Vladimir Putin

Here are the key events on day 1,286 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, September 2:

Fighting

• Russian forces shelled Bilozerka in Ukraine’s Kherson region, killing a 73-year-old man, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin wrote in a post on Telegram on Monday.
• A Russian drone attack on the city of Horodnia injured two people, including a 14-year-old girl, the governor of the Chernihiv region, Viacheslav Chaus, said.
• Russian forces “intensively attacked” Ukraine’s Sumy region, injuring seven people and damaging dozens of homes, Sumy Governor Oleh Hryhorov said.
• The attacks on Sumy also disrupted water and energy supplies in parts of the region, the local utility agency reported, according to the online news site Ukrinform.
• The Crimean Tatar Resource Centre, a human rights organisation, reported that Russia’s occupation of Crimea has led to the deaths of 15 children who “tragically died”, while dozens more children suffered due to the murder and enforced disappearance of their parents.
• Ukrainian students have returned to school for the new academic year, with some 17,000 students attending underground schools in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, a frequent target of Russian attacks.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said that its forces shot down 260 Ukrainian drones and three rockets launched in a 24-hour period, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.

Regional Security

• A plane carrying European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen was hit by GPS jamming as it prepared to land in Bulgaria, a European Union spokesperson said on Monday, adding that deliberate Russian interference was suspected.

• “We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming, but the plane landed safely in Bulgaria. We have received information from the Bulgarian authorities that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia,” the EU spokesperson said.

• The EU will deploy additional satellites in low Earth orbit to help strengthen its ability to respond to future GPS interference, European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius said after the incident.
• Germany does not expect Russian attacks on NATO territory under the cover of Moscow’s Zapad military exercises, which are set to begin in two weeks, Germany’s top military commander, Carsten Breuer, said, adding that German and NATO forces will still “be on our guard”.

Politics and diplomacy

• Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Western countries for causing the war in Ukraine by provoking Russia, in a speech at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, in Tianjin, China.

• Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement noting surprise that an SCO statement did not include a reference to the “largest war of aggression in Europe since World War II”, in reference to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

• German Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius criticised recent remarks by the EU’s von der Leyen on plans to send European troops to Ukraine, saying: “Those are things that you don’t discuss before you sit down at the negotiating table with many parties that have a say in the matter.”
• The EU chose “diplomacy over escalation” in relation to tariffs imposed by United States President Donald Trump in part due to security considerations, European Council President Antonio Costa said in a speech on Monday.
• “We certainly do not celebrate the return of tariffs. But escalating tensions with a key ally over tariffs, while our Eastern border is under threat, would have been an imprudent risk,” Costa said.
• France will host a meeting of the “Coalition of the Willing”, a group of countries supporting Ukraine, on Thursday, the French presidency said.

The Russian president defends the military campaign in Ukraine, blaming NATO and Western policies for the conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has blamed the West for igniting the war in Ukraine, insisting Moscow’s assault was provoked by years of Western provocations.

Speaking at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Chinese city of Tianjin on Monday, Putin accused NATO of destabilising the region and dismissed claims that Russia triggered the war.

“This crisis was not triggered by Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but was a result of a coup in Ukraine, which was supported and provoked by the West,” Putin told the gathering of regional leaders. He was referring to the 2013-14 pro-European uprising that toppled Ukraine’s then-President Viktor Yanukovych.

Russia responded to the revolution by annexing Crimea and backing separatists in eastern Ukraine, leading to a conflict that has left tens of thousands dead and devastated large parts of the country.

Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 escalated the fighting, prompting sweeping sanctions from the United States and the European Union and deepening Russia’s isolation from the West, though not from the rest of the international community.

Putin said Western efforts to draw Ukraine into NATO were a key driver of the war, reiterating that Russia’s security concerns must be addressed before any peace deal can be reached.

“For the Ukrainian settlement to be sustainable and long-term, the root causes of the crisis must be addressed,” he said.

The Russian president highlighted talks he held with US President Donald Trump in August, describing the discussions as “opening a way to peace”. He praised diplomatic efforts from Beijing and New Delhi, saying their proposals could “facilitate the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis”.

Putin met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday to discuss Ukraine and said he would expand on those talks in bilateral meetings with leaders on the sidelines of the summit. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are also attending.

Moscow and Beijing have promoted the SCO as a counterweight to Western-led alliances, with Putin arguing the world needs a “system that would replace outdated Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models”.

Despite repeated calls from Trump for Moscow and Kyiv to negotiate, peace efforts have faltered. Russia has rejected ceasefire proposals and demanded that Ukraine cede more territory, conditions Kyiv has dismissed as unacceptable.

“For the Ukrainian settlement to be sustainable and long-term, the root causes of the crisis must be addressed,” said Putin.

Part of the source of the conflict “lies in the ongoing attempts by the West to bring Ukraine into NATO”, he said.

Putin also held talks with Modi and Erdogan, and is expected to meet Pezeshkian later on Monday as he seeks to bolster diplomatic backing amid the drawn-out conflict.

Kim Jong Un expresses ‘grief’ for failing to save ‘the precious lives’ of his troops killed fighting against Ukraine.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has met again with the families of his soldiers killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine, offering condolences for their “unbearable pain” and promising the bereaved “a beautiful life”, state media reports.

KCNA state news agency reported on Saturday that Kim hosted the families of slain soldiers, and expressed “grief at having failed to save the precious lives” of those who sacrificed their lives to defend the country’s honour.

The meeting was the second reported occasion that Kim met with families of fallen soldiers this month. Pyongyang has not confirmed the number of troops that were killed fighting for Russia, though Seoul estimates about 600, with thousands more wounded.

“I had this meeting arranged as I wanted to meet and console the bereaved families of all the heroes and relieve them of their sorrow and anguish even a little,” Kim said in his speech, according to KCNA.

Kim also pledged to build a monument in the capital, Pyongyang, as well as name a new street for the bereaved families, and the state will give full support to the children of deceased soldiers.

The North Korean leader said his “heart breaks and aches” for the children who lost fathers.

“I, our state and our army will take full responsibility for them and train them admirably as staunch and courageous fighters like their fathers,” he added.

