内容摘要：freed four Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity but resulted in the deaths of at least 274 Palestinians.

freed four Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity but resulted in the deaths of at least 274 Palestinians.

over the slow pace of progress in negotiations aimed at stopping the war. Western European leaders have accused Putin of stalling while his forces seek to grab more Ukrainian land. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine’s territory since Moscow’s forces launched a full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.Trump has long dismissed the war as a waste of lives and American taxpayer money — a complaint he repeated Wednesday during his Cabinet meeting. That could spell an end to crucial military help for Ukraine and heavier economic sanctions on Russia.

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday tried again to push both sides to move more quickly and warned that the U.S. could pull out of the negotiations if there’s no progress.“We are now at a time where concrete proposals need to be delivered by the two parties on how to end this conflict,” department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce quoted Secretary of State Marco Rubio as telling her.Russia has effectively rejected a U.S. proposal for an immediate and full 30-day ceasefire, making it conditional on a halt to Ukraine’s mobilization effort and Western arms supplies to Kyiv.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed Wednesday that Ukraine had accepted an unconditional truce only because it was being pushed back on the battlefield, where the bigger Russian forces have the upper hand.Meanwhile, Ukrainian civilians have been killed or wounded in attacks every day this year, according to a U.N. report presented Tuesday in New York.

The U.N. Human Rights Office said in the report that in the first three months of this year, it had verified 2,641 civilian casualties in Ukraine. That was almost 900 more than during the same period last year.

Also, between April 1-24, civilian casualties in Ukraine were up 46% from the same weeks in 2024, it said.Others shared a more skeptical view. Iryna Vasylevska, a 37-year-old Kyiv resident, expressed frustration and disillusionment with the broader implications of the deal.

She told the AP she feels terrible that “our land is just a bargaining chip for the rest of the world and that we do not have our own full protection, but rely on someone.”“My vision is that instead of strengthening ourselves, we continue to give it all away. I feel sorry for our land and for our people,” she said.

Reaction to the signing was generally muted in Moscow on Wednesday, a holiday in Russia. But the deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said that Trump had forced Ukraine to effectively “pay” for American military aid with its mineral resources.“Now military supplies will have to be paid for with the national wealth of a disappearing country,” he claimed in a post on Telegram.