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.
President Donald Trump, during a Tuesday interview with The Ingraham Angle host Laura Ingraham, (pictured) has warned that American troops ‘could be’ involved if Russia’s war on Ukraine escalates to ‘World War III’
Despite Putin and 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. Ukrainian service personnel use searchlights as they look for drones in the sky over Kyiv during a Russian drone strike on Wednesday, March 18, 2025
The Russian SHOT news Telegram posted a video of blazes overnight at what seemed like an industrial area
Russia’s drone Tuesday night attack damaged two hospitals in Sumy, northeast Ukraine, causing no injuries but forcing the evacuation of patients and hospital staff, regional authorities have said.
A 60-year-old man was injured and several houses damaged in Russian drone attack on the Kyiv region that surrounds the Ukrainian capital, Mykola Kalashnyk, governor of the region, said early on Wednesday.
Zelensky said that Russia launched more than 40 drones against Ukraine in the hours following the call between Trump and Putin.
Moscow carried out strikes at several other Ukrainian regions, including the Kyiv region that surrounds the Ukrainian capital, Zelenskiy and his officials said.
Ukrainian military said on Wednesday its air defence units shot down 72 of 145 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks. It added that 56 drones were lost, in reference to the Ukrainian military using electronic warfare to redirect them.
‘The Russian attack affected 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’.
‘Today, Putin de facto rejected the proposal for a complete ceasefire,’ Zelensky said in a post on the Telegram. ‘It would be right for the world to reject in response any attempts by Putin to drag out the war.’
Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, echoed the leader’s remarks in a Telegram post: ‘Russia is attacking civilian infrastructure and people – right now.’
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. Pictured is a Ukrainian hospital that was struck in Russia’s overnight attack
A rescuer works at a hospital in the aftermath of a Russian drone strike in Sumy, Ukraine
Rescuers evacuate a woman in the aftermath of a Russian drone strike at a hospital in Sumy, Ukraine on March 19, 2025
An explosion of a drone is seen in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike in Kyiv, Ukraine early Wednesday, March 19, 2025
There was no immediate comment from Russia about the attacks a few short few hours after the Putin-Trump call.
Both Ukraine and Russia have said their strikes aim at destroying each other’s infrastructure key to war efforts.
Zelensky told reporters that Russia had launched more than 1,300 guided bombs, eight missiles and nearly 600 long-range strike drones at Ukraine since the first round of talks in Saudi Arabia earlier in March.
He said that Ukraine had proposed the idea of ceasefire on energy infrastructure during those talks.
‘This was part of our proposal for the sky and for the sea. With the mediation of the American side, if they are the guarantors of control over the implementation of this ceasefire,’ Zelensky said.
Ukraine has used long-range combat drones to pound Russian oil infrastructure such as refineries in an effort to hurt its much larger foe, which has rained down missiles and drones far behind the front lines in Ukraine since the February 2022 full-scale invasion.
In particular, Russian strikes have hammered Ukrainian power stations, causing large-scale blackouts, and more recently also natural gas production sites.
SHOT said the Kavkazskaya oil transshipment point is an important facility designed to transport Russian oil for exports railway and into the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline system
Russia’s defence ministry said that its units destroyed 57 Ukrainian drones overnight, 35 of them over the border Kursk region.
The ministry reports only how many drones were destroyed not how many were launched by Ukraine.
Authorities in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar said early on Wednesday that a Ukrainian drone attack sparked a small fire at an oil depot located near the village of Kavkazskaya.
No one was injured in the fire, which spread across 20 square metres (215 square feet), but 30 employees were evacuated, the administration of the southern Russian region said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
‘The work at the facility has been suspended,’ the administration said.
The Russian SHOT news Telegram posted a video of blazes at night at what seemed like an industrial area.
SHOT said the Kavkazskaya oil transshipment point is an important facility designed to transport Russian oil for exports railway and into the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline system. MailOnline has not independently verified the SHOT report.
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.
Men clear rubble near damaged private houses at a site of a Russian drone strike in the town of Hostomel, Kyiv region, Ukraine on March 19, 2025
Damaged private houses and car at a site of a Russian drone strike in Hostomel, Kyiv on March 19, 2025
The White House said the telephone hook-up between Trump and Putin was aimed at advancing immediately toward a broader peace plan and another round of talks in Saudi Arabia will begin immediately.
After the Putin-Trump call Zelensky had calls with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, both key European allies and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
‘We are in constant communication. I am confident that there will be no betrayal from our partners and that the assistance will continue,’ Zelensky said after his calls with Macron and Scholz and when asked about an earlier comment by Putin, who emphasized that any resolution of the conflict would require an end to all military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine.
Zelensky said the demand by Putin, as well as another seeking to curtail Ukraine’s campaign to draft civilians into the armed forces, looked aimed at weakening Ukraine.