South Korean and Western intelligence agencies have said that Kim sent more than 10,000 soldiers to Russia in 2024 – primarily to the Kursk region – along with North Korean-produced artillery shells, missiles and long-range rocket systems.

At a ceremony with mourning family members and Ukraine war veterans last week, images released by KCNA showed an emotional Kim embracing a returned soldier who appeared overwhelmed, burying his face in the leader’s chest.

The leader was also seen kneeling before a portrait of a fallen soldier to pay his respects and placing medals and flowers beside images of dead troops.

Kim is due to stand alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a military parade in Beijing next week, marking the surrender of Japan in World War II.

Relations between Kim and Putin have surged significantly since they signed a military alliance in 2024.

Here are the key events on day 1,283 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, August 30:

Fighting

• The Ukrainian military said it had carried out an overnight strike on a facility in Russia’s Bryansk region that was responsible for the flow of diesel fuelling Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

• Kyiv’s General Staff said the fuel pumping station in the village of Naitopovichi had a capacity of approximately 10.5 million tonnes per year, and that the strike had caused a fire.

• Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov said the Russian army had sped up its rate of advance in Ukraine and was taking control of some 600 to 700 square kilometres (231- 270sq miles) each month compared to 300-400 square kilometres (115-154sq miles) at the start of this year.

• Belousov also said that Russia had inflicted significant damage on Ukraine’s military and industrial infrastructure, carrying out 35 strikes this year on what he called 146 critically important targets. He also claimed that 62 percent of key enterprises in “Ukraine’s military-industrial complex” suffered damage.

• Emergency crews have completed rescue operations in the aftermath of a huge Russian drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday, as authorities revised the death toll from the attack upward to 25.

Weapons

• The United States Department of State has approved the potential sale of Patriot air defence system sustainment and related equipment to Ukraine for an estimated cost of $179.1m, the Pentagon said.

Peace talks

• Deadly missile and drone strikes on Ukraine “cast doubt on the seriousness of Russia’s desire for peace”, the US told the United Nations Security Council, warning that Washington could punish Moscow with economic measures if it continues the war.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko told the UNSC that “Russia continues to choose killing over ending the war” with its continued attacks.
• Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said Moscow was prepared to consider a summit with Ukraine “provided that there is thorough prior preparation for such a meeting and the substantive content of it; otherwise, it would simply not have any meaning”.
• Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged allies to swiftly elevate talks on security guarantees for Ukraine to the level of leaders, as European Union defence ministers pledged to train Kyiv’s troops on Ukrainian soil in the event of a truce with Russia.
• European defence ministers meeting in Copenhagen expressed “broad support” for expanding the bloc’s military training mission to operate inside Ukraine, the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said.
• President Zelenskyy said he expected to continue talks with European leaders next week on “NATO-like” commitments to protect Ukraine, adding that US President Donald Trump should also be involved in the discussions.
• The Ukrainian leader also said he wanted Ukraine’s allies to ratify any security guarantees through their parliaments, invoking a 1994 deal in which Kyiv agreed to give up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for security assurances that proved insufficient to deter Russia’s invasion.
• Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said proposals on security guarantees for Ukraine would increase the risk of conflict between Moscow and the West by turning Kyiv into a “strategic provocateur” on Russia’s borders.
• Estonia’s Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said the best security guarantee for Ukraine would be membership in NATO.

Regional security

• Germany and France have outlined plans to cooperate more deeply on security, including a missile early-warning system, following a meeting between Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Emmanuel Macron.

Politics and diplomacy

• The Ukrainian president’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak held a meeting with US special envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss Russia’s latest deadly strike on Kyiv and the need for pressure on Moscow to bring peace closer.

• Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova said French President Macron had spoken in a manner unbecoming of a head of state when he called Russian President Vladimir Putin “an ogre at our gates”.

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised “a beautiful life” for the families of “martyrs” who perished fighting for Russia in the war against Ukraine, state media said on Saturday, praising bereaved relatives for the heroism of their sons and husbands.

• US Vice President JD Vance has lashed out at what he called “journalistic malpractice” by German-owned US news outlet Politico after it criticised President Trump’s envoy and Ukraine negotiator Steve Witkoff. “It’s a foreign influence operation meant to hurt the administration and one of our most effective members,” Vance wrote on X.
• Russia and China jointly oppose “discriminatory” sanctions in global trade that hinder the world’s socioeconomic development, President Putin said in a written interview with China’s official Xinhua news agency. Putin will be in China from Sunday to Wednesday, on a four-day visit that the Kremlin has called “unprecedented”.

THIS is the dramatic moment Ukrainian drones destroy two Russian bridges used by troops as a key supply route.

The crossings in the Belgorood region were obliterated when two “cheap” drones struck a stash of Vlad’s mines hidden beneath them.

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Video shows the device locking in its target before descending on the bridge.

As a whole stretch of the deck explodes, flames and clouds of thick smoke balloon into the air.

Surrounding trees and forest land are blown up in its path.

Ukraine’s 58th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, which conducted the operation told CNN they had taken a closer look at the bridge after “it became clear that something was going on there”.

When they sent a drone to the area, they discovered a huge pile of anti-tank mines and other ammunition.

The bridges were mined as they were of key strategic importance to Putin.

Lining them with explosives gave him the option of suddenly blowing them up in case of a Ukrainian advance.

This isn’t the first time Ukraine has demolished Russian crossings.

Just a couple months ago, Ukraine blitzed Russia’s iconic Kerch bridge with more than a tonne of underwater mines.

The pre-dawn blast sent a plume of water erupting into the sky.

Ukraine‘s SBU intelligence service said the blast left the bridge in an “emergency state” after devastating its foundations.

It was at least the third attempt to destroy the key road and rail link from Russia to occupied Crimea.

The same SBU special forces unit behind Sunday’s historic drone strikes in Russia claimed responsibility for the pre-dawn attack.

They claimed their agents spent months mining the substructure of the 12 mile road and rail link.

This came as Ukrainian special forces blew Vladimir Putin’s bridges to pieces last year using US-made missiles.

