Married banker sacked over affair with colleague sues for sex discrimination
Stanislav Stepchuk, who was a director at American investment bank Merrill Lynch, was in a relationship with the woman for several months but broke it off when he learnt his pregnant wife was expecting.
He sent an unsolicited explicit photo to the younger woman four days after they began messaging each other.
He claims that after the breakup the junior colleague responded with 'hostility', 'taunts' and 'threats' that his life may be in danger.
An internal disciplinary process found the father-of-two had actually been the one to threaten her and sacked him for 'acting inappropriately' by embarking on the affair.
Mr Stepchuk is suing Merrill Lynch International for sex discrimination and harassment, age discrimination, and unfair dismissal.
Details of the affair emerged during a preliminary hearing to determine if Mr Stepchuk or his junior colleague were entitled to anonymity.
While he demanded that her identity be made public, he applied to have his name remain a secret to protect his family - a request that was denied by a judge.
The tribunal, held in Central London, heard Mr Stepchuk became a director at the financial institution in March 2018.
In January 2023 he began exchanging 'sexually explicit and highly personal' WhatsApp messages with a junior known only as Colleague A.
In these messages, she told him she was a virgin who lacked sexual experience.
Just four days into their communications he sent her an unsolicited 'intimate photograph' of himself.
The tribunal heard that the pair were sexually intimate on two occasions.
Mr Stepchuk was married at the time and tried to break things off in summer 2023 when he learnt that his wife was pregnant, the hearing was told.
He alleges that at the start of August, Colleague A responded to his attempts to withdraw from the relationship with 'hostility, taunts and threats'.
The banker told the tribunal that she suggested that if she disclosed the relationship to their employer it would have 'consequences' for his wife, her pregnancy, his child, and his parents and even put his life in danger.
Merrill Lynch International say their HR team had spoken to Colleague A as early as March 2023 about sexual harassment by Mr Stepchuk.
In August she raised a formal grievance alleging that she had been sexually harassed and that Mr Stepchuk had threatened her when she said she was going to HR.
In January 2024 the banker was dismissed following a disciplinary procedure, which found he had 'acted inappropriately' in pursuing a sexual relationship with Colleague A, and had threatened her.
However, they did not uphold the complaint of sexual harassment, finding the relationship had been consensual.
At the tribunal, Mr Stepchuk claims that he was discriminated against by a failure to investigate his grievance and that their approach was 'tainted' by the assumption that he was the perpetrator as a more senior man.
The bank says his dismissal was 'wholly proper'.
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Sky News
31 minutes ago
- Sky News
A nationwide hunt was launched when Constance Marten disappeared with her partner Mark Gordon and their newborn baby. This is the story of how the couple's desperate bid to evade the authorities and keep their daughter Victoria ended in her tragic death.
A nationwide hunt was launched when Constance Marten disappeared with her partner Mark Gordon and their newborn baby. This is the story of how the couple's desperate bid to evade the authorities and keep their daughter Victoria ended in her tragic death. When the car in front of Ken Hudson's van burst into flames, he stopped on the motorway to help. But Mark Gordon and Constance Marten didn't want him to wait for the emergency services to arrive. Their newborn daughter's dark wispy hair poked out of the blanket she was wrapped in against the cold night, and Ken put his hand on her head, wishing her "God bless", before driving away. He didn't know that the family would soon be the focus of a national search, after a placenta wrapped in a towel in the burnt-out car revealed baby Victoria's secret birth, and that he would be one of the last people to see her up close while she was still alive. 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Her online CV says she had a day's internship at the Daily Mail and worked as a senior researcher for Middle Eastern news station, Al Jazeera, including on a documentary about a religious cult in Nigeria. A FAMILY FEUD Marten says she met Gordon in 2014 in a shop that sold incense. She didn't introduce him to her family, saying she had fallen out with them around two years earlier. She said they became good friends and went travelling to Peru, where they married in an unofficial wedding ceremony, and later described Gordon as her "soulmate" to police. 