Ukraine updates: Trump says talks 'coming to a head'

US President Donald Trump has repeated sentiments expressed earlier in the day by his Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the US would move on "very shortly" from trying to bring an end to the war in Ukraine if no easy solution can be found.

"Now if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we're just going to say: 'You're foolish. You're fools. You're horrible people' — and we're going to just take a pass," Trump said. "But hopefully we won't have to do that."

Trump also told journalists his administration wants to get the deal done "quickly." 

"It's coming to a head right now," he said.

A 19-year-old Russian activist has been jailed for two years and eight months after being found guilty of repeatedly "discrediting" the military, according to a Russian court.

Darya Kozyreva carried out several acts of protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, starting in December 2022 when she was just 17. In that instance, she spraypainted "Murderers, you bombed it. Judasses" on a statue outside St Petersburg's Hermitage that represented the bonds between the Russian city and the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Russian forces laid waste to the city shortly after the invasion began in February 2022.

In February 2023, on the anniversary of the invasion, she posted a fragment of a verse by Taras Shevchenko, a father of modern Ukrainian literature, on a statue of the poet in a St Petersburg park.

"I have no guilt," Kozyreva told the court on Friday according to a transcript compiled by the independent news outlet Mediazona. "My conscience is clear."

According to the Nobel Prize-winning Russian human rights group Memorial, there are an estimated 234 people imprisoned in Russia for anti-war activities.

Russian-installed authorities in the occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk said on Friday that an Australian man will stand trial on mercenary charges.

"The Prosecutor's Office of the Lugansk People's Republic approved the indictment in the criminal case against 33-year-old citizen of the Commonwealth of Australia Oscar Charles Augustus Jenkins," the officials said, referring to the breakaway Ukrainian region.

The investigators said that Jenkins had come from Melbourne to Ukraine in February 2024 to fight against the Russian army.

They also said he had been paid $7,000 to $9,000 (around €6,000 to €8,000) per month.

Russia, and its proxies in occupied parts of Ukraine, typically label any foreign fighting for Ukraine as "mercenaries." This allows them to be prosecuted as criminals rather than treated as prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

Ukraine and Russia exchanged soldiers' bodies with mediation from the International Red Cross, Ukrainian officials said said. 

"As a result of repatriation activities, the bodies of 909 fallen Ukrainian defenders were returned to Ukraine," the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, a Ukrainian government agency, said on social media.

The exchange of prisoners of war is one of the few areas of cooperation left between Russia and Ukraine.

Russian media and military bloggers said 41 bodies of killed Russian soldiers had been returned in the exchange.

It is estimated that tens of thousands have died on both sides, though neither country provides detailed updates.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last told US broadcaster NBC News in February that more than 46,000 of his soldiers had been killed and around 380,000 wounded. 

Meanwhile, Russia has not reported on its soldier losses since autumn 2022, when it said fewer than 6,000 soldiers had been killed.

US Vice President JD Vance discussed the Ukraine war with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni during his visit to Rome, with Vance saying he was "optimistic" regarding the ongoing negotiations with Russia.

"Since there are the negotiations, I won't prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war, this very brutal war, to a close," Vance said.

The comments come just hours after Secretary of State Marco Rubio cast doubt on the US commitment to talks. The US' top diplomat said that the US could "move on" from the peace process if a deal isn't reached in the "short term."

Vance arrived in the Italian capital with his family on Friday morning, just as Meloni was also returning to Italy from a visit to the White House on Thursday.

The US vice president will spend the Easter holidays in Rome and is due to attend Mass at St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican on Easter Sunday.

The Ukrainian government published a memo on Friday announcing a raw materials deal with the US.

"We are happy to announce the signing with our American partners," Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's first deputy prime minister and economy minister, said on social media on Thursday, referring to the memo.

Svyrydenko added that the document "testifies to the constructive joint work of our teams and the intention to finalize and conclude an agreement that will be beneficial to both our peoples."

Although the memo provided few details on the conditions of the deal, the final agreement is expected to provide the US with access to Ukraine's rare earths, which are crucial for high-tech industries.

In return, Ukraine hopes the deal will reinforce its relationship with the US and secure Washington's long-term support in the war with Russia.

"The United States of America and Ukraine have held highly productive technical discussions in Washington, DC as recently as April 11-12, 2025, in order to finalize negotiation of an agreement," the memo read.

Ukraine's prime minister is due to fly to Washington next week, in the hopes of sealing the deal by April 26.

