Have you missed the latest events on the war in Ukraine? 20 Minutes takes stock for you every evening. Here is the gist of this Wednesday, May 27, 2026, on the 1,554th day of the conflict.
Fact of the day
A letter as a call for help. Volodymyr Zelensky sent a letter to Donald Trump asking him to provide Ukraine with more missiles for the Patriot air defense systems, a “vital protection tool” to deal with the intensification of Russian attacks. The letter was signed on Tuesday, two days after a devastating strike by Moscow against Ukraine that involved nearly 600 drones, around 90 missiles, including the nuclear-capable Orechnik intermediate-range ballistic missile.
The damage from this Russian attack, one of the most massive in more than four years of invasion, highlighted kyiv’s dependence on its allies to defend its skies against Russian missiles.
“We understand that the United States continues to bear responsibility for its own defense and the protection of its allies and partners,” Volodymyr Zelensky expressed in his letter. However, after all we have been through together, have we not earned our place among your allies?
Relations between the two heads of state have been difficult since the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
Today’s statement
« Through its actions, Russia demonstrates every day its cynicism and its disregard for international law »
The words are signed by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. France announced this Wednesday that it had summoned the Russian ambassador after Moscow’s call for foreign diplomats to leave kyiv before new strikes on the Ukrainian capital, already bombed by Russia last weekend.
For several days, Russia has been threatening an escalation in its attacks on Ukraine, in revenge for a Ukrainian strike that killed, according to Moscow, 21 people in a high school in occupied Ukrainian territory. “France strongly condemns the intimidation by Moscow which is proof of the military impasse in which the country finds itself in Ukraine,” adds the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The number of the day
14 billion euros. This is the amount of the additional envelope by 2030 proposed on Wednesday by the Senate in order to increase the budgetary effort in favor of the armies, in addition to the 36 billion requested by the government in the update of the military programming law (LPM).
In a context marked by wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, senators want to go further than the executive. “What we are being offered today is a program that only allows us to secure the previous programming law,” regretted the LR president of the Defense Commission, Cédric Perrin, at a press conference, who wants to “give much more ambition.” » to the LPM and put it « in line with the threats for which the executive is preparing us ».
In the morning, the committee adopted the bill updating the country’s main orientations in terms of defense and resources for the armies, which must, in its government version, bring to 436 billion euros the military spending planned by the end of the decade.
The trend
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer signed a treaty with his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk on Wednesday strengthening cooperation between the two countries in matters of security and defense, to face the “challenge” posed by Russia. This treaty was signed one year after a treaty of friendship and enhanced cooperation between Poland and France.
Our file on the war in Ukraine
“There is no greater challenge to our two countries than that posed by Russian aggression, and we see that this is not limited to Ukraine itself, but has repercussions beyond its borders, into our own countries,†Keir Starmer said.
The United Kingdom has signed similar treaties with France and Germany, demonstrating its desire to get closer to its European partners.