'I had to escape my family' Constance Marten Marten was about to be bought a house in London from the family trust fund before the birth of her first child, but the offer was withdrawn when she decided to leave the capital, the court heard. She claims she was "cut off overnight" while heavily pregnant, telling the jury she and Gordon went to Wales while "trying to flee" her family, who saw her as "an embarrassment". She says she believed they were pursued by private investigators who tampered with vehicles and installed a GPS tracker in a "cat and mouse" game. "Some people who are privileged think they are above the rules," she said. "It is harrowing, you are up against these people who will stop at nothing, who have endless resources and connections." The court heard Marten's mother, Virginie de Selliers, used private investigators to trace her daughter in 2016, while her father used the same firm to approach Gordon the following year. Ms De Selliers also used private investigators to locate Marten and Gordon in 2021 in an operation codenamed "Lynx". "I had to escape my family because [they] are extremely oppressive and bigoted and wouldn't allow me to have children with my husband," Marten said. "They would do anything to erase that child from the family line, which is what they did end up doing." 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MARK GORDON'S CRIMINAL PAST Gordon was born in Birmingham before moving to the US with his family, where he carried out a violent sex attack on a woman in Florida when he was just 14 years old. He placed a nylon stocking over his face and broke into his next-door neighbour's house armed with a knife and hedge clippers on 29 April 1989, before raping the victim while she was held captive for four-and-a-half hours. Weeks later, on 21 May, Gordon broke into another neighbour's home, where Patrick Nash lived with his wife and baby son, through a kitchen window. Mr Nash told Sky News he thinks the teenager didn't expect him to be there when his wife woke up to find Gordon, who had "strategically placed" the kitchen knives around the house, at the end of the bed armed with a shovel. "As I was getting out of bed, I was attacked," he said. "As I was attacked, I chased him out of the house. He came in through a kitchen window and went out the same way." Mr Nash, who was left needing more than a dozen stitches to his head after being hit with the shovel, added: "We were both upset. It was very frightful... We didn't sleep well for quite some time." Gordon, then aged 20, was sentenced to 40 years' imprisonment in 1994 after he was convicted of offences including rape, aggravated burglary, false imprisonment and indecent assault over the two attacks. He was released and deported to the UK in 2010 after serving 22 years and he is required to sign the sex offenders' register. In court, Gordon claimed he had suffered "human rights violations" because he had not been supervised in police interviews, and had challenged the convictions while in custody. He said his mother was a hard-working nurse who had two or three houses, adding: "The idea I was underprivileged was not the case." His older sister, Karen Satchell, the only one of seven siblings who went to the US with Gordon, insisted: "He's not a rapist, he was a 14-year-old boy in the wrong place at the wrong time." After spending so much time in prison, he wanted to "live off the land as a naturalist", she said. Karen, who now lives in London, said her "very shy" and "mysterious" brother had never introduced her to Marten or their children, was "an extremely private person" and that "nobody knew where he lived or how he lived". "They didn't want riches or gold, they didn't care about black or white. They didn't care about anything but their love when they wanted to have kids," she told Sky News. Gordon also pleaded guilty to assaulting two police officers who had been called to a maternity ward in Wales in 2017 around the time Marten gave birth to their first child, and was jailed for around 20 weeks. A woman who rented a property to the couple in Wales said they would pay the rent from a carrier bag full of cash. 'I had quite a few fights with Mark' The couple's former landlady She said she was worried about their baby because the parents seemed to be "manic". "I could tell she was educated. I knew she was kind. She fell in love with this chap," she told Sky News. "He wasn't a very nice man. She kept telling me how he was lovely. "I had quite a few fights with Mark. He used to phone me at 11pm saying he wanted me to follow a religion with him," the landlady added. Another property manager described to Sky News how he believed Gordon was meditating in the centre of the room surrounded by incense sticks in the gaps in the wooden floor, after finding burn marks in the flat. And a landlord who rented the couple a property in London said they left the room "like a junkyard" littered with "piles of rubbish", food waste and old clothes, as well as damaged walls. TAKEN INTO CARE The couple had four children together from 2017, before Marten became pregnant with Victoria in 2022. All four children were made subject to care and placement orders in January 2022 and Marten told the jury they had been "stolen by the state". There was an alleged incident of domestic violence in 2019 when Marten suffered a spleen injury after Gordon was accused of pushing her out of a window. A family court judge said there was a "risk of harm to the children by being exposed to physical violence between the parents". 