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President Donald Trump has warned that American troops 'could be' involved if Russia 's war on Ukraine escalates to 'World War III'.
Trump, 78, issued the stark warning on Fox News on Tuesday, just hours after he spoke on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin for 'almost two hours'.
'We want to get it over with,' Trump said of the war during his interview with The Ingraham Angle host Laura Ingraham , admitting that 'Russia has the advantage'.
The Republican , who claims his call with Putin went 'great', pushed the Kremlin leader to accept to a full 30-day ceasefire to no avail. Putin did, however, agree to temporarily stop attacking Ukrainian energy facilities.
'Right now, you have a lot of guns pointing at each other and a ceasefire without going a little bit further would have been tough,' Trump told Ingraham.
He further suggested that his push for a ceasefire was part of a larger bid to keep US troops out of the war.
'Look, we're doing this – there are no Americans involved. There could be if you end up in World War III over this, which is so ridiculous,' he warned. 'But, you know, strange things happen.'
Despite Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky having agreed to a limited ceasefire to halt attacks on energy infrastructure, both Kyiv and Moscow have now accused each other of launching damaging air attacks early Wednesday.
Regional authorities in Sumy, northeast Ukraine said that Russia's drone attacks damaged two hospitals there, causing no injuries but forcing the evacuation of patients and hospital staff .
A 60-year-old male sustained injuries, and multiple residences were affected. damaged during a Russian drone assault on the area surrounding Kyiv, which is near the Ukrainian capital , Mykola Kalashnyk, the regional governor, stated early Wednesday morning.
Zelensky said that Russia Over 40 drones were launched against Ukraine within the hours after the conversation between Trump and Putin took place. .
The Ukrainian military stated on Wednesday that its anti-aircraft defense units downed 72 out of 145 drones dispatched by Russia during nighttime assaults It also mentioned that 56 drones were lost, as the Ukrainian military employed electronic warfare tactics to divert them.
'The Russian attack impacted Sumy, Odesa, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, and Chernihiv regions ,' the military said on Telegram.
Zelensky had agreed to the US proposed 30-day ceasefire before the Putin-Trump call and later supported the more limited ceasefire on energy targets .
But after Russia launched its air attacks early on Wednesday, the Ukrainian president urged the world to block any attempts by Moscow to drag out the war.
'Russia is attacking civilian infrastructure and people - right now Andriy Yermak, who serves as Chief of Staff for Zelensky, mentioned this late at night via Telegram.
The Russian defense ministry stated that their forces took out 57 Ukrainian drones during the night, with 35 of these being intercepted over the Kursk region near the border.
The ministry discloses only the number of drones that were destroyed, not the quantity launched by Ukraine.
The authorities in Russia’s southern Krasnodar territory reported early Wednesday that they had been targeted by a Ukrainian drone assault. ignited a minor blaze at an oil storage facility situated close to the village of Kavkazskaya .
Nobody got hurt in the blaze, which affected an area of 20 square meters (215 square feet). However, 30 workers had to be evacuated from the premises. The administration of the southern Russian region shared this information in a Telegram post.
'The operations at the site have been put on hold,' stated the administration.
The Russian SHOT news channel on Telegram shared a video showing fires burning at nighttime in what appeared to be an industrial zone.
SHOT mentioned that the Kavkazskaya oil transshipment terminal serves as a crucial hub intended for transferring Russian petroleum via rail and integrating it with the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline network for export purposes.
Reuters was unable to confirm the SHOT report independently.
Russia's aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said that for a couple of hours overnight flights were suspended from airports in Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Nizhnekamsk, Russia, all hundreds kilometres east of Moscow, to 'ensure air safety'.
The agency did not say what was the reason for the suspension, but it usually suspends flights when there are reports of drone attacks.
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