A top Kremlin foreign policy aide said Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will meet “in the coming days.” The White House has not confirmed such a meeting and a day earlier said a summit including Ukraine’s president was on the table.
Published On 7 Aug 20257 Aug 2025
Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov says a Trump-Putin meeting could happen as soon as next week.
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are preparing to meet “in the coming days”, a Kremlin official has said, as a United States deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in its war on Ukraine or face economic penalties approaches.
Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov said on Thursday that a Trump-Putin meeting could happen as early as next week. A location has been chosen, he added, though it would be revealed at a later stage.
“At the request of the American side, both parties have effectively agreed to hold a high-level bilateral meeting in the coming days,” Ushakov told reporters.
The announcement follows Trump’s remarks on Wednesday that he was hopeful of holding a joint meeting with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “very soon”. Trump has warned Moscow that unless a ceasefire is reached by Friday, it will face broader sanctions.
Ushakov said the prospect of a three-way summit came up during talks in Moscow with Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, who met Putin for the fifth time earlier this week. Russia offered no official comment on the potential trilateral meeting.
Zelenskyy signalled support for such a summit, writing on X that “Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same brave approach from the Russian side”. He added that discussions had included “two bilateral and one trilateral” format, insisting Europe must be involved in efforts to end the war.
Despite multiple visits to Moscow by Witkoff since Trump entered office in January after promising to end the war, no breakthrough has materialised. Trump acknowledged the lack of progress, saying: “I don’t call it a breakthrough … we have been working at this for a long time. There are thousands of young people dying … I’m here to get the thing over with.”
The Kremlin described Witkoff’s latest discussions as “constructive” and said both sides had exchanged “signals”, though it provided few specifics. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy confirmed he had spoken with Trump about the meeting, alongside European leaders.
Expectations remain low that a peace deal will be reached before Trump’s deadline. Russia continues to launch air strikes across Ukraine, and Moscow’s conditions for ending the war, such as Kyiv’s demilitarisation, neutrality and renunciation of NATO membership, remain non-starters for Ukraine and its Western allies.
Putin also demands Ukrainian withdrawal from Russian-occupied regions, the formal recognition of Crimea, and the lifting of international sanctions. Kyiv has consistently rejected those terms.
Meanwhile, the White House has approved an additional $200m military aid package for Ukraine, including support for drone manufacturing. And in a separate move, Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday imposing 25 percent tariffs on Indian imports over its ongoing purchases of Russian oil.
Top United States diplomatic negotiator Steve Witkoff visited Moscow on Wednesday in a last-ditch push to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine before an August 8 deadline set by President Donald Trump.
After Witkoff’s meeting with Putin, the White House said that Russia had sought a meeting with Trump. The US president, the White House said, was open to meeting both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump, who during his re-election campaign had promised he would be able to end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours if he came to power, has so far failed to mediate a truce despite months of hectic diplomacy, direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv, and phone calls with Putin.
Increasingly frustrated by Putin’s unwillingness to agree to a pause in fighting without imposing conditions unacceptable to Ukraine or the West, Trump has threatened a new wave of economic measures punishing Russia if it does not accept a ceasefire.
Since Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the US and its allies, including the United Kingdom and the European Union, have imposed more than 21,000 sanctions on Russia’s economy.
The new tariffs Trump has threatened are unlike any of those earlier sanctions, however. They target Russia by hitting out against its trading partners, in the hope that they will stop buying from or selling to Moscow.
But these secondary tariffs also carry risks for the US and its allies.
In mid-July, as peace talks stalled despite Trump’s efforts, the US president threatened Russia with 100 percent secondary tariffs if it did not work towards a ceasefire. He gave the Kremlin a 50-day deadline to cooperate.
After Moscow suggested that it wouldn’t bow to US pressure, Trump moved up the deadline, which now expires on August 8. It is unclear if Trump’s openness to talks with Putin and Zelenskyy following Witkoff’s Moscow visit has changed that deadline.
On Wednesday, Trump doubled the tariff rate on Indian imports from 25 percent – which he had announced in late July – to 50 percent, as punishment for New Delhi’s refusal to stop buying Russian oil. That makes India the country facing the highest US tariffs at present – along with Brazil.
If Trump’s secondary tariffs go into effect, goods that the US imports from countries still trading with Russia would face duties of 100 percent on top of the tariffs Trump has already imposed on those nations.
That would at least double the price of those products, making them less competitive in the US market.
