Trump urges Zelensky to 'make a deal' with Putin as Russian strikes intensify across Ukraine

US president Donald Trump has told Volodymyr Zelensky to make a deal with Vladimir Putin to end the war.

Trump was speaking to reporters Saturday morning, having met the Ukrainian leader at the UN General Assembly earlier this week in New York.

“You know what I want him to do? Make a deal,” the president told Fox News. “I want him to settle with Putin and I want Putin to settle with him.”

It comes as Ukrainian officials said at least four people have died across the country during the latest wave of Russian aerial attacks overnight.

Two women were killed in Zaporizhzhia city when they were trapped beneath the rubble of their destroyed home, while a separate attack on Sumy also killed two people. Another two were injured in the Kyiv region after a Russian drone strike led to a fire at a warehouse.

Zelensky said the overnight strikes, which came at the end of a week of high-level diplomacy at the UN, showed the urgent need for the international community to rein in Putin.

Writing on social media on Saturday morning, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had carried out “numerous strikes on residential homes” across the country.

“It is essential that our partners not forget: Russia is escalating every single day. If the Russians have chosen to make their strikes even more brutal, the world must choose stronger responses to keep the war from spreading further,” he said.

Zelensky listed strikes on the cities of Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia, as well as the Odesa, Sumy, and Kharkiv regions.

Zelensky appealed at the UN earlier this week for countries to starve Russia of revenue through sanctions and trade bans, denying Moscow the money it needs to prolong the war.

Russian attacks killed four people across Ukraine on Saturday, officials said, as the aerial war between Moscow and Kyiv intensified.

Russia has hammered Ukraine with cruise and ballistic missiles, powerful glide bombs and jet-powered drones in recent weeks while front line progress has slowed.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, two people were injured in the Kyiv region overnight after a Russian drone attack caused a fire at a warehouse in the Boryspil district. Russian drones also hit several districts in the Ukrainian capital itself, injuring four and damaging residential and office buildings, officials said.

Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday that its attack on Kyiv had damaged a data centre that supported both cellphone internet services and Starlink satellite communication systems.

Russian president Vladimir Putin discussed the Ukraine war and energy cooperation with Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic during a phone call, the Kremlin said on Saturday.

Three people were killed and two injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia's Krasnodar region, local authorities there have said.

The Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky says Donald Trump confirmed this week that he had made a final decision to allow Kyiv to get licences to produce Patriot air defence systems.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky says he asked Donald Trump to press China’s Xi Jinping to use Beijing’s influence over Moscow and end the war on his country.