicly declared that he would prefer to see Joe Biden, then Kamala Harris, in the White House, deeming them more “predictable” for Moscow than the Republican candidate. Donald Trump has been criticized on several occasions for his laudatory remarks about Vladimir Putin

Like every day, the editorial staff of 20 Minutes is mobilized to give you all the information on the conflict. War in Ukraine was declared with Russia’s invasion of the country on the night of February 23 to 24, 2022 by decision of Russian President Vladimir Putin. This Friday is already the 989th day of conflict.