Incredible footage showed a series of attacks with Himars rockets in Russia‘s border region as Kyiv marches on with its brave advance into Kursk.

According to Kyiv, important Russian equipment was destroyed along with Vlad’s bridges.

Video also showed Ukrainian Defence Forces demolishing Russian field munitions, fuel depots, a radio-electronic warfare complex, and a 152-mm D-20 gun, a Ukrainian military officer told the Kyiv Post.

Ukrainian authorities describe Russia’s missile and drone attack as ‘massive’, with multiple areas of Kyiv hit.

An overnight Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv has killed at least four people and wounded more than 20 others, officials said.

Powerful explosions rocked the city into the early hours of Thursday morning, illuminating the sky and leaving behind columns of smoke as Russian projectiles damaged and destroyed buildings in several districts of the city.

The attack was the first major combined Russian drone and missile attack to strike Kyiv since United States President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska earlier this month to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.

Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said a 14-year-old girl was among those reported killed, citing preliminary information.

A five-storey residential building in the city’s Darnytskyi district was hit directly. “Everything is destroyed,” Tkachenko said.

“Tonight, Kyiv is under massive attack by the Russian terrorist state,” he said.

Local media outlet The Kyiv Independent said at least four people were confirmed killed, and officials expect the number of casualties to rise.

Another strike in central Kyiv left a major road strewn with shattered glass, and rescue teams were working to pull people trapped beneath rubble from some 20 affected locations across the city.

Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko also called it a “massive attack” by Russia, adding that two children were also among the injured.

Officials provided news organisations with a long list of buildings that had suffered damage, including several high-rise apartment blocks, and photos and video posted online showed apartments ablaze and smoke billowing from buildings.

The attack comes amid so-far failed efforts by President Trump to convince Putin to cease his war on Ukraine, and as both Moscow and Kyiv trade blame over a diplomatic impasse in efforts to end the fighting.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that members of his administration would meet with US officials in New York on Friday.

The Ukrainian leader said he saw “very arrogant and negative signals from Moscow” regarding negotiations to end the war, urging extra “pressure” to “force Russia to take real steps” to cease fighting.

BRITAIN must ramp up missile defences – like Israel’s Iron Dome – or risk its nuclear bases being obliterated in the first hours of a war with Russia.

Moscow would target RAF jets and Royal Navy nuclear submarines if it launched a surprise attack, a report by the Rusi think tank has warned.

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A pre-emptive strike could “cripple” Britain’s nuclear deterrent and conventional military power – as most of the UK’s best weapons are “concentrated on just a few sites”.

The report warned a single Russian Yasen-class submarine could launch 40 cruise missiles from the Norwegian Sea with “relatively low warning”.

Yet the UK lacks both the radars to detect them “skimming over the sea” – or the weapons to shoot them down.

The report’s author Sidharth Kaushal said the immediate threat comes from sub-sonic Russian cruise missiles which can be launched from planes and submarines.

By 2035 the main risk will come from intermediate range ballistic missiles, like the Oreshnik blasted at Ukraine last year.

By 2040 the UK will need to defend against “hypersonic glide vehicles” which can travel at 20 times the speed of sound.

He also warned short range drones could be smuggled close to targets and launched from sea containers – like Ukraine’s Operation Spiders Web – or launched by Spetznaz special forces.

Kaushal said calls for a British Iron Dome were warranted by Russia’s focus on “long-range conventional precision strike” weapons.

He said: “The initial priority is the expansion of its capacity for the defence of critical military installations against what is primarily a cruise missile threat.”

The report urged Keir Starmer to buy space based sensors and long range radars that can see 3000km away, the equivalent of Lands End to Moscow.

He said “long-range precision strikes” was central to Kremlin military doctrine.

He said: “The destruction of aircraft on the ground is particularly salient. The destruction of nuclear attack submarines that carry submarine-launched cruise missiles is also described as a priority.”

Russian targets would likely the Royal Navy Bases at Devonport and Clyde and RAF Marham in Norfolk, where the nuclear capable fleet of F-35 stealth jets is based.

It comes after RAF war games showed Britain would be overwhelmed if it faced a Russian missile attack like the first night of the war in Ukraine.

Air Commodore Blythe Crawford said: “It was not a pretty picture.”

The drills suggested bases would be blown to smithereens and £100 million fighter jets could get blitzed before they could hide.

Air Cdre Crawford, who was head the RAF’s Air and Space Warfare Centre at the time, said it showed the UK “home base” was no longer safe.

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The drills used a £36 million wargaming system to test the UK’s responses to “hundreds of different types of munitions” attacking from multiple different directions.

It exposed multiple vulnerabilities including a chronic shortage of airfields and a lack of hardened shelters for protect and hide jets on the ground.

The government sold off scores of airfields and watered-down the RAF’s powers to commandeer civilian runways.

The Armed Forces rely on RAF Typhoons, which scramble from RAF Lossiemouth, to shoot down incoming drones and cruise missiles.

The only British missiles that could intercept Russian ballistic missiles are based onboard the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers.

Air Cdr Crawford warned Britain had got lax by standing at the edge of Europe and “feeling as though the rest of the continent stood between us and the enemy”.

He said: “Ukraine has made us all sit up.” The government announced last week it was buying six more launchers to for its Sky Sabre air defence systems.

The weapons, used by the Royal Artillery, can shoot down targets the size of a tennis ball at two times the speed of sound.

Here are the key events on day 1,280 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, August 27:

Fighting

• Russian attacks killed one person and injured six in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Governor Vadym Filashkin said.
• One worker was killed and six others were injured in a Russian attack on a Ukrainian mine, according to the energy company DTEK, which said the attack damaged buildings and caused a power outage. “At that time, 146 miners were underground, and their ascent to the surface is ongoing,” the company said.
• Ukrainian attacks killed one person and injured three others in the Russian-occupied Kherson region of Ukraine, the Moscow-appointed Governor Vladimir Saldo said.
• Russian forces occupied Zaporizke and Novoheorhiivka, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, the Ukrainian battlefield monitoring group DeepState has reported. Russian forces also advanced near the Ukrainian settlements of Shevchenko, Bila Hora, and Oleksandr-Shultyno, according to DeepState.
• Russian air defences shot down 191 Ukrainian drones, six guided aerial bombs, and a long-range guided missile in one day, Russia’s state TASS news agency reports.
• Ukrainian men aged 18 to 22 are now permitted to cross Ukraine’s borders freely in either direction despite the continuing imposition of martial law, which had previously prevented such movement, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
• Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office told the Ukrainska Pravda news site that more than 200,000 cases have been opened into soldiers who were absent without leave (AWOL), including some 50,000 investigated for desertion.