"Ukrainian Prime Minister (Denys) Shmygal will visit Washington, DC the week of April 21, 2025, to meet with US Treasury Secretary (Scott) Bessent and lend high-level support to the conclusion of technical discussions," the memo read.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's administration published an updated list of sanctioned entities, which now includes Chinese companies.

Some of the companies now sanctioned by Kyiv include Beijing Aviation And Aerospace Xianghui Technology Co. Ltd, Rui Jin Machinery Co. Ltd, and Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber Xining Co. Ltd. 

Those companies, registered in China, are now banned from doing business in Ukraine. Any assets they may hold in the European country are to be frozen.

Ukraine did not give details of why they had been added to the sanctions list.

But the move comes a day after Zelensky said Ukraine had "general information from the SBU intelligence service and reconnaissance" suggesting that China is supplying Russia with "gunpowder and artillery."

He also claimed that representatives of China have been producing weapons on Russian territory. Zelensky has also previously accused Beijing of approving the recruitment of Chinese citizens for the Russian army in China.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular news conference that Beijing has never made lethal weapons available to any party to the Ukraine crisis.

"China's position on the Ukrainian issue has always been clear," Lin said. "It has been actively committed to promoting a ceasefire and ending the conflict, as well as encouraging peace talks."

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated on Friday that his country may be losing patience with the pace of negotiations for a ceasefire in Ukraine .

"We are now reaching a point where we need to decide whether this is even possible or not," Marco Rubio told reporters as he was returning to the US from Paris.

"We need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this is doable in the short term, because if it's not, then I think we're just going to move on.

"If it is, we're in. If it's not, then... we have other priorities to focus on as well."

The meeting came as the Trump administration deals with the global fallout from sweeping tariffs — which escelated into a trade war with China — as well controversy surrounding increased deportations.

"The United States has been helping Ukraine over the last three years, and we want it to end, but it's not our war," Rubio said.

Rubio had just attended high-level talks hosted by France on Thursday to discuss Ukraine and its security. The meeting was the first time since President Donald Trump's inauguration that top US, Ukrainian and European officials are known to have met together to discuss an end to the war.

The US top diplomat said European officials had been "very helpful and constructive with their ideas" during talks on Thursday.

"We'd like them to remain engaged... I think the UK and France and Germany can help us move the ball on this and then get this closer to a resolution," Rubio said, adding that he also hoped that European nations would consider lifting sanctions against Russia imposed after it invaded Ukraine in 2022.

"Part of the sanctions against Russia, many of them are European sanctions that we can't lift, if that were ever to be part of a deal," he said.

But European countries have agreed to ramp up rather than lift sanctions on Russia in the past months.

France said talks Thursday between top US and European officials on the war in Ukraine had launched a "positive process." 

The meetings included French President Emmanuel Macron, Rubio, US envoy Steve Witkoff, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, German officials and Ukrainian ministers.

"Today in Paris, we launched a positive process in which the Europeans are involved," the French presidency said at the conclusion of the meeting Thursday night.

A new meeting of envoys from the United States, France, Britain, Germany and Ukraine is scheduled to take place again in London next week.

Zelensky's chief of staff Andriy Yermak thanked Macron "for your efforts in the process of achieving a just and lasting peace for Ukraine," in a post on Telegram.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov however dismissed the Paris meeting, saying earlier that Europeans seemed to have "a focus on continuing the war."

Russia fired at least six missiles and dozens of drones at Ukraine overnight.

The attack killed two people in the eastern regions of Kharkiv and Sumy and wounded 70 others, officials said.

Ukraine's Emergency Service reported that one person died and over 60 others were hurt in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city. Mayor Ihor Terekhov said cluster munitions struck a "densely populated" neighborhood four times.

Meanwhile Russian drones also targeted a bakery in Sumy, less than a week after the deadly Palm Sunday strike there, killing a customer and wounding an employee, the regional prosecutor's office said. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the attack, which came just days before Easter. "This is how Russia started Good Friday — with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, Shahed drones. A mockery of our people and cities," he wrote on Telegram.

The attack on Sumy comes as the city was reeling from the Palm Sunday attack last weekend, which resulted in mass casualties.

US Secretary Marco Rubio left Paris after a high-ranking meeting with European nations over the fate of Ukraine, saying the US needed to decide whether a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine is "even possible or not." He warned that if a deal is not reached quickly, the US could "move on" and abandon the talks.

Meanwhile, Russia launched more attacks on the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Sumy, which was still reeling from a major attack last weekend on Palm Sunday. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of making "a mockery of our people and cities" with its recent attacks.