A member of the British Armed Forces has died in Ukraine. The UK Ministry of Defence confirmed the death on Tuesday, December 9.
The soldier was watching Ukrainian forces test a new defensive weapon system far from the front lines when a tragic accident happened. The incident was not caused by enemy fire.
This is the first time a serving British serviceman has been killed in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump sharply criticized Europe as “decaying” and its leaders as “weak” on issues of immigration and support for Ukraine, further straining ties with some of America’s longest-standing allies.
In an interview with Politico, Trump renewed his call for war-torn Ukraine to hold elections despite Russia’s ongoing invasion, insisting that Moscow holds the “upper hand” in the conflict and urging President Volodymyr Zelensky to consider a peace plan that the Ukrainian leader has yet to review.
The remarks echoed and amplified the administration’s recent national security strategy, which accused Europe of risking “civilizational erasure” through migration and other policies—language that recycled far-right tropes about cultural decline on the continent.
“Most European nations they’re decaying,” Trump said.
Trump’s latest interview is set to heighten alarm across European capitals, already unsettled by last week’s U.S. national security strategy, which urged “cultivating resistance” to migration in Europe and warned of the continent’s “civilizational erasure.”
Experts note that such language closely mirrors the “great replacement” theory long promoted by far-right groups—and echoed by Trump’s former ally Elon Musk—claiming a deliberate effort to replace white populations through immigration.
In contrast to the savaging of close US allies, Russia and China fared relatively well under the US strategy. The Kremlin said the US document aligned with its own worldview.
A French minister, Alice Rufo, said Tuesday that the US security strategy was an “extremely brutal clarification of the ideological stance of the United States.”
In his interview, Trump said countries including Britain, France, Germany, Poland, and Sweden were being “destroyed” by migration.
He also launched a new attack on “horrible, vicious, disgusting” Sadiq Khan, London’s first Muslim mayor. Khan told Politico that Trump was “obsessed” with him and said US citizens were “flocking” to live in London.
Trump also had sharp words for Ukraine and for Zelensky, in his latest seesaw in relations with the leader whom he called a “dictator without elections” in January and then berated in the Oval Office in February.
“I think it’s an important time to hold an election. They’re using war not to hold an election.” Trump said. “It gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”
Elections in Ukraine were due in March 2024, but have been postponed under the imposition of martial law since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. About 20 percent of the country is under occupation.
Fresh elections were included in the draft US plan to end the war.
He also reiterated claims that Zelensky had not read the US plan. “It would be nice if he would read it. You know, a lot of people are dying,” Trump said.
Top U.S. negotiators met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last week, followed by several days of talks with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv, yet no breakthrough has emerged.
Responding to President Trump’s recent remarks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that he is “ready for elections” provided Ukraine’s security can be guaranteed.
He added that Ukraine plans to deliver its updated version of the U.S. peace proposal to Washington on Wednesday.
By ET Online Desk and Agence France-Presse
