CNN
 — 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his conversation with US President Donald Trump at the Vatican last month was their “best” yet, with the two leaders discussing US sanctions and Kyiv’s air defenses.

The brief meeting on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral in April came at a crucial time for Ukraine, amid concerns that the US could scale back support for Kyiv and abandon peace talks.

Both sides described the talks as positive, which marked their first face-to-face encounter since their disastrous Oval Office meeting in February. Soon after, Trump questioned whether Russia’s President Vladimir Putin wanted peace, the latest sign that the US leader is losing patience with his Russian counterpart.

“I believe that we had the best conversation with President Trump of all those that have taken place before,” Zelensky told journalists on Friday, in remarks released Saturday by Ukraine’s presidential office.

“It may have been the shortest, but it was the most substantive.”

Zelensky said the pair discussed US sanctions, without elaborating, and described Trump’s comments on the matter as “very strong.” He added that he reiterated his desire to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses and told Trump he hoped to have the opportunity to purchase American weapons.

“I told him about the quantity, and he told me that they would work on it, that these things are not free,” Zelensky said.

He added that he and Trump agreed that a 30-day ceasefire “is the right first step” and that “we will move in this direction.”

On Wednesday, Washington and Kyiv signed a crucial minerals deal – an agreement both sides had been trying to hammer out since Trump returned to the White House in January.

In his Friday comments, Zelensky pointed to the Vatican meeting as the turning point in securing a deal, adding that he had managed to dispel Russian claims that Ukraine was unwilling to reach an agreement with the US. “I am confident that after our meeting in the Vatican, President Trump began to look at things a little differently,” he said.

Under the deal, the US and Ukraine will create a joint investment fund, according to Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko. The US may contribute new military aid to this fund, Svyrydenko said.

Zelensky also criticized a three-day ceasefire called by Putin late last month that the Russian leader said would last from midnight May 8 to midnight May 11, saying he was only ready to sign up for a longer truce. In his nightly address on Saturday, Zelensky said, “we are ready as soon as possible, even from today, to move toward a ceasefire if Russia is ready for mirror steps – for complete silence, for prolonged silence of at least 30 days. This is a fair period in which the next steps can be prepared. Russia must stop the war and cease the assaults, cease the shelling.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia’s proposed three-day ceasefire was a test of Ukraine’s “readiness” to seek peace, calling for “unambiguous and definitive statements” from Kyiv.

The dates of the proposed ceasefire coincide with Russia’s World War II Victory Day commemorations on May 9 and the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Some international leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping and Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko, are expected to gather in Moscow on that date, to mark Russia’s Victory Day commemorating the more than 25 million Soviet soldiers and civilians who died during World War II.

Kyiv won’t be “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on 9 May,” Zelensky said.

In a message to dignitaries traveling to Russia for May 9, the Ukrainian leader warned that Kyiv “cannot be responsible for what happens on the territory of the Russian Federation,” due to the ongoing conflict.

In response, Russia’s foreign ministry said his comments amounted to a threat.

Belgrade
AP
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Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic has cut short a visit to the United States and returned to Serbia after feeling sudden chest pain apparently caused by high blood pressure, doctors said on Saturday.

Vucic, 55, suddenly fell ill during a meeting in the US on Friday and decided to return home against the advice of US doctors, said cardiologist Dragan Dincic, from Belgrade’s Military Hospital, where Vucic was treated upon arrival.

Dincic said Vucic took additional therapy after the incident and was now in “stable and satisfactory condition.” Dincic added that Vucic won’t be hospitalized but “cannot be expected to return to his regular activities for several days.”

Vucic was previously in Miami, Florida, where he had met with former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. Vucic had said he also was hoping to meet with US President Donald Trump.

Richard Grenell, US presidential envoy for special missions, expressed hope that Vucic would recover. “Sorry to miss you but hope all is ok,” Grenell wrote on X.

Serbia’s populist leader also has said he would travel to Russia later this month to attend a Victory Day parade in Moscow, despite warnings from European Union officials that this could affect Serbia’s bid to join the bloc.

Vucic has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. He also has been under pressure at home following six months of persistent anti-corruption protests triggered by the collapse of a roof at a train station in the country’s north that killed 16 people.

London
CNN
 — 

Britain’s populist, anti-immigration party Reform UK has beaten Labour by a tiny margin in a by-election, dealing the government a mid-term setback and ruffling the country’s historically resilient two-party hegemony.

Reform, led by the United Kingdom’s disruptor-in-chief Nigel Farage, claimed its fifth Member of Parliament (MP) by winning the industrial northwestern town of Runcorn by just six votes, following a recount.

It marked a stunning reversal in fortunes for center-left Labour, which comfortably claimed the seat on its way to a landslide victory in a general election just 10 months ago.

“It’s been a huge night for Reform,” Farage told reporters on Friday. “This is heartland Labour Party, their vote has collapsed and much of it has come to us.”

Thursday’s vote was triggered when the Labour lawmaker Mike Amesbury resigned earlier this year after he was convicted for punching a man in the street.

Reform also won a mayoral election in Greater Lincolnshire, central England, but Labour held on to retain three other mayoralties.

Prime Minister and Labour leader Keir Starmer conceded to journalists that the results were “disappointing” for his party, but pledged to “go further and faster on the change that people want to see.”

Further results from Thursday’s local elections, which were only held in some regions of England, are expected to be declared on Friday.

The results from Britain’s revolving local electoral calendar are notoriously difficult to extrapolate to the sentiment of the nation as a whole.

But this offers some real evidence behind Reform’s months-long rise in momentum and opinion polling. The party is now regularly graded as the most popular in the country, less than a year on from a national poll in which it placed third.

Sitting governments typically perform worse when facing the electorate during their terms of office, and a general election isn’t due in Britain until 2029.

But these results represent a lukewarm verdict from voters toward Starmer’s government.

While Starmer has proven an adept statesman on the global stage – building a constructive relationship with both US President Donald Trump and European leaders and emerging as a key player in talks over the future of the war in Ukraine – his domestic agenda has failed to energize the public.

Starmer has pledged to revive fiscal growth, infrastructure and house-building projects in a country bogged down by nearly a decade of post-Brexit economic inertia, but his short-term offerings have been more modest and he has been reluctant to throw money toward Britain’s beleaguered public services.

The prime minister has also struggled to significantly reduce the rates of illegal migration to the UK, the issue on which Reform’s surge hinges.

Reform’s rise also came at the expense of the Conservative Party, which was dumped from government last year and has floundered in the months since. The Tories suffered more losses on Thursday, including in regions where they have historically won favor.

Labour and the Conservatives’ domination of British politics has only been challenged on a handful of occasions over the past century, but if Reform were to maintain their momentum over the coming years, that two-party command would be seriously threatened.