live from london, this is bbc news. donald trump says he'll meet vladimir putin face—to—face — for talks about bringing an end to the war in ukraine. i think we're on the way to getting peace. i think president putin wants peace and president zelensky wants peace, and i want peace. i just want to see people stop getting killed. president trump's new defence secretary makes his message clear to other nato ministers at a meeting in brussels. the war in ukraine. the aggression by russia has been a factory reset for nato. a realisation that this alliance needs to be needs to be robust and strong and real. latest uk growth figures are out and the economy got bigger — but onlyjust — with gdp up

nought—point—one percent. and is the national health service still fit for purpose? we have special coverage to try to find out. hello. welcome to bbc news with welcome to bbc news with me welcome to bbc news with me lukwesa burak. us president donald trump says he plans to meet vladimir putin soon to discuss how to end the war in ukraine. any such meeting would reverse years of isolation of the russian leader — following his full scale invasion. it comes after mr trump made two phone calls, one to the kremlin, the other to ukraine's president zelensky. this map shows the extent of russian progress in the war in red. with territory held or regained by ukraine in purple.

if talks do begin, it's unclear on exactly what terms. our north america correspondent merlyn thomas reports. president trump and vladimir putin aren't exactly friends. certainly not allies — unless there's something to gain. and for president trump, it's ending the war in ukraine. we had a great call, and it lasted for a long time, over an hour, this morning. i also had with president zelensky a very good call after that. i think president putin wants peace and president zelensky wants peace, and i want peace. i just want to see people stop getting killed. and an in—person meeting is on the cards. he'll come here and i'll go there, and we're going to meet also probably in saudi arabia, the first time we'll meet in saudi arabia, see if we can get something done. but we want to end that war. that war is a disaster. it's a really bloody, horrible war.

after he spoke to vladimir putin, president trump also spoke to ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky, who described their conversation as meaningful. translation: we discussed many issues, and president trump - informed me of what putin told him. we believe that america's strength is enough, together with us, to pressure russia and putin towards peace.

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and yet we just need to look at the last 12 hours to show that that, that it's been anything but that. you have a warm conversation, it seems, between vladimir putin of russia and donald trump of the us, and president zelensky, meanwhile, here had to wait his turn. he had to wait for his biggest ally to get off the phone with the invader of his country. and then he talked about the agreeing that america's strength and ukraine's strength would be enough to pressure russia into some kind of a peace. but i think it's ukraine that's feeling the heat at the moment in terms of the position it's going to have to adopt, and the uncertainty over how a frozen conflict might materialise. you know, america said there will be foreign troops here, but it's just not

going to be us. there's a lot of missing detail over how ukraine can exist as a strong sovereign country, as western allies put it all right, with russia now retaining control of a fifth of its territory, there are a lot of unanswered questions over how a cease fire might hold. and the reliance that will have on foreign troops.

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that's happened in the past few days, how difficult it will be to negotiate an extension of the deal, to go beyond to go into march and really beyond that as well. i mean, that's so difficult for gazans now, so weary from war people, so many of them still homeless and in dire need. we've seen the desperation expressed by hostage families and their supporters as well. they've been holding another protest in tel aviv this morning. the us state department announced that when marco rubio comes to this region that's now expected to be at the end of this week, that one of the things that he is going to be focusing on is advancing talks on a second stage of the ceasefire, but really, you can see that its president trump's interventions that are really overshadowing these efforts. and we've had the white house

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