'Mummy and daddy cancelled again' One of Marten and Gordon's children The couple were said to have "interacted well" with their children during supervised contact sessions, but their attendance was "inconsistent". One child was described as "inconsolable" when the parents failed to turn up at the contact centre, telling staff: "Mummy and daddy cancelled again." Prosecutors said that as soon as Marten realised she was pregnant with her fifth child, she and Gordon started planning to "go dark" so they could conceal the birth from the authorities and keep the baby. Gordon's sister, Karen, believes "it was a simple situation of just a couple trying to live and get away" and said: "We cannot judge their mindset or where their mental health went at that point." Victoria is believed to have been born in December 2022 before her parents went on the run with her. Here's how the hunt for the couple and their baby unfolded. DECEMBER 2022 Marten and Gordon book into the Woodcutter Cottage in Northumberland on 20 December, reserving it for six nights. Marten told police she gave birth in the holiday home on Christmas Eve - a claim disputed by the prosecution. The owners find the house in a "disgusting state" on 28 December, with urine stains on the bathroom floor, red wine on the quilt and cat litter strewn around. The same day, the couple's Suzuki car breaks down on the M18 near Doncaster. A recovery driver who takes them to a nearby Sainsbury's did not see or hear a baby. Prosecutors say the baby was likely born after 28 December, but they could not say exactly where or when the birth took place. At some point between 28 December and 4 January, Marten and Gordon travel across the Pennines. They check into the Ibis hotel at the Lymm Services in Cheshire in the early hours of 4 January before moving to the AC Hotel in Salford, Greater Manchester. 5 JANUARY 2023 The couple are travelling in a Peugeot 206 car, which catches fire on the M61 in Greater Manchester. It is not clear how, when or where they got the car. Ken Hudson was driving a van behind them and called the emergency services from the hard shoulder, where he filmed the car alight and billowing smoke. Ken watched Gordon open the boot of the car before "frantically" getting things out and throwing them over the crash barrier. After noticing Marten was carrying a baby, he asked if the infant was okay, to which Marten replied: "She's fine." "[I was] cut up because I believe that if I stayed with the vehicle, the baby may be still alive," he said. Marten's passport and a placenta wrapped in a towel were discarded in the wreckage. Abandoned items found nearby included a bible, a bag of more than 30 mobile phones, five used nappies and a cat in a pet carrier. 5 JANUARY At around 6.30pm, the couple walk from the burning car towards Anchor Lane bridge, which links the Highfield and Little Hulton areas. They get a lift to a Morrisons supermarket in Bolton, with the driver saying the baby was wrapped in a blanket. They are then seen on CCTV at Bolton Interchange bus station, with the baby apparently under Marten's coat. From there, they take a 35-mile taxi to Liverpool for about £80. In Liverpool, they flag down taxi driver Ali Yaryar and ask to go to Harwich in Essex, 270 miles away, paying him £400. Yaryar says he saw a baby inside Marten's jacket dressed only in a nappy. He offered a car seat but she declined, saying the baby was "too small". After the burning car is discovered with the placenta inside, Greater Manchester Police launches a missing persons case. 6 JANUARY The couple check into a Premier Inn hotel in Harwich at around 3am, using the false surname of Thomas, and pay in cash. Receptionist Rae Robson says Marten seemed stressed when she and Gordon were told to leave the next day as they didn't have proof of identity. When staff entered the vacated room, it smelled like "rotten flesh" or an "infected piercing", the receptionist said. That evening, the couple move to the Fryatt Hotel near Harwich International Port, again paying in cash. They check out the next morning just before 7am and Marten is seen on CCTV dressed in a red shawl at the port around 9am. A member of the public, Dale Gosling, confronts the couple near the port after watching a TV news report about their disappearance, but they deny being the missing couple. It was a "freezing" morning and the baby was dressed in a white onesie and wrapped inside Marten's coat in a towel or blanket, he said. The baby gave the kind of cry he "could not walk away from", he said, and he offered them a lift to the hospital or a cup of tea at his house. "I recall a child screaming to the point where I had to physically turn around and involve myself with people because the child was distressed," Mr Gosling said. Marten looked "scared" and "like a woman who had just given birth", he said, and seemed more amenable to the idea, but Gordon insisted they were going to London to see friends or family. 