US President Donald Trump has said he has a “lot of respect” for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on the eve of their talks at the White House.

Asked by the BBC if he would apologise for recently calling him a “dictator”, he said he could not believe he had said this. He also called Zelensky “very brave”.

Trump was speaking after talks with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer about ending the war between Ukraine and Russia.

He predicted a “very good meeting” with Zelensky on Friday, saying efforts to achieve peace were “moving along pretty rapidly”.

This week’s meetings come after the Trump administration shocked its Western partners by holding the first high-level US talks with Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine just over three years ago.

America’s new president had appeared to blame Zelensky for the war and chided him for not starting peace talks earlier.

“You’ve been there for three years,” he had said last Tuesday. “You should have ended it… You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”

But this Thursday, speaking after meeting Sir Keir, Trump told reporters asking about his forthcoming talks with Zelensky: “I think we’re going to have a very good meeting tomorrow morning. We’re going to get along really well.”

Asked by the BBC’s Chris Mason if he still thought Zelensky was a “dictator”, he replied: “Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that.”

Zelensky will be hoping to win some kind of security guarantees for his country that would underpin any peace deal that may be negotiated.

Asked about these on Thursday, Trump only said he was “open to many things” but he wanted to get Russia and Ukraine to agree a deal before deciding what measures might be put in place to enforce it.

On his visit on Friday, Zelensky is expected to sign a deal that will give the US access to Ukraine’s rare earth mineral resources.

Trump suggested that the presence of US mining concerns in Ukraine would act as a deterrent against future Russian attacks on Ukraine.

“It’s a backstop, you could say,” he said on Thursday. “I don’t think anybody’s going to play around if we’re there with a lot of workers and having to do with rare earths and other things which we need for our country.”

The British prime minister had said earlier that the UK was prepared to send troops to Ukraine after the war as part of a peacekeeping force but only if the US, Nato’s leading member, provided a “backstop”.

Asked if the US would aid British peacekeepers if they were attacked by Russia, Trump said: “The British have incredible soldiers, incredible military and they can take care of themselves. But if they need help, I’ll always be with the British, okay?”

Nato’s Article 5 holds that Nato members will come to the defence of an ally which comes under attack.

Praising Trump’s “personal commitment to bring peace” in Ukraine, Sir Keir said the UK was “ready to put boots on the ground and planes in the air to support a deal”.

“We’re focused now on bringing an enduring end to the barbaric war in Ukraine,” he said.

But, he added, it must not be a peace deal “that rewards the aggressor or that gives encouragement to regimes like Iran”.

Asked whether Vladimir Putin was trustworthy, the UK prime minister said his views on the Russian president were well-known.

Asked in turn why he seemed to trust Putin and Sir Keir did not, Trump said: “I know a lot of people that you would say no chance that they would ever deceive you, and they are the worst people in the world.

“I know others that you would guarantee they would deceive you, and you know what, they’re 100% honourable, so you never know what you’re getting.”

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who had been due to meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington before he cancelled the talks “due to scheduling issues”, told BBC News that Putin and Russia did “not want to have peace”.

“For any peace agreement to function, it needs the Europeans as well as Ukrainians on board,” she added.

Stopping off in the Irish Republic on Thursday en route to the US, Zelensky met the Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin at Shannon Airport.

“We discussed the steps to end the war with guaranteed peace for Ukraine and the whole of Europe,” he said later.

Following the overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president in 2014, Moscow annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and backed pro-Russian separatists in bloody fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The conflict burst into all-out war when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people, most of them soldiers, have been killed or injured, and millions of Ukrainian civilians have fled as refugees.

As well as Crimea, Russia now occupies parts of four other regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

The Kremlin warned on Thursday that Russia would make no territorial concessions to Ukraine as part of a peace deal.

“All territories that have become subjects of the Russian Federation… are an integral part of our country, Russia,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “This is an absolutely indisputable fact and a non-negotiable fact.”

Separately, Russian and US officials met in the Turkish city of Istanbul for talks on rebuilding diplomatic ties.

The two nuclear superpowers expelled one another’s embassy staff when Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, was in the White House.

Andrew and Tristan Tate, the controversial British-American social media influencers accused of rape, human trafficking and money laundering, have been freed from travel restrictions in Romania after several high-level White House officials took an interest in their case.

It’s unclear what, if any, role Donald Trump’s administration may have played in their release, but one of Trump’s top envoys met with Romania’s Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu at a security conference in Munich earlier this month.

Andrew Tate rose to fame after appearing on the UK reality show Big Brother, and later making a series of extreme and controversial statements about women and politics on social media.

The pair ran a web cam business and were charged with human trafficking and rape along with two Romanian female suspects in June 2023.

They also face separate, unrelated allegations of rape and human trafficking in the UK, and civil suits in the US and UK. They deny all the allegations, which their US lawyer calls “defamatory and unequivocally false”.

On Thursday the brothers arrived in Florida after previously being banned from leaving Romania while the case against them is pending.

Lawyers for the pair say they will return to Bucharest for court hearings.