Peace talks

• United States President Donald Trump said he is prepared to impose economic sanctions against Russia if its leader, Vladimir Putin, fails to agree to a peace deal in Ukraine: “We want to have an end. We have economic sanctions. I’m talking about economic because we’re not going to get into a world war.”
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged governments to work quickly on creating security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a peace deal with Russia, saying: “We must intensify our work to the maximum and ensure clarity and transparency in everything related to security guarantees”.
• The US may provide intelligence assets and battlefield oversight to assist Western powers in the provision of security guarantees for post-war Ukraine, as well as take part in a European-led air defence shield for the country, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed European and Ukrainian officials.
• Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, and Kyiv’s national security council chief, Rustem Umerov, met with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani in Doha, where they had a “substantive conversation” on topics including “the details of security guarantees for Ukraine”, Yermak wrote on X.
• Exxon Mobil and the Russian energy company Rosneft secretly discussed resuming work on the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas producing project, on Russia’s Pacific coast, if Moscow and Washington give their approval as part of a Ukraine peace process, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the secret discussions.

Politics and diplomacy

• Polish President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to veto a bill on aid to Ukrainian refugees in his country could cost Poland’s economy 8 billion zlotys ($2.20bn), in part because thousands of Ukrainians would lose the right to legal employment, Poland’s Ministry of the Interior said.

ALMOST 150 miners were trapped underground in eastern Ukraine after Russia bombed a coal facility, killing one worker.

The terrifying ordeal comes as details about the security guarantees Trump is prepared to offer Ukraine begin to emerge – namely big guns and intel, according to officials.

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One miner was killed and three injured by the shelling on the coal mine – while 146 were left stuck inside the dark labyrinth.

The mine belongs to DETK, Ukraine’s largest energy company.

A spokesperson for them said: “The attack damaged the company’s buildings and equipment and caused a power outage.

“At the time, 146 miners were underground, and efforts to bring them to the surface are ongoing.”

The precise location of the trapped miners was not revealed by the firm, but a union leader reported they were stuck in the Dobropillia community in Donetsk.

It was reported later in the day that all the miners had been rescued and brought back to the surface.

Donetsk, one half of the Donbas region, has mostly been overrun by Russia – but its famous “fortress belt” is still clinging on.

Donbas is Ukraine’s industrial powerhouse and holds rich reserves of coal and metal underground.

Russia has demanded Ukraine hands over the remaining land in exchange for peace – a proposal Zelensky screwed up and threw out.

Meanwhile, details have finally emerged about the security guarantees the US could give to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal.

Trump first confirmed the US would be involved in Ukraine‘s long-term safety during the White House summit with European leaders – but did not specify what they would look like.

We learned they would definitely not include American boots on the ground – though Trump suggested other willing nations would send manpower.

Now, the US has said it is willing to provide intelligence and battlefield leadership to Ukraine‘s army as part of a deal, reports the Financial Times citing four briefed officials.

Senior US officials have reportedly told European leaders in discussions since the summit that Washington would offer “strategic enablers” to the brave defenders.

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These would include intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, command and control, and air defence weapons.

The objective of these helping hands would be to deter any future Russian attacks.

Members of the Coalition of the Willing – including the UK and France – are expected to take more active roles in Ukraine’s defence.

It’s not clear which countries, if any, would commit to sending troops to the frontline.

Nations have admitted that any deployment of boots would only happen under robust US support.

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This package of military aid offered by the US is dependent on European countries committing to sending tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine.

It could be retracted if that requirement is not fulfilled, the officials warned.

Nonetheless, the promises now firmed up with details mark a major shift in America’s attitude towards the future protection of Ukraine.

Just earlier this year, Trump had ruled out the States having any part in it.

First, however, a peace deal must be reached.

Trump and European leaders have pushed hard for a head-to-head meeting between Zelensky and Putin, but the Kremlin has once again stalled.

Concern is rising that the Alaska summit will turn out to have been fruitless.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, even warned that the red-carpet event even gave Putin “everything he wanted” without demanding a single concession from him.

We’ve read quite a bit about President Trump’s “hot mic” comment, during a meeting with European leaders about the Russian war against Ukraine, that Vladimir Putin “wants to make a deal for me, as crazy as it sounds.”

Pundits debated whether this was an embarrassment for Trump; they wondered why he would say such an important thing in a whisper to French President Emmanuel Macron — as if Trump’s verbal goulash were something new. Headlines were full of the word “deal” for a while, including three days later, when they were reporting that Trump said Putin might not want “to make a deal.” And, of course, there is no deal.

The press coverage of the meeting in Alaska said there were lots of “constructive” conversations. Putin spoke about “neighborly” talks and the “constructive atmosphere of mutual respect” in his conversations with Trump. There were reports about agreements “in principle” on various things under discussion, although there were no details about what they might be.

I covered more than a few superpower summits, first as a reporter for the Associated Press and later for the New York Times. Although that was more than 30 years ago, the smoke and mirrors nonsense usually produced by meetings like these has not changed. Verbal gas is abundant and facts almost nonexistent. Trump’s comments were worth about as much as anything else he has said on the subject, which is almost nothing. And yet, they were reported and parsed endlessly as if they had the same meaning as other presidents’ words had in the past.

I had a powerful sense of deja vu from a five-day trip to Afghanistan in January 1987. The Kremlin had finally agreed to let a group of Western journalists visit Kabul and Jalalabad to witness the “cease-fire” that had been announced a few days before we arrived. The visit was billed as an Afghan government tour, which nobody — especially the Afghan government — believed.