7 JANUARY From Harwich, they get a taxi to Colchester for £30 on 7 January. Cab driver Colette Franklin described how Gordon "slid down his seat" when a police car came towards them. They take another taxi later that morning from Colchester to High Street North in East Ham, east London, where CCTV shows Marten appearing to cradle the child beneath her unzipped jacket. Gordon buys a buggy in Argos while Marten waits at a table in a German doner kebab shop. With Victoria in the buggy, they take a taxi from East Ham to Whitechapel. Gordon goes to another Argos store, buying a two-person tent and camping bedding, including a children's unicorn sleeping bag. Shortly after midnight, they get in a taxi in east London carrying Argos bags and a Lidl bag. They are dropped off in Green Lanes in Haringey, north London - although they had wanted to go seven miles further, to the Enfield Tesco Extra. Taxi driver Abdirisakh Mohamud said he became "suspicious" and "uncomfortable" and decided to end the journey early. "The more I thought about it, the more concerned I felt about the baby," he added. 8 JANUARY They take another £475 taxi from Allison Road, Haringey, to Newhaven ferry port in East Sussex on 8 January, having initially asked to be taken to Portsmouth. Taxi driver Hasan Guzel described hearing "meowing" noises during the journey and at first thought they came from a pet. "I could see it was a baby, I could see the noise was coming from a baby. I thought, why didn't she tell me about this, it's been nearly four hours we have been travelling," he said. Mr Guzel said when he dropped them in Newhaven just before 5am, it was cold and dark and he was "concerned as to what they were going to do next". Marten bought snacks and petrol with cash from a Texaco petrol station in the early hours of 9 January. Three days after their first visit to the Texaco petrol station, Marten returns on 12 January and buys Haribo sweets, Mini Cheddars, matches, bottles of water and a filled glass bottle of petrol, paying in cash. The trail then goes cold until sightings in Brighton almost a month later. Marten has claimed that during this time before the sightings, the couple took multiple trips to Brighton to buy food, recounting one memory of the pair eating food on the beach. On 31 January, a £10,000 reward is offered by the Metropolitan Police for information leading to the family being found safe. 27 FEBRUARY - ARREST There are several sightings of Marten and Gordon before they are arrested on 27 February. Gordon is seen on 16 February coming out of a blue tent pitched in woodland on the South Downs. A witness said it was about -2C and "not camping weather". The couple are later seen looking "dishevelled, a bit dirty" near Hollingbury Golf Course, with Marten pushing a buggy. Marten and Gordon are then seen on Coldean Lane, Brighton, on 18 February, with a witness saying he thought there was a child under Marten's coat. There is another sighting of the couple on 19 February when a blue tent was spotted near Stony Mere Way in Stanmer Park, Brighton. A witness noticed a "mum with baby" and the child was "very pale". The baby was in a sling and her head was "wobbling" and "floppy", the witness said. "I do think that baby had died. It was dead." 'Where's your child?' Police Sergeant Robert Button The couple are seen on CCTV trying and failing to break into Hollingbury Golf Course on 20 February and "scavenging for food from the bins". On 27 February, Marten and Gordon are spotted by a member of the public - who recognised them from media reports - at Mulberrys convenience store on Hollingbury Place in Brighton, where they are buying food and using the cash point. Just after 9.30pm, the witness calls 999 and six minutes later, police arrive. By that time, the pair were on neighbouring Stanmer Villas, where they were detained. An officer's bodycam footage shows Marten being told she is under arrest for child neglect, to which she replied: "For doing what?" She was then asked by officers: "Where's your child? Where's your child? Sorry, where is your child, we need to know?" to which she did not respond. A dog handler then asks her: "Tell me now because I'm going to send the dog into the wood to try and find someone so you tell me where it is now." Marten was then further arrested for concealment of the birth of a child, which she is heard saying was "not an arrestable offence", adding: "You can't arrest someone for hiding a pregnancy." 