When asked about the Tates at the White House on Thursday, President Trump said: “I know nothing about that.”

But the brothers have been the subject of recent high-level discussions between the US and Romania.

Romanian officials say US counterparts brought up the brothers’ case with the Romanian government earlier this month, a story first reported by the Financial Times.

And Trump special envoy Richard Grenell raised the issue again at a security conference in Munich.

Hurezeanu said the Tates were mentioned during that conversation, but denied being pressured to release the pair.

The Tate brothers are Trump supporters and also have ties to his administration.

One of Tate’s lawyers now works as White House liaison to the US justice department.

Paul Ingrassia was part of a team representing the Tate brothers in a defamation lawsuit they filed in Florida against several of their alleged victims.

Ingrassia also acted as Tate’s publicist and says he got the influencer onto a show hosted by Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host.

He has praised Tate in online posts. In one dating from July 2023, he called Tate “an extraordinary human being” who was offering “a dying West some hope for renewal”.

Ingrassia did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

The Tates have also been talked about by several people in Trump’s orbit, including Donald Trump Jr and Elon Musk.

Trump Jr once called Tate’s detention in Romania “absolute insanity”.

Musk reinstated Andrew Tate’s account, which had been banned on X, and suggested, perhaps in jest, that Tate would make a good UK prime minister.

Joseph McBride, a lawyer representing the Tates in a defamation case they have filed against several of their accusers in Florida, said in a statement: “They feel secure in America for several reasons, the primary one being that Donald Trump is the president.”

The statement alleged that the Tates and others are victims of “weaponised legal systems” and “politically motivated prosecutions”.

McBride did not respond to questions about what role, if any, White House officials played in the removal of travel restrictions against the Tate brothers.

Trump and his advisers know the political power of the manosphere – a popular and very online subculture that attracts fans of mixed martial arts fighting, video games, cryptocurrencies and other stereotypically male pursuits.

It’s a sprawling scene that includes men who reject the company of women entirely, a “pick-up artist” scene filled with tips on how to find casual hookups, and plenty of mainstream podcasts and YouTube channels filled with bro-type humour.

The president’s advisers targeted the same audiences during last year’s election campaign, when Trump, JD Vance and others in his orbit went on podcasts and did interviews with new media outlets.

The views of the Tate brothers lie at one of the manosphere’s extreme edges. Andrew Tate himself has made no secret of his self-described misogynist – women-hating – and sexist views.

On podcasts and online clips he talks about how women are property, how men shouldn’t allow girlfriends to go out without them or talk to other men.

In extremely graphic language, he’s described violence against women and talks about how sexual assault victims bear responsibility for rape.

Tate and his brother at the same time sell a glamorous lifestyle of expensive properties, cigars and luxury cars that includes self-improvement messages directed at young men – an image that garnered him a large audience before he was booted off most mainstream social media platforms.

He told the BBC in a 2023 interview: “I preach hard work, discipline. I’m an athlete, I preach anti-drugs, I preach religion, I preach no alcohol, I preach no knife crime. Every single problem with modern society I’m against.”

Like many other extreme influencers, in the face of criticism he often claims his posts are satire or jokes, mocking his detractors as his messages spread further, propelled by online outrage.

The pair’s supporters were thrilled with his release and eager to proclaim their innocence, despite the outstanding charges against them.

Others were less enthusiastic. Four British women who have filed a civil lawsuit against Andrew Tate issued a statement calling on UK authorities to “take action”.

And support for the Tates is far from universal among Trump supporters and American conservatives, many of whom moved to immediately distance themselves from the brothers.

Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, where Tates landed on Thursday, said of their activities: “Florida is not a place where you’re welcome with that type of conduct.”

The state’s attorney general later said he would open a preliminary inquiry into the Tates and said Florida has “zero tolerance for human trafficking and violence against women”.

In the conservative Washington Examiner, podcaster Brady Leonard wrote: “Tate’s obnoxious, misogynistic brand is toxic to everyone besides electorally insignificant corners of social media.”

Matt Lewis, a US conservative political commentator who has been critical of Trump in the past, said advocating on behalf of Tate “fits in with the ethos of the Maga world right now, which is: ‘let’s be tough guys'”.

“But I also think it speaks to a legitimate problem, which we have seen in the last couple decades, a problem with men…where there’s an epidemic of loneliness, a sense the world is passing them by, a sense that modernity has made it harder to be successful as a husband and a father. I think that’s had some real psychic effects,” he said.

“There’s a pretty good contingency of Trump’s supporters who are probably going to welcome this guy and probably even see him as a victim of persecution.”

Oscar-winning US actor Gene Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa and their dog have been found dead at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In a wide-ranging career spanning more than six decades, Hackman won two Academy Awards for his work on The French Connection and Unforgiven.

A statement from the Santa Fe County Sheriff in New Mexico said: “We can confirm that both Gene Hackman and his wife were found deceased Wednesday afternoon at their residence on Sunset Trail.

“This is an active investigation – however, at this time we do not believe that foul play was a factor.”