We saw no fighting, although we could see artillery fire in the hills at night. Some of the “specials,” as we wire service correspondents called the major media then, reported that we were fired on. We were not.

Mostly, we shopped for rugs and drank cold Heinekens, which were unavailable in Moscow but mysteriously well stocked at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul. We were ushered to various peace and unity events between the Afghan and Russian peoples and toured the huge Soviet military camps just outside Kabul with a U.S. official (allegedly a diplomat from the Embassy, but we knew from experience that this person was from the Central Intelligence Agency).

On Jan. 19, we were taken (each reporter in an individual government car with a minder) to a news conference by Mohammad Najib, the Afghan leader whose name had been Najibullah until he changed it to make it sound less religious for his Bolshevik friends. Najib said that Afghanistan and the Soviet Union had agreed “in principle” on a “timetable for withdrawal” of Soviet occupation forces.

At that point, the Reuters correspondent, who was fairly new to Moscow still, bolted from the room and raced back to our hotel, where there was one Telex machine for us all to send our stories back to Moscow. He filed a bulletin on the announcement. When the rest of us made our leisurely return, we were greeted with messages from our home offices demanding to know about the big deal to end the war in Afghanistan.

We wrote our stories, which were about a business-as-usual press conference that yielded no real news. We each appended a message to explain why the Reuters report was just plain wrong. Talk of Soviet withdrawal was common, and always wrong. The very idea that the puppet government in Kabul had something to say about it or was a party to any serious discussions about ending the war was absurd. The most pithy comment came from the Agence France-Presse reporter, who told her editors that the Reuters story was “merde.” The Soviet military did not withdraw until February 1989, more than two years later, following its own schedule.

Much of the recent coverage about Russia and Ukraine reminds me of that Afghan news flash in 1987. The Kremlin has never been, was not then and is not now interested in negotiation or compromise. Under Soviet communism and under Putin, diplomacy is a zero-sum game whose only goal is to restore Russian hegemony over Eastern Europe. And yet, for some reason, the American media and the country’s diplomats seem as oblivious today as they always were. After the summit, they announced breathlessly that there was no peace deal out of the summit, although they all knew going in that there was no deal on the table and there never was going to be one.

But of course Putin wants a “deal” on Ukraine. It’s the same deal he has wanted since he violated international law (not for the first time) and invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. He wants to redraw the boundaries of Ukraine to give him even more territory than he has already seized, and he wants to be sure Ukraine remains out of NATO and under Moscow’s military thumb as he has done with other former Soviet regions, like Georgia, which he invaded in 2008 as soon as the country dared to suggest it might be interested in NATO membership. His latest nonsense was to demand that Russia be part of any postwar security arrangements. He wants the NATO allies to stop treating him like the war criminal that he is and to be seen as an equal actor on the international stage with NATO and especially the United States.

That he got, in abundance, from Trump in Alaska, starting with the location. Trump invited Putin to the United States during a period of travel bans to and from Russia, immediately giving the Russian dictator a huge PR win. It also, conveniently, put him in the only NATO country where he is not wanted on charges of crimes against humanity.

As for peace talks, check the headlines from Ukraine before, during and after the Alaska summit: The Russians have stepped up their killing and destruction in Ukraine with new ferocity and have been grabbing as much land in eastern Ukraine as they can. Every square inch of that land — and more the Kremlin has not yet occupied — will be part of any “deal” that Putin will accept. Trump himself has been talking about “land swaps” (as he has from the start of the war, by the way) — a nonsensical idea when you consider the land Ukraine holds is its sovereign territory and the land Russian holds was stolen.

The brilliant M. Gessen, perhaps the leading authority on dictatorship, published an essay in the New York Review, “Autocracy: Rules for Survival,” shortly after the 2016 election. “Rule #2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality,” they wrote.

A U.S. president and a Russian leader sitting down to talk and emerging with bluster about progress seems normal enough, perhaps encouraging when American-Russian relations have been at a historic low. Just remember that coming from these two men, the comments signify nothing — or, worse, make us wonder what Trump has given away to Putin with his talk of land swaps.

Andrew Rosenthal, a former reporter, editor and columnist, was Moscow bureau chief for the Associated Press and Washington editor and later editorial page editor for the New York Times.

Here are the key events on day 1,279 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, August 26:

Fighting

• An 82-year-old woman was killed and three people were injured in a Russian attack on Kupiansk city, in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
• Russian attacks killed one person and injured three others in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Governor Vadym Filashkin said.
• Russian drones and artillery fire injured a rescue worker and damaged a fire truck in the Nikopol region of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, according to Governor Serhiy Lysak.
• A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and injured two others in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported.
• TASS also reported that Russian forces shot down 151 Ukrainian drones and four aerial bombs, and destroyed two missile launchers, in one day.
• One person was killed and two others injured in Ukrainian attacks on the Russian-occupied Ukrainian Kherson region, the Russian-appointed governor, Vladimir Saldo, wrote in a post on Telegram.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces captured the settlement of Zaporizke in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region.

Peace talks

• Germany will take part in providing security guarantees for Ukraine alongside European partners, but the talks are at an early stage and must be shaped by Kyiv, German Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil said on Monday, while visiting the Ukrainian capital.
• Asked why Russia President Vladimir Putin appears reluctant to sit down for peace talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, US President Donald Trump told reporters it is “because he doesn’t like him”.
• “The one I thought would be the easiest, frankly, was Russia and Ukraine. But it turns out there are some big personality conflicts,” Trump said.
• Putin spoke on the phone with Iranian leader Masoud Pezeshkian and discussed his meeting with Trump in Alaska, the Kremlin press service said, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.
• “Masoud Pezeshkian expressed support for the ongoing diplomatic efforts aimed at a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian crisis,” the Kremlin said.

Ukraine aid

• Speaking at a news conference with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine aims to raise “no less than $1bn every month”, towards buying weapons from the United States to be used in the war.
• Polish President Karol Nawrocki vetoed a bill that would have extended financial support to Ukrainian refugees, potentially also jeopardising Ukraine’s use of Starlink, according to Polish Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski.
• “This is the end of the Starlink Internet, which Poland provides to Ukraine, which is waging war. This is also the end of support for storing Ukrainian administration data in a safe place,” Gawkowski, who is from a different political party than Nawrocki, wrote on X. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

UKRAINIAN forces claim to have killed three perpetrators of the Bucha massacre in a slew of revenge bombings.