'I'm not going to make you a sandwich' PC Matthew Colburn PC Matthew Colburn helped handcuff Gordon and asked repeatedly where the child was and whether she was alive, as he continued to demand food and drink. He was given ginger beer, chicken and crisps, before asking for mayonnaise, saying he did not want to talk and asked why finding the baby was the "bigger deal". "I'm not going to make you a sandwich, we've got a child to find," PC Colburn was heard replying on body-worn video. "We need to potentially save a life. That's the number one priority. It may not be your priority, but it's everyone else's priority." The next day, the couple are further arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter. 1 MARCH - BODY FOUND Police launch a large-scale search for the missing newborn, using a helicopter, sniffer dogs, thermal imaging cameras, and drones. More than 200 officers search an area of 90 square miles, including the golf course, Wild Park Local Nature Reserve and allotments. They scour woodland and ponds and search every shed at the Roedale Valley Allotments near where the couple were arrested, forcing entry to outbuildings where necessary. Police find the remains of the baby in a disused allotment shed on 1 March. Later, her name is revealed to be Victoria. When the body was found, it was not initially possible to determine the baby's gender, and police said the child may have been dead for "several weeks". The dead child was discovered stuffed inside a Lidl carrier bag among rubbish including a Budweiser beer can, Coke cans, several pages of The Sun newspaper and an egg sandwich package. At the post-mortem examination, the cause of death was "unascertained". Dr Nat Cary told the court Victoria was wearing just a nappy and had signs of "significant decomposition" when he examined her. Asked to consider possible reasons for her death, he raised possible causes - including cold, co-sleeping or breathing being obstructed - but said "none of that is provable". The court heard from a paediatric consultant that Victoria could have been two, four or six weeks old at the time of death. HOW DID VICTORIA DIE? "I have never had a case before where I don't know the date the child was born and the date the child died, combined with an unascertained cause of death," says senior crown prosecutor Samantha Yelland. Pathologists found no active cause of death - she hadn't been assaulted - but said Victoria didn't die of natural causes. She was alleged to have been inadequately clothed in a babygrow, while Marten got wet as she carried her daughter underneath her coat. Investigators were able to provide temperatures in the specific area where they were said to be living and prosecutors said the baby died from hypothermia or was smothered while co-sleeping in a "flimsy" tent. Ms Yelland said Marten and Gordon "love their children" but "think about themselves and what they want" over the safety of their kids. She said they "should have known that that was a serious risk of death as a result of their actions, but they just thought that what they were doing was better". Both trials were hampered by disruption and delays and while giving evidence the second time, Marten dramatically revealed Gordon's "violent rape conviction", which the jury were not supposed to be told about. She then parted with her 15th barrister, but was still represented by junior counsel, while Gordon decided to represent himself, questioning his partner in an extraordinary courtroom cross-examination. Gordon described Victoria's death as a "tragic incident" and said he and his partner had been "hounded" and "traumatised" after losing four children to the care system. "I say the baby passed due to unintended circumstances," he said. "I say the parents had a difficult time and there is an aspect of mental challenge going on here." 'We did everything we could to protect her' Constance Marten Weeping in the witness box, Gordon said they had been treated like "monsters" and dragged through mud like "scum" over what happened. Marten said she awoke to find Victoria was dead on 9 January after their first night sleeping in a tent, which was intended to be a "pit stop" to avoid "prying eyes" for a day or two before renting a cottage or travelling abroad. She said Victoria died after she fell asleep over her, telling the jury she "blacked out" and was "flopped forward" with her head on floor. Marten wept as she said she would "turn back time" if she knew her daughter, their "number one priority" was in danger but "we did everything we could to protect her." Marten said she has found Victoria's death "very difficult to live with" but that it "wasn't due to neglect in any way". "If I had a crystal ball and I could see into the future what would happen to Victoria because of my exhaustion