The idea behind these tariffs is to persuade Russia’s trading partners to stop buying and selling with the country, isolating its economy and depriving it of revenue it earns from exports, especially from energy.
Despite the sanctions it already faces, Russia has consistently earned more than 500 million euros ($580m) a day from energy exports since 2022. That will be disrupted if countries stop buying all oil and gas from Russia.
The countries most affected by such secondary tariffs would be:
Turkiye isn’t the only ally that could be hit if Trump truly targets all those who trade with Russia.
Pushing back against Western threats over its ties with Russia, India has pointed to the EU’s own trade with Moscow. And while that trade has plummeted since 2022, it is still substantial.
According to the EU, its total trade with Russia was worth 67.5 billion euros ($77.9bn) in 2024. India’s total trade with Russia in 2024-25, by contrast, was worth $68.7bn.
The bloc still relies heavily on Russia for its liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies. In fact, its import of Russian LNG has been rising: In 2024, EU imports of Russian LNG were 9 percent higher than the year before.
Europe has already been hit with a 15 percent tariff from Trump. Will Trump punish his closest supporters to pressure Russia to end the war?
It is not just allies – secondary tariffs on those who trade with Russia carry risks for the US itself, too.
Trump’s team is currently working on a trade deal with China, and those talks have led to a pause in a tariff war between the world’s two largest economies.
That detente would break down if Trump imposes 100 percent tariffs on Chinese goods simply because Beijing also trades with Russia.
China, Europe and India are all major suppliers of goods to the US: If the cost of those products – from clothes to lamps to iPhones – doubles, American consumers will feel the pinch.
The US also buys chemicals, including uranium hexafluoride – used in uranium enrichment – from Russia.
That looks unlikely. China continues to buy oil from Iran, despite US sanctions – and Russia is arguably its closest strategic partner.
India has also shown no sign of loosening its ties with Russia. Witkoff isn’t the only foreign envoy visiting Moscow at the moment. India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, is also in the Russian capital. India’s foreign minister, S Jaishankar, is expected to visit Russia later this month, and India has announced that it intends to host Putin later this year.
On Wednesday, India described Trump’s 50 percent tariff as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”, adding that its purchase of Russian oil was rooted in its desire for energy security for its 1.4 billion people.
Here are the key events on day 1,260 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Thursday, August 7:
Administration says Russia expressed ‘desire to meet with President Trump’ and that the US wants war in Ukraine to end.
The White House has said that United States President Donald Trump is “open” to the idea of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In remarks on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Russian officials had expressed interest in meeting with Trump. Leavitt did not say when or where such a meeting could take place, but AP quoted an anonymous White House official saying the meeting could happen within a week.
“The Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the president is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” Leavitt told members of the press following reports in the New York Times that Trump could meet with Putin in Russia as soon as next week.
The US president has said that he is committed to helping bring the war in Ukraine to an end. He initially promised to stop the conflict on “day one” of his presidency, but has struggled to make progress. The statement comes after US envoy Steve Witkoff visited Moscow to speak with Russian officials earlier today.
In a social media post, Trump said Witkoff held a “highly productive” meeting with Putin and that “great progress was made!”
“Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come,” he added.
The New York Times reported that Trump intends to meet first with Putin before later setting up a meeting that would also include Zelenskyy.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a TV interview that the US now has a better understanding of what conditions would be required for Russia to end the war.
“For the first time perhaps since this administration began, we have some concrete examples of the kinds of things that Russia would ask for in order to end the war,” Rubio said in an interview with Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow,” adding that questions of territory would be a key part of any deal.
The news agency AFP reported that Trump also discussed the possibility of such a meeting during a phone call with Zelenskyy, citing an anonymous Ukrainian source. That call is also said to have included NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the leaders of Britain, Germany and Finland.
Trump has recently mulled steps to further increase pressure on Russia, which he has accused of not being sincerely interested in ending the war. Such steps could include heightened US sanctions.
Here are the key events on day 1,259 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Wednesday, August 6:
Russia is no longer bound by a moratorium on the deployment of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said, with former President Dmitry Medvedev blaming NATO’s “anti-Russian policy” and warning that Moscow will take “further steps” in response.
Medvedev, who has engaged in a war of words on social media with United States President Donald Trump, made his latest broadside after the Foreign Ministry’s announcement on Monday.
“The Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement on the withdrawal of the moratorium on the deployment of medium- and short-range missiles is the result of NATO countries’ anti-Russian policy,” Medvedev posted in English on the X social media platform.