It comes as Kyiv marked its Independence Day by unleashing a wave of drone strikes crippling key energy infrastructure in Russia.

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Ukraine‘s military intelligence unit GUR said three Russian soldiers dubbed “Butchers of Bucha” were wiped out in surgical bombings in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region.

They were targeted in the Luhansk region while operating as a mobile air defence group to cover a Russian military-repair base.

Bucha is a town close to Kyiv where Russian troops were accused of perpetrating appalling war crimes as they sought to storm Kyiv in 2022.

Hundreds of Ukrainian people were subjected to executions, torture, mutilation, and sexual violence including rape used by as weapon of war.

After the Russian retreat, mass graves were found where dozens of bodies were hastily buried by Putin’s occupying force.

There were numerous accounts of indiscriminate killings of civilians, including those seeking to flee the violence.

The revenge attack came in Kalynove village, where the Russian soldiers were linked to the Bucha atrocities.

Ukrainian military officials said: “In 2022, [these dead] Russian occupiers directly took part in committing war crimes in the city of Bucha.

“The detonation was in the yard of an apartment building where six Russian invaders were staying with their military transport.

“As a result of the explosion, two enemy pickups with machine guns were destroyed, one landed with ammunition.”

“There will be just retribution for every war crime committed against the Ukrainian people.”

Meanwhile, the Russia‘s defence ministry said at least 95 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted across more than a dozen Russian regions.

The attaclc come on August 24, the day that Ukraine celebrates its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

One of the drones was shot down over the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in western Russia, one of the country’s biggest energy nuclear facility.

It detonated upon impact and sparked a fire, forcing a sharp fall in the capacity of a reactor at according to the facility.

The plant said the fire had been extinguished, adding there were no casualties or increased radiation levels.

There was damage to a transformer which supplies the plant, and the power of reactor number three was reduced by 50 per cent.

Russian authorities said Ukrainian drones had also been shot down over areas sometimes far from the front, including Saint Petersburg in the northwest.

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The attacks caused tourist mayhem at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport as more than 99 flights were diverted or delayed at the busy hub.

Ten drones were shot down over the port of Ust-Luga on the Gulf of Finland, sparking a fire at a fuel terminal owned by Russian energy group Novatek, regional governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “This is how Ukraine strikes when its calls for peace are ignored.

“Today, both the US and Europe agree: Ukraine has not yet fully won, but it will certainly not lose. Ukraine has secured its independence. Ukraine is not a victim; it is a fighter.”

Ukraine meanwhile said Russia had attacked it overnight with a ballistic missile and 72 Iranian-made Shahed attack drones, 48 of which the air force said had been shot down.

A Russian drone strike killed a 47-year-old woman in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, the governor said.

It came amid Donald Trump’s rising frustration with Putin for dragging out the war.

Washington is now trying to get Moscow to agree to a one-on-one meeting with Zelensky.

Pressure has been mounting on Putin to sit down with Zelensky since the White House summit – but the latest language from Russia looks suspiciously like well-worn stalling tactics.

Trump hoped he would be able to convince Putin to stop the bloodshed when he met the dictator in Anchorage.

But since then, little tangible progress has been made towards a peace deal.

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In a social media post, Trump appeared to hint that he is open to Ukraine launching more attacks on Russia.

He suggested that it would be “impossible” for Ukraine to win the war without attacking Russia.

He said: “It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader’s country.

“It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defence, but is not allowed to play offence.

“There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia.”

Trump sets deadline

He set a two-week time frame for assessing peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

Don told Todd Starnes on Newsmax: “I would say within two weeks we’re going to know one way or the other.

“After that, we’ll have to maybe take a different tack.”

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Putin is ready to meet Zelensky only after working through a list of vague “issues”.

Lavrov said: “Our president has repeatedly said that he is ready to meet, including with Mr Zelensky.”

But he insisted the meeting would only happen “with the understanding that all issues that require consideration at the highest level will be well worked out”.

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Here are the key events on day 1,276 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, August 23:

Fighting

• Russian troops have taken control of the settlements of Rusyn Yar, Volodymyrivka and Katerynivka in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defence said.

• Russian oil supplies to Hungary and Slovakia could be suspended for at least five days after a Ukrainian drone strike on a facility in Russia, Hungarian and Slovak officials said. The attack by Ukraine marked the second time this week that Russian oil supplies have been cut to both countries.

• An energy facility at Unecha in Russia’s Bryansk region, through which the Europe-bound Druzhba oil pipeline runs, caught fire as a result of Ukrainian missile and drone attacks, regional governor Alexander Bogomaz said, adding that the fire had been extinguished.

Peace talks

• United States President Donald Trump renewed a threat on Friday to impose sanctions on Russia if there is no progress towards a peaceful settlement in Ukraine in two weeks, showing frustration at Moscow a week after his warm meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said there is no agenda for a potential summit between Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he accused of saying “no to everything”.

• Lavrov said a meeting with Zelenskyy and a deal were possible, provided there was a proper agenda for such a session.

• Zelenskyy has accused Russia of doing everything it can to make sure that a meeting between him and Putin does not take place, and called on Ukraine’s allies to apply renewed sanctions on Moscow if it continues to show no desire to end its invasion of his country.

Politics and diplomacy

• Putin has said there was “light at the end of the tunnel” in Russia-US relations, and that the two countries were discussing joint projects in the Arctic and Alaska, signalling Russia’s optimism that it can mend relations with Washington and strike business deals with Trump, despite a lack of progress towards ending its war on Ukraine.

Regional security

• Russian forces have conducted an exercise in the Baltic Sea, including drills to repel an underwater attack, the Defence Ministry in Moscow said. It was the second time this month that Russia held naval exercises with an antisubmarine component, after President Trump ordered two US nuclear submarines to reposition closer to Russia.
• Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned neighbouring Belarus against staging “reckless provocations” during joint military drills with Russian forces in September.
• Kyiv called on its European partners to remain vigilant during the joint Belarus-Russia “Zapad” military exercises, and urged Belarusian authorities “to remain prudent, not to approach the borders and not to provoke” Ukraine’s armed forces.
• Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko dismissed as “complete nonsense” the idea that Minsk would utilise the mobilisation of military forces during the exercises to attack Ukraine.