then of course I would have preferred to have made different choices, but we did what we could in the moment to keep her with her parents and to protect her," she said. Retired social worker Andrew Reece believes social services and other agencies did everything they could, but Marten and Gordon had the ways and means of evading professionals. "This couple were hell-bent on evading everyone concerned because they didn't want their child to be removed," he says. "It's extremely difficult as a social worker in those circumstances." CREDITS: Reporting: Henry Vaughan, home affairs reporter, Josephine Franks, reporter, Ashna Hurynag, news correspondent, Luke Engelen, producer, Victoria Bird, field news editor, and Eve Bennett, producer Digital production: Henry Vaughan, home affairs reporter, and Josephine Franks, reporter Data and forensics: Natasha Muktarsingh, assistant editor Design: Taylor Stuart, designer Pictures: Press Association, Metropolitan Police, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Facebook Editing: David Mercer, assistant editor Top Built with Shorthand
The Guardian
34 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Trump confirms new weapons deal for Ukraine and threatens ‘severe' tariffs on Russia if war doesn't end in 50 days
Update: Date: 2025-07-14T16:52:43.000Z Title: that Content: President says US will make weapons, including Patriots, but Europe will fund them for Ukraine during meeting with Nato chief, Mark Rutte Jakub Krupa (now) and Yohannes Lowe (earlier) Mon 14 Jul 2025 18.51 CEST First published on Mon 14 Jul 2025 09.32 CEST From 5.59pm CEST 17:59 Jakub Krupa Well, for once, was a 'major statement' from Trump, as advertised, as he spoke with the media alongside Nato secretary general Mark Rutte. Trump said he was 'very, very unhappy' with Russia, and threatened with secondary tariffs of up to 100% if there is no progress on peace deal within 50 days (17:17). Trump said 'it's got to stop,' with criticising 'all talk' from Putin as Russia continued its attacks on Ukrainian cities (17:28, 17:46) Trump confirmed a deal with Nato allies, mostly from Europe, on new weapon deliveries will help Ukraine (17:21), including the much-needed Patriot missiles (17:24), which will be sent 'within days' (17:35) and paid by allies. Trump said of Putin: ''I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy.' Rutte said Ukraine will 'get its hands on really massive numbers of military equipment' for air defence and on missiles to fight back against Russia, and urged Putin to take Trump's warning seriously (17:27). Separately, Trump suggested he was still open for trade talks with the EU, saying the bloc's representatives were 'coming over' soon (17:39). Updated at 6.01pm CEST 6.50pm CEST 18:50 Meanwhile, in the first public reaction from the Ukrainian side, the head of Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, Andriy Yermak, opts for his favourite language used in tweets and posts a side eye emoji, which usually means something is afoot and means to show tension, or anticipation. Like this: Updated at 6.51pm CEST 6.44pm CEST 18:44 US president Trump is now appearing at the White House Faith Office Luncheon, and he confirms the deal with Nato is now 'fully approved, fully done.' He says: 'We had a great meeting with Nato, the secretary general, and we're going to do something a little different for this country. We're going to supply weapons to Nato at a large amount, they're going to deliver the weapons and they're going to pay for 100% of the weapons. … We're going to be doing with Nato, and it's fully approved, fully done, we'll send them a lot of weapons of all kinds and they're going to deliver those weapons immediately to the … side of the war … and they're going to pay.' He repeats his warning if there is no peace deal with Russia after 50 days, then 'we have no choice but to do secondary tariffs; you call it secondary tariffs, which are pretty tough, which we don't want to have to do.' He also does again his gag about phone calls with Putin: 'Let's see what happens. But we thought we had a deal numerous times. I'd get home, I'd say, first lady, I had the most wonderful talk with Vladimir. I think we're finished. And then I'll turn on the television, or she'll say to me one time, wow, 's strange, because they just bombed a nursing home.' Inexplicably, he gets a loud laugh from the audience, followed by: 'I said, What?!' For more domestic US coverage, follow our US live blog here: Updated at 6.45pm CEST 6.31pm CEST 18:31 Jakub Krupa A handy summary of the most important lines from Trump's briefing is now pinned at the top of this blog. 5.59pm CEST 17:59 Jakub Krupa Well, for once, was a 'major statement' from Trump, as advertised, as he spoke with the media alongside Nato secretary general Mark Rutte. Trump said he was 'very, very unhappy' with Russia, and threatened with secondary tariffs of up to 100% if there is