‘We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end,’ Marco Rubio says US president Donald Trump will walk away from trying to broker a Russia-Ukraine peace deal within days unless there are clear signs that a deal can be done, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Friday.Rubio said in Paris, after meeting European and Ukrainian leaders:We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end.So we need to determine very quickly now, and I’m talking about a matter of days whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks. If it is we’re in. If it’s not, then we have other priorities to focus on as well.China is supplying weapons to Russia, including gunpowder and artillery, and Chinese representatives are involved in weapons production on Russian territory, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Thursday, citing reporting by Ukrainian security and intelligence agencies. “We are ready to speak in detail about this,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Ukraine expects to share documentation to support the claims next week. China has denied arming Russia against Ukraine.Beijing on Friday denied giving any party in the Ukraine war lethal weapons. “The Chinese side has never provided lethal weapons to any party in the conflict, and strictly controls dual-use items,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said.Ukraine’s economy minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, said on Thursday that Kyiv had signed a “memorandum of intent” with Washington on a planned “investment fund for the reconstruction of Ukraine”. Donald Trump said they would sign a minerals deal “next Thursday”. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that a deal was targeted for 26 April.Russian strikes killed two people and injured at least 27 others overnight in Kharkiv and Sumy in north-eastern Ukraine, authorities said on Friday. “According to preliminary information, the strikes on Kharkiv were carried out by ballistic missiles with cluster munitions. That is why the affected areas are very large,” said Kharkiv’s mayor, Igor Terekhov, adding that 15 apartment buildings had been damaged. In Sumy, near the Russian border, a Russian Shahed drone attack on civilian infrastructure killed one person and injured one other, the regional military administration said.Zelenskyy said Russia had reduced the number of strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities but stepped up attacks on civilian infrastructure instead. Zelenskyy told a press conference in Kyiv that in total, Russia was launching the same number of missiles and drones at Ukraine as before. “They reduced their strikes on energy. That’s a fact. But I wanted us to pay attention to this – Russia did not reduce the number of strikes, that was the strategy … by reducing [strikes on] energy, they are hitting other civilian infrastructure.”Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, on Thursday accused Ukraine at the security council of ignoring the energy ceasefire. In a joint statement after the council met, Slovenia, Denmark, France, Greece, and Britain urged Russia to agree to a full and unconditional ceasefire. Slovenia’s UN ambassador, Samuel Zbogar, said: “Ukraine wants peace, and has demonstrated this by agreeing to a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire five weeks ago. At the consultations today, Russia again rejected the comprehensive ceasefire and refused to make its first step towards peace.” Continue reading…