Nord Stream

• An Italian appeals court has confirmed the arrest of a Ukrainian man suspected by Germany of coordinating attacks on three Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in 2022. The suspect faces charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anticonstitutional sabotage and destruction of important structures.

• The AFP news agency reports that the suspect in the attack on the Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines has refused to be extradited to Germany from Italy, where he was arrested.

The Ukrainian president said China has helped Russia, despite also calling for a peaceful resolution to the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ruled out the chance that China could serve as a security guarantor in the event of a future peace deal with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian president’s remarks follow discussions this week between United States and European leaders about how to establish a future peacekeeping force in Ukraine should the war end.

“Why is China not in the guarantees? First, China did not help us stop this war from the beginning,” Zelenskyy told reporters, according to a report by The Kyiv Post media outlet on Thursday.

“Secondly, China helped Russia by opening the drone market,” Zelenskyy said.

Beijing has repeatedly called for a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine war, but its ongoing economic support for Russia has undermined its neutral image with Zelenskyy and Western leaders.

Despite Beijing’s ambitions of playing a greater role in mediating international conflicts, the Ukrainian leader’s remarks suggest that China will have no role in a Russia-Ukraine peace process.

Zelenskyy has said that international security guarantors are needed to ensure that Russia does not resume its attacks on Ukraine after signing a peace deal, and those participating should only be drawn from countries that have supported Kyiv since the Russian invasion in 2022.

In April, Zelenskyy accused China of supplying Russia with weapons and assisting in arms production, in the first direct accusation of its kind from the Ukrainian president.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning denied the claims and called them “groundless” and “political manipulation”.

Beijing was previously accused by the US of supplying Russia’s military with essential components to build missiles, tanks, aircraft, and other weapons.

China has said previously it only traded in “dual-use components” – those that can be used for both civilian and military purposes.

Questions about Beijing’s role in the war, however, have persisted for years due to the close relationship between the Russian and Chinese leaders, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

Just weeks before the invasion of Ukraine, Putin visited Xi in Beijing and signed a “no limits partnership” between both countries.

Since then, China has helped keep Russia’s economy afloat in spite of sweeping international sanctions.

The EU and the US have both accused China of helping Russia to evade sanctions and continue to trade with Moscow in energy, electronics, chemicals and transportation components, according to the Center for European Policy Analysis.

European leaders are engaging in an unprecedented effort to sway United States President Donald Trump on Ukraine.

They are hoping to influence any deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But what’s the status of the transatlantic alliance now? Is it a relationship of equals, or is Trump fully in charge?

Presenter: James Bays

Guests: 

Mark Storella – Professor of the practice of diplomacy at Boston University, former US ambassador and served as deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Brussels.

Jessica Berlin – Non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and founder of strategy consultancy CoStruct in Berlin.

Eldar Mamedov – Non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute and a former Latvian diplomat who served in embassies in Washington, DC and Madrid.

Here are the key events on day 1,274 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Thursday, August 21:

Fighting

• Three people were killed and four others injured in a Russian attack on the city of Kostiantynivka, in Ukraine’s Donetsk, the regional prosecutor’s office said in a post on Facebook.
• Russian shelling killed one person in the town of Bilozerka in Ukraine’s Kherson region, the Kherson Regional Prosecutor’s Office said in a post on Telegram.
• Russian forces are increasing their pressure near Lyman in the north of Donetsk, Oleksandr Syrskii, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, wrote on Facebook.
• A Russian drone attack on a car killed a 62-year-old man in the Synelnykove district of Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, said in a post on Telegram.
• Kharkiv region police said that a Russian drone attack on a car killed two people in their 70s near the village of Petrivka in the Zolochiv territorial community.
• Oleksandr Khorunzhyi, spokesperson for the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, told the media outlet Ukrinform that there have been 40,000 fires recorded in Ukraine’s ecosystems since the beginning of 2025.
• Russian shelling killed a woman in the Polohy district of Ukraine’s  Zaporizhia region, said Ivan Fedorov, head of the Zaporizhia Regional Military Administration.
• A Ukrainian drone attack on a truck killed one person in the village of Novy Varin, in the Klimovsky district of Russia’s Bryansk region, regional governor Alexander Bogomaz wrote on Telegram.

• Three civilians were killed as Ukraine launched drones and conducted “intensive shelling” of Novaya Zburyevka village, the Russian-appointed governor of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said in a post on Telegram.

• One person was killed in a Ukrainian attack on Russian-occupied Luhansk, Russian-appointed local officials wrote on Telegram.
• Russian forces shot down 217 Ukrainian drones in one day, the Russian Defence Force said, according to a report by Russia’s state-run TASS news agency.

Regional security

• Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz accused Russia of “provocation” after a Russian drone exploded in the village of Osiny in eastern Poland, noting the incident came “at a special moment, when there are ongoing discussions about peace”, Polskie Radio reported.
• Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans said the Netherlands will send 300 troops and air defence systems, including Patriots and counter-drone systems, to Poland, to “defend NATO territory, protect supply to Ukraine, and deter Russian aggression”.

Peace talks

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “seriously discussing security issues without the Russian Federation is a utopia; it’s a road to nowhere”, amid ongoing discussions among Ukraine’s allies after United States President Donald Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss peace in Ukraine.

• Lithuania “is ready to contribute as many troops as the parliament allows for peacekeeping, and also military equipment” in Ukraine, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda told commercial television TV3.

• Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told Swedish public radio SR that his country could provide air surveillance and potentially maritime resources, as part of security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement with Russia.

• Turkiye supports efforts to establish a permanent peace in Ukraine with the participation of all parties, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his Russian counterpart, President Putin, in a phone call on Wednesday, the Turkish presidency said.