Hackman was 95, and his wife – a classical pianist – 63.

He won the best actor Oscar for his role as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in William Friedkin’s 1971 thriller The French Connection, and another for best supporting actor for playing Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood’s Western film Unforgiven in 1992.

His other Oscar-nominated roles were in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde – as Buck Barrow in his breakthrough role, opposite Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway – and 1970’s I Never Sang for My Father, as well as playing the agent in Mississippi Burning in 1988.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office said: “On 26 February, 2025, at approximately 1:45pm, Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to an address on Old Sunset Trail in Hyde Park where Gene Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa, and a dog were found deceased.”

Much-celebrated actor Hackman played more than 100 roles in total, including supervillain Lex Luthor in the Christopher Reeve-starring Superman movies in the 1970s and 1980s.

Hackman acted opposite many Hollywood heavyweights including Al Pacino in 1973’s Scarecrow, Gene Wilder in 1974’s Young Frankenstein and Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton in 1981’s Reds.

He also starred in the hit movies Runaway Jury, Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation.

Coppola led the tributes to the late star on Thursday, calling him “a great artist”. Posting on Instagram, the director wrote: “Gene Hackman a great actor, inspiring and magnificent in his work and complexity. I mourn his loss, and celebrate his existence and contribution.”

Valerie Perrine, who featured alongside Hackman in Superman (1978) as his character’s on-screen girlfriend Eve Teschmacher, described the late actor as “a genius” and one of the “greatest to grace the silver screen”.

She posted on X: “His performances are legendary. His talent will be missed. Goodbye my sweet Lex Till we meet again.”

Star Trek actor George Takei posted that “we have lost one of the true giants of the screen”.

“Gene Hackman could play anyone, and you could feel a whole life behind it,” he wrote. “He could be everyone and no one, a towering presence or an everyday Joe. That’s how powerful an actor he was. He will be missed, but his work will live on forever.”

Slumdog Millionaire star Anil Kapoor also called Hackman a “genius” performer. “A true legend whose legacy will live on,” he wrote.

As well as his Oscar wins, Hackman also collected two Baftas, four Golden Globes and a Screen Actors Guild Award.

He took a comedic turn playing a conservative senator in 1996’s The Birdcage alongside Robin Williams and Nathan Lan, who starred as a gay couple.

His last big screen appearance came as Monroe Cole in Welcome to Mooseport in 2004, after which he stepped back from Hollywood for a quieter life in New Mexico.

Born in California in 1930, Hackman’s family moved frequently, and after lying about his age at 16, he enlisted in the US Marine Corps serving for four-and-a-half years.

He was stationed in China, Hawai’i and Japan before being discharged in 1951.

Following his military service, Hackman lived and worked in New York and studied journalism and television production at the University of Illinois, before deciding to move back to California to pursue his childhood acting dream.

He joined the Pasadena Playhouse in California, where he befriended a young Dustin Hoffman.

“I suppose I wanted to be an actor from the time I was about 10, maybe even younger than that,” he once said. “Recollections of early movies that I had seen and actors that I admired like James Cagney, Errol Flynn, those kind of romantic action guys.

“When I saw those actors, I felt I could do that. But I was in New York for about eight years before I had a job. I sold ladies shoes, polished leather furniture, drove a truck.

“I think that if you have it in you and you want it bad enough, you can do it.”

He added that he “wanted to act” but had “always been convinced that actors had to be handsome”.

“That came from the days when Errol Flynn was my idol. I’d come out of a theatre and be startled when I looked in a mirror because I didn’t look like Flynn. I felt like him.”

He moved back to New York in 1963, performing in Off-Broadway productions – including at the Music Box Theatre for the comedy Any Wednesday – and smaller TV roles.

But he began to really make his name in the 1970s, becoming a leading man as New York City detective Jimmy ‘Popeye’ Doyle in The French Connection.

From then on he became a fixture on the big screen in the likes of 1972 disaster film The Poseidon Adventure.

He also appeared in Children From Their Games at the former Morosco Theatre, Poor Richard at Helen Hayes Theatre and The Natural Look at Longacre Theatre, before later returning in 1992 to perform Death And The Maiden at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

Hackman and his first wife, Faye Maltese, were together for 30 years and raised three children before getting divorced in 1986.

In his later years, he and his second wife, Betsy stayed out of the spotlight, bar for a rare public appearance together at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, where he won the Cecil B. deMille award.

In 2008 he told Reuters that despite the lack of any official announcement, he was “not going to act any longer”.

“I’ve been told not to say that over the last few years, in case some real wonderful part comes up, but I really don’t want to do it any longer.”

He also explained he was focusing his attentions away from the big screen and towards his quieter, calmer passion for writing novels.

“I was trained to be an actor, not a star. I was trained to play roles, not to deal with fame and agents and lawyers and the press,” he once said.

“It really costs me a lot emotionally to watch myself on-screen. I think of myself, and feel like I’m quite young, and then I look at this old man with the baggy chins and the tired eyes and the receding hairline and all that.”