no progress on peace deal within 50 days (17:17). Trump said 'it's got to stop,' with criticising 'all talk' from Putin as Russia continued its attacks on Ukrainian cities (17:28, 17:46) Trump confirmed a deal with Nato allies, mostly from Europe, on new weapon deliveries will help Ukraine (17:21), including the much-needed Patriot missiles (17:24), which will be sent 'within days' (17:35) and paid by allies. Trump said of Putin: ''I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy.' Rutte said Ukraine will 'get its hands on really massive numbers of military equipment' for air defence and on missiles to fight back against Russia, and urged Putin to take Trump's warning seriously (17:27). Separately, Trump suggested he was still open for trade talks with the EU, saying the bloc's representatives were 'coming over' soon (17:39). Updated at 6.01pm CEST 5.50pm CEST 17:50 Towards the end of the briefing, Trump talks about some domestic issues and repeatedly praises his administration. At the very end, he adds a line of praise for Rutte calling him 'a star' and 's it, the briefing is concluded. 5.46pm CEST 17:46 Trump gets asked how far he is prepared to go to settle this war. He stresses 'there are no Americans are dying in it.' But he suggests the need to get involved as he says 'having a strong Europe is a very good thing.' Trump says he spoke with 'Germany and with most of the larger countries.' 'They are really enthusiastic about this, they want [this war to end], and they're willing to go very far,' he says. Trump says he speaks with Putin 'a lot,' but adds: 'I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done, and I always hang up and say, 'Well, was a nice phone call', and then missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city. … And after happens three or four times, you say, the talk doesn't mean anything. My conversations with them are always very pleasant. … Very lovely conversation. And then the missiles go off night. I go home, I tell the first lady, I spoke to Vladimir today, we had a wonderful conversation. And she said, Oh really, another city was just hit.' He says of Putin 'I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy' as he says he 'fooled' previous US presidents. Trump says Russia is 'potentially such a great country to be wasting so many people on this, and the money.' He says he hopes Putin will go for a 'fair deal,' claiming 'he knows what a fair deal is.' Rutte jumps in to pray Trump again and again. 5.39pm CEST 17:39 Trump also gets asked about EU-US trade deal. He says he is always ready to talk. 'We're always open to talk. We are open to talk, including to Europe. In fact, they're coming over. They'd like to talk.' 5.38pm CEST 17:38 Trump acknowledges 'Europe has a lot of spirit for this war,' something he says he didn't appreciate at the beginning. 'They really think it's a very, very important thing to do, or they wouldn't be doing… Look, they're agreeing to just, you know, they're paying for everything,' he says. 'I do want to make one statement again. I said it before this is not Trump's war. We're here to try and get it finished and settled,' he says, 5.35pm CEST 17:35 Rutte pointedly criticises Russia for attacks are not conducted because of military goals, but 'just creating panic' by attacking Ukrainian towns, and Trump concurs. He then repeatedly praises Nato after his recent experience of attending the alliance's summit in The Hague, the Netherlands. He explains: 'We had a couple of days of very intensive talks. And they're great people. They're leaders of countries. Many of them great countries. Some of them smaller countries. But for the most part, 's a very solid, strong countries and very successful. Some of them are among the most successful countries in the world.' He says he hopes the decision will have an impact on Russia and Putin. Rutte intervenes to stress Ukraine wants a peace deal. Trump says it continues to be a 'very deadly war,' and he thought 'we had a deal on Ukraine about four times,' but ultimately didn't work out. 'But it just keeps going on and on and on, and every night a lot of people are dying,' he says. He confirms the Patriot batteries will be sent 'within days.' 5.28pm CEST 17:28 Trump also repeated his warning US tariffs would be 'biting' and hit the Russian economy. He says: 'I hope we don't get to the point where we do, but I've been hearing so much talk. It's all talk. It's all talk, and then missiles go into Kyiv and kill 60 people. It's got to stop. That's got to stop.' The deal is 'broader than Patriots.' Updated at 5.36pm CEST 5.27pm CEST 17:27 Rutte says: So if I was Vladimir Putin today, and you're speaking about what you were planning to do in 50 days, and this announcement, I would reconsider whether I should not take negotiations about Ukraine more seriously than I was doing at the moment. 