Politics and diplomacy

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has praised “heroic” North Korean troops who fought for Russia in the war against Ukraine, in a meeting with officers of the army’s overseas operation, state media KCNA said on Thursday.

Sanctions

• Russia said on Wednesday it was barring entry to 21 individuals it accused of working with “the destructive British media” to promote anti-Russian narratives. The list includes journalists, experts and members of civil society groups.

• The United Kingdom said it was imposing new sanctions on cryptocurrency networks it said were exploited by Russia.

Here are the key events on day 1,273 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, August 20:

Fighting

• Russian authorities have returned the remains of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers, Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on Monday, according to The Kyiv Independent news outlet.
• Russia’s state-run TASS news agency confirmed that Russia returned the bodies of 1,000 soldiers, adding that Ukraine returned the bodies of 19 Russian soldiers.
• Separately, TASS reported that about 1,370 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in a single day, citing the Russian Ministry of Defence. Al Jazeera could not verify this claim independently.
• Russian forces dropped 250kg (550 lbs) bombs on the city of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Serhii Horbunov, the head of the Kostiantynivka City Military Administration, wrote on Facebook on Monday. At least two people were injured, and apartments and an education building were damaged, Horbunov said.
• A Russian drone attack on an ambulance injured two emergency workers in the Kupiansk district of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, regional police said in a post on Telegram.
• TASS reports that a Ukrainian drone attack caused a power outage in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, according to the governor of Russian-occupied Zaporizhia, Yevgeny Balitsky.
• The attack did not affect the operation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, TASS later reported.
• Local officials in the front-line city of Kamianka-Dniprovska in Russian-occupied Zaporizhia reported “massive” shelling from Ukrainian forces, causing at least six explosions and damaging a hospital, according to a TASS report that did not mention casualties.
• The brother of Vitaly Milonov, a representative in Russia’s State Duma, the lower house in parliament, died after being injured “as a result of military action” in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, TASS said. The lawmaker’s brother was serving as a volunteer in Russian army intelligence when he was injured, TASS reports.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app that 52,000 people have been evacuated from Ukraine’s Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions in recent months due to fighting.

Peace talks

• Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “are in the process of setting it up”, Trump said in relation to a proposed bilateral meeting between the two leaders. Trump made the comment in a radio show a day after he met with Zelenskyy and several European leaders at the White House.
• Switzerland would be ready to host Putin for peace talks, despite an existing arrest warrant for his arrest from the International Criminal Court, the country’s foreign minister, Ignazio Cassis, said.
• Trump provided details to Fox News on the nature of potential US involvement in security guarantees for Ukraine, saying that US support would probably be “by air”, whereas European countries “are willing to put people on the ground”.
• White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed US air support was “an option and a possibility”, but, like Trump, did not provide details.
• “The president has definitively stated US boots will not be on the ground in Ukraine, but we can certainly help in the coordination and perhaps provide other means of security guarantees to our European allies,” Leavitt told a news briefing.
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte discussed security guarantees for Ukraine in a phone call on Tuesday, the Turkish presidency said in a statement.
• European Council President Antonio Costa said that the process to make Ukraine a member of the European Union needs to advance, and Europe has to be part of future peace negotiations alongside Ukraine, Russia and the United States.

• US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that India was profiteering on its purchases of Russian oil. “This… Indian arbitrage – buying cheap Russian oil, reselling it as product has just sprung during the war – which is unacceptable,” Bessent said.

• Putin discussed his recent meeting with Trump in Alaska on a call with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kremlin said.

RUSSIAN tyrant Vladimir Putin gave an Alaskan local a brand new £16,000 motorbike while visiting the US for his high-stakes summit with Donald Trump.

Mark Warren, 66, was given the bike after footage of him complaining he couldn’t fix his Soviet-era motorcycle went viral on Russian media.

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The retired fire inspector, who lives in Anchorage, where the US and Russian leaders met last Friday, rode off with a brand new Ural Gear Up sidecar.

Manufacturing firm Ural, a motors company founded in 1941 in Western Siberia when it was under Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, now operates in Kazakhstan.

Warren complained he was unable to obtain the correct parts to fix the motorcycle because of supply-and-demand issues and sanctions on Russia.

State-sponsored Russian media spotted Warren running errands on the bike one week before the Trump and Putin summit.

He said: “It went viral, it went crazy, and I have no idea why, because Im really just a super-duper normal guy.

“They just interviewed some old guy on a Ural, and for some reason they think its cool.”

On August 13, two days before the Trump-Putin summit to discuss the war in Ukraine, Warren received a call from a Russian journalist.

They told him: “They’ve decided to give you a bike.”

Warren said he was also sent a document noting the gift was arranged through the Russian Embassy in the States.

The Alaska man thought it was a scam – but after Trump and Putin departed Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson following their three-hour summit, he got another call about the bike.

Warren was told his new £16,000 bike was at the same base the world leaders had met at.

He was instructed to go to an Anchorage hotel for the handoff.

After arriving alongside his wife, he met six Russian men who presented him with the mind-boggling gift.

“I dropped my jaw,” he said.

“I went, ‘You’ve got to be joking me’.”

He said the men only asked to interview and picture him.

Two reporters and someone from the group got on the bike with him while he drove around the car park to show it off.

The lucky punter had reservations about the Ural being a malicious Russian scam.

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But he accepted the gift, which according to its paperwork was manufactured on August 12.

He said: “The obvious thing here is that it rolled off the showroom floor and slid into a jet within probably 24 hours.”

And he told the Daily Mail: “I’m dumbfounded. I guess I should probably write Putin a thank you letter or something.

“I haven’t. I’ve been so busy it hasn’t really sunk in yet.”

He added: “It’s super cool, you know? I mean, it’s just such a unique bike.”

It comes as Putin continues to wage his bloody war on Ukraine.

The despot unleashed a fresh breakthrough assault just hours before his summit with Trump.

And just hours after Trump’s summit with European allies, Russia blitzed Ukraine over Monday night with 270 drones and missiles.

The brutal attacks targeted energy and transport infrastructure.

Just before Zelesnky and his European counterparts were set to meet Trump on Monday, another vicious attack killed 14 people and injured dozens in Ukraine.

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