“This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps,” he said.
Medvedev, who serves as the deputy head of Russia’s powerful Security Council and has made several hawkish comments on Russia’s nuclear capabilities in recent years, did not elaborate on what “further steps” may entail.
Last week, Trump said that he had ordered two US nuclear submarines to be repositioned to “the appropriate regions” in response to Medvedev’s remarks about the risk of war between Washington and Moscow.
The Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement on the withdrawal of the moratorium on the deployment of medium- and short-range missiles is the result of NATO countries’ anti-Russian policy.
This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps.— Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE) August 4, 2025
In its statement, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the developing situation in Europe and the Asia Pacific prompted its reassessment on the deployment of short- and medium-range missiles.
“Since the situation is developing towards the actual deployment of US-made land-based medium- and short-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, the Russian Foreign Ministry notes that the conditions for maintaining a unilateral moratorium on the deployment of similar weapons have disappeared,” the ministry said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last year that Moscow may have to respond to what they described as provocations by the US and NATO by lifting restrictions on missile deployment.
Lavrov told Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti in December that Moscow’s unilateral moratorium on the deployment of such missiles was “practically no longer viable and will have to be abandoned”.
“The United States arrogantly ignored warnings from Russia and China and, in practice, moved on to deploying weapons of this class in various regions of the world,” Lavrov told the news agency.
The US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty in 2019, under the first Trump administration, citing Russian non-compliance, but Moscow had said that it would not deploy such weapons provided that Washington did not do so.
The INF treaty, signed in 1987 by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan, had eliminated an entire class of weapons: ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500km (311 to 3,418 miles).
In its first public reaction to Trump’s comments on the repositioning of US submarines, the Kremlin on Monday played down the remarks and said it was not looking to get into a public spat with the US president.
“In this case, it is obvious that American submarines are already on combat duty. This is an ongoing process, that’s the first thing,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“But in general, of course, we would not want to get involved in such a controversy and would not want to comment on it in any way,” he said.
“Of course, we believe that everyone should be very, very careful with nuclear rhetoric,” he added.
The episode comes at a delicate moment, with Trump threatening to impose new sanctions on Russia and buyers of its oil, including India and China, unless President Vladimir Putin agrees by Friday to a ceasefire in Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
Putin said last week that peace talks had made some positive progress but that Russia had the momentum in its war against Ukraine, signalling no shift in his position despite the looming deadline.
Here are the key events on day 1,258 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Tuesday, August 5:
Russian President Vladimir Putin claims, without providing evidence, that Ukraine was involved in the attack, an allegation Kyiv vehemently denies.
The trial has begun for 19 defendants accused of involvement in the 2024 shooting attack in a Moscow concert hall that killed 149 people, and wounded over 600, in one of the deadliest attacks in the capital since the era of the Russian-Chechen wars in the 1990s and 2000s.
The suspects appearing in court on Monday, under heavy security, kept their heads bowed as they sat in the defendants’ cage.
An ISIL (ISIS) affiliate claimed responsibility for the March 22, 2024 massacre at the Crocus City Hall concert venue in which four gunmen shot people who were waiting for a show by a rock band and then set the building on fire. ISIL’s Afghan branch – also known as ISKP (ISIS-K) – claimed responsibility for the attack.
President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have claimed, without providing any evidence, that Ukraine was involved in the attack, an allegation Kyiv has vehemently denied.
The Investigative Committee, Russia’s top criminal investigation agency, concluded in June that the attack had been “planned and carried out in the interests of the current leadership of Ukraine in order to destabilise the political situation in our country”. It also said the four suspected gunmen tried to flee to Ukraine afterward.
The four, all identified as citizens of Tajikistan, were arrested hours after the attack and later appeared in a Moscow court with signs of having been beaten.
The committee said earlier this year that six other suspects were charged in absentia and placed on Russia’s wanted list for allegedly recruiting and organising the training of the four. Other defendants in the trial were accused of helping them.
In 2002, some 40 rebels from Chechnya stormed the Dubrovka Theatre in Moscow and took around 800 people hostage while demanding an end to Putin’s war in the separatist southern republic.
Putin refused to negotiate with the fighters, and the standoff ended with mass death days later when Russian special services pumped a powerful gas into the building to stun the hostage-takers before storming it. Most of the 129 hostages who died were killed by the gas.
