Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy not on Trump’s G7 bilateral meeting list, official says

What Happened

A senior US administration official, briefing on condition of anonymity, said President Trump will attend a G7 working session with President Zelenskyy in Evian, France, on 15-17 June, but no bilateral meeting between the two leaders is scheduled. Trump will hold bilateral talks on the sidelines with French President Macron and the leaders of Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, and India. The official claimed Russian territorial gains have 'more or less stopped' and added, 'We want the war to end as quickly as possible.' Separately, a Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and injured three in Russia’s Krasnodar region, with Governor Veniamin Kondratyev reporting drone debris sparked a fire at a sea terminal. Ukraine’s General Staff did not comment on Krasnodar but said its forces hit an oil preparation and pumping station in Russia’s Volgograd region, and Russian-occupied areas in Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia. President Zelenskyy stated Ukrainian forces had struck infrastructure sites deep inside Russia, including a military factory supplying components for Russian drones and missiles. Additionally, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was reconnected to the grid after a nearly three-day outage—its 19th off-site power loss since the war began—following repairs under an IAEA-brokered localized ceasefire. The outage was triggered by an attack on an electrical substation across the Dnipro River, forcing the plant to rely on emergency diesel generators to cool its six shutdown reactors.

Key Actors

Why It Matters

The omission of a bilateral meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy signals potential US diplomatic distance from Kyiv under the current administration, while the official’s comment on stalled Russian advances may reflect an effort to downplay the conflict's urgency or shape peace-talk perceptions. Ukraine’s continued deep strikes into Russia—including a claimed hit on a drone and missile component factory—demonstrate its ability to disrupt Russian logistics and industrial capacity far from the front lines, potentially pressuring Moscow. The Zaporizhzhia plant’s repeated power outages underscore persistent nuclear safety risks: each loss of off-site electricity forces reliance on diesel generators, and failure of those backup systems could precipitate a radiological catastrophe.

Watch For

The G7 summit on 15-17 June in Evian may produce further allied statements or shifts in support for Ukraine. Monitor Russian retaliatory actions following the drone strikes on Krasnodar and Volgograd, and whether the IAEA-brokered localized ceasefire holds or new attacks again disconnect the Zaporizhzhia plant from the grid.