First Thing: Zelenskyy says he told Trump that Putin was ‘playing games’ with Washington

In the fifth year of Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine, Volodymr Zelenskyy says he is feeling upbeat and has been grateful for military support from the US, but has a pointed message for Washington. Speaking to Luke Harding and Pippa Crerar in London, the Ukrainian president acknowledged that the priority of Trump’s second term in foreign policy had shifted away from Ukraine to conflict in the Middle East. “It’s a pity,” he said, that compared with the help given to the US’s Gulf allies and Israel after the US-Israel war against on Tehran began, Ukraine had never received “that volume…