For years, Donald Trump criticized presidents for empty threats. He often pointed to then-President Barack Obama failing to enforce his “red line” on Syria using chemical weapons. During his first term in 2017, Trump called it a “blank threat” that cost us “in many other parts of the world.”

State news agency RIA Novosti has reported that a gunpowder workshop at the facility caught fire and triggered an explosion.

Russia’s illegal seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in March 2014 was quick and bloodless, and it sent Moscow’s relations with the West into a downward spiral unseen since the Cold War.

Hungary accused Ukraine of an "outrageous and unacceptable" attack that disabled a Russian oil pipeline supplying the NATO ally—and fired a warning to Kyiv about its reliance on Hungarian electricity supplies. Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian foreign ministry for comment.

Before a meeting with President Trump, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Russia’s 2014 seizure of Ukrainian land became “a springboard for a new attack.”

Russia’s troops are continuing their slow war of attrition in eastern and northern Ukraine, even as the conflict enters a pivotal phase with a series of high-level meetings that are part of U.S.

President Donald Trump supports Russian leader Vladimir Putin's proposal for Moscow to take full control of the Donbas and freeze the front lines elsewhere for a deal with Ukraine.