Donald Trump has ordered the repositioning of two United States nuclear submarines to “appropriate regions” relative to Russia, as the US president grows frustrated over stalling peace talks aimed at bringing an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
On Friday, Trump exchanged heated words with Dmitry Medvedev, Moscow’s military leader and former president.
The day before, Trump had issued an ultimatum to Russia: If it does not agree to a ceasefire by next Friday, August 8, he will impose a package of economic sanctions.
The next day, Medvedev posted on social media, describing Trump’s threat as “a step towards war”. He wrote that Trump was “playing the ultimatum game with Russia”.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump responded: “Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances.”
On Friday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that he had ordered two US “Nuclear Submarines” to be repositioned to “appropriate regions”.
Trump cited what he regarded as threatening comments made by former Russian President Medvedev, now deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council. He called Medvedev’s statements “highly provocative”, adding that his actions were a precaution.
“I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions, just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that,” Trump wrote.
In the run-up to his presidential campaign, Trump promised to end Russia’s war in Ukraine within 24 hours; however, several discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin have since not yielded any results.
Not much – and we do not know which submarines Trump is referring to. Trump did not say if he had ordered the repositioning of submarines with nuclear engines or submarines carrying nuclear missiles.
Trump did not reveal the location of the submarines, either, as mandated by US military protocol.
However, Trump’s statement is so far being viewed as a rhetorical threat, rather than a military one, as security analysts noted that the US already has nuclear-powered submarines that are deployed and capable of striking Russia as a deterrent.
Mostly, his frustration over the lack of progress of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. But, in this case, the social media spat with Medvedev seems to have tipped him over into action.
Trump and the Russian military leader have been engaged in mud-slinging on social media platforms for some time.
Earlier, responding to Trump’s new deadline for a ceasefire in Ukraine, Medvedev wrote in a post on X that Trump was playing an “ultimatum game” with Russia.
“Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war. Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country. Don’t go down the Sleepy Joe road!” Medvedev had said.
Earlier in the week, while announcing trade tariffs for India – along with an extra penalty for buying Russian oil – Trump stated that he did not care if India and Russia “take their dead economies down together”.
In a Telegram post on Thursday, Medvedev wrote that Trump should “revisit his favourite movies about the living dead and recall just how dangerous the mythical ‘Dead Hand’ can be”.
Russia’s “Dead Hand system” is a Cold War-era automatic nuclear retaliation mechanism designed to launch a counterstrike even if the Russian leadership is wiped out in a first strike.
Trump replied: “Tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still President, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!”
Speaking to reporters after his post about the nuclear submarines, Trump said on Friday: “We just have to be careful. And a threat was made and we didn’t think it was appropriate, so I have to be very careful.
“A threat was made by a former president of Russia, and we’re going to protect our people.”
Combined, the US and Russia account for nearly 87 percent of the world’s total nuclear arsenal. The geopolitical rivals control about 83 percent of the nuclear warheads actually deployed or ready for operational use.
Despite significant post-Cold War reductions, global nuclear arsenals remain at a “very high level”, according to a report by the Federation of American Scientists. As of January 2025, just nine countries are estimated to possess a total of approximately 12,241 nuclear warheads.
Today, according to the nonprofit Arms Control Association, the US deploys 1,419 and Russia deploys 1,549 strategic warheads on several hundred bombers and missiles.
The US conducted its first nuclear test explosion in July 1945; the following month, it dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Four years later, the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test explosion.
As of 2025, the US Navy operates 71 submarines, all nuclear‑powered, making it the largest undersea force. This fleet includes 14 Ohio‑class ballistic missile subs (SSBNs), four Ohio‑class converted guided‑missile submarines (SSGNs) loaded with Tomahawk missiles for strikes or special operations, and about 53 fast‑attack submarines designed for intelligence gathering, anti‑submarine warfare and cruise‑missile support.
By comparison, the Russian Navy fields fewer than 30 nuclear‑powered submarines, including approximately 10 strategic SSBNs, a mix of modern Borei and older Delta IV classes, that carry Bulava missiles.
It also operates several strategic‑missile cruise boats and about six Akula‑class attack submarines equipped for anti‑ship and multi‑role missions. Russia is investing in modern fleet expansion through the Yasen‑M class.
No. Neither the Kremlin nor Medvedev has publicly responded to Trump’s order to move two nuclear submarines following their war of words.
Viktor Vodolatsky, a senior Russian lawmaker and deputy chairman of the State Duma’s committee on Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) affairs, however, stated that Russia possesses “significantly more nuclear submarines in the world’s oceans” than the US, claiming US subs have “long been under their control” and, therefore, no specific response is required.