5.24pm CEST 17:24 Nato secretary general Mark Rutte says a bit more on the deal. This is really big. This is really big. He says Trump called him on Thursday and said he wanted to give Ukraine what it needed to have, but asked Europeans to pay for it, 'which is totally logical.' This is, again, Europeans stepping up. Rutte says he has been in touch with 'many countries' intending to be part of the deal, and namechecks Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the UK, the Netherlands, and Canada. 'And this is only the first wave, there will be more,' he says. He adds Nato will work through its systems to 'make sure we know what Ukrainians need' He says: 'It will mean Ukraine can get his hands on really massive numbers of military equipment, both for air defence, but also missiles, ammunition.' Updated at 5.51pm CEST 5.21pm CEST 17:21 On Ukraine and Nato, Trump confirms he agreed to deal to send weapons to Ukraine as he boasts the US makes 'the greatest military equipment in the world.' The new equipment will be made for Nato and available to be sent onwards to Ukraine. 'We make the best equipment, the best missiles, the best of everything, the European nations know , and we made a deal today. European nations know , and we've made a deal today, and I'm going to have Mark speak about it, but we've made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they're going to be paying for them. We the United States will not be having any payment made, we're not buying it, but we will manufacture it, and they're going to be paying for it.' 5.17pm CEST 17:17 On Russia, Trump says 'we are very, very unhappy with them.' He then says: 'We're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days tariffs, about 100%, you call them secondary tariffs, you know what means.' He repeats he is 'very disappointed' with Russia's Vladimir Putin 'because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn't seem to get there.' 5.15pm CEST 17:15 US president Donald Trump is meeting with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte at the White House right now. You can watch their meeting below, but I will bring you the key lines here. 4.52pm CEST 16:52 Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor Donald Trump has indicated the US will announce a plan to sell Patriot air defence systems and other weapons to Ukraine later on Monday, amid growing White House exasperation with Russia's refusal to agree to a ceasefire. The president told reporters on Sunday as he returned from the Club World Cup final the US would 'send them various pieces of very sophisticated military and they're going to pay us 100% for them'. 'We will send them Patriots, which they desperately need,' Trump added, describing the impending announcement as 'business for us'. Though Trump did not spell out exactly who would fund the purchases, it is expected to involve European countries. Last week the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Berlin was 'ready to acquire' additional Patriot systems. A German government spokesperson said on Monday morning European partners would contribute directly to the purchase of Patriot systems, and more than three were involved. The country's defence minister, Boris Pistorius, was in Washington to discuss further details, Berlin said. Trump said last week he would make a 'major statement' on Ukraine on Monday. He has become frustrated with his lack of progress in persuading Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire and an end to the war. During the election campaign Trump said he could end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, and following his victory began a series of bilateral discussions with Putin in an effort to broker a ceasefire. But these failed to progress as Russia made maximalist territorial demands, while stepping up its bombing of Ukraine's cities. At least six civilians were reported by Ukrainian regional officials to have been killed and 30 injured by Russian bombing in the last 24 hours. The country's air force said Russia had attacked with 136 drones and four S-300 or S-400 missiles. 4.49pm CEST 16:49 Jakub Krupa As we are still waiting to hear from Donald Trump on his 'major announcement' on Russia and Ukraine – timed around his meeting with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte should be this afternoon – here is a good background read on what we are expecting, from our defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh. Updated at 4.53pm CEST 4.28pm CEST 16:28 We are getting more from EU trade chief Maroš Šefčovič who told a press conference earlier this afternoon the European Commission put forward a new list of US goods worth €72bn could be targeted by EU levies if tariff talks with Washington fail, AFP reported. He said the proposal was shared with EU trade ministers meeting in Brussels. He also said he plans to talk with his US counterparts later on Monday to discuss the state of play, Reuters added. Updated at 4.31pm CEST