Last month, the US President said he was “disappointed” with Putin.
“We’ll have a great conversation. I’ll say: ‘That’s good, I’ll think we’re close to getting it done,’ and then he’ll knock down a building in Kyiv,” he told the BBC in an interview.
On Friday, in an apparent reference to Trump’s comment, Putin said: “As for any disappointments on the part of anyone, all disappointments arise from inflated expectations. This is a well-known general rule.”
On a ceasefire with Kyiv, Putin said he wants a “lasting and stable peace” in Ukraine; however, he has not given any indication that Russia is willing to achieve it any quicker.
In 2017, during his first term as US president, Trump announced that he had sent two nuclear submarines to the Korean peninsula. Soon afterwards, he held a meeting with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un.
Whether this latest move will lead to a new meeting with Putin is yet to be seen, however.
Here are the key events on day 1,255 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Saturday, August 2:
Here are the key events on day 1,254 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Friday, August 1:
Here are the key events on day 1,251 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Tuesday, July 29:
Here are the key events on day 1,247 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Friday, July 25 :
Russian forces have taken control of the villages of Zvirove and Novoekonomichne in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the Russian Ministry of Defence said. The claim could not be independently verified.
Russian forces are making every effort to establish buffer zones along the border with Ukraine, state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
Zelenskyy has submitted draft legislation to restore the independence of Ukraine’s anticorruption agency NABU and anticorruption prosecution unit SAPO, reversing course after an outburst of public criticism over his attempt to remove their status as independent organisations.
The Kremlin said it was hard to see how Russian President Vladimir Putin could meet Zelenskyy before the end of August, RIA reported. Earlier, a Ukrainian official suggested that Kyiv had proposed a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting in August, within the 50-day deadline set by the US for both sides to reach a ceasefire deal.
The European Union has expressed its expectations that China will respond to the EU’s concerns and use its influence to urge Russia towards accepting a ceasefire in Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said following her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
Russia Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has accused German Chancellor Friedrich Merz of pursuing a path of “militarisation” and said this was a cause for concern. She said Berlin is pursuing an openly hostile policy, and that Merz was stepping up anti-Russian rhetoric “literally every day”.
Ukraine’s Central Bank Governor Andriy Pyshnyy said his government and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – Kyiv’s key international lender – were working on a new lending programme. Ukraine currently has a $15.5bn four-year lending programme with the IMF that is set to expire in 2027. Kyiv has received about $10.6bn under the programme so far.
Video shows extensive damage to a residential area of Kharkiv after the latest Russian strike on the eastern Ukrainian city. Officials say at least 37 people were injured, including a 28-day-old baby. The attack comes a day after the latest fruitless round of talks between the two sides.
Published On 24 Jul 202524 Jul 2025
Here are the key events on day 1,246 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Thursday, July 24:
Here are the key events on day 1,244 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Tuesday, July 22:
Here are the key events on day 1,241 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
How things stand on Saturday, July 19:
Here are the key events on day 1,240 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Friday, July 18:
Russian air defences destroyed a Ukrainian drone headed for Moscow, the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said 46 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over a period of four hours on Thursday evening, including a single drone over the Moscow region. Most were downed in areas near the Ukraine border, including 31 over Russia’s Bryansk region and 10 over the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the US publication The New York Post that he and United States President Donald Trump are considering a deal that involves Washington buying battlefield-tested Ukrainian drones in exchange for Kyiv purchasing weapons from the US.
The US has informed Switzerland of delays to the delivery of Patriot air defence systems, the Swiss Defence Ministry said, adding that Washington wants to prioritise delivery of the systems to Ukraine.
President Trump’s decision to ramp up arms shipments to Ukraine is a signal to Kyiv to abandon peace efforts, Russia Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico said his country will stop blocking the approval of the 18th package of European Union sanctions against Russia, which could be approved on Friday.
Ukraine’s parliament appointed Yulia Svyrydenko, 39, as the country’s first new prime minister in five years, part of a major cabinet overhaul aimed at revitalising wartime management of the country as prospects for peace with Russia grow dim. Ukraine’s former Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has been named defence minister.
Moscow is closely monitoring the West’s supply of weapons to Ukraine, the Kremlin’s spokesperson says shortly after United States President Donald Trump announced the resumption of arms deliveries to Kyiv.
Dmitry Peskov also noted on Wednesday that a new phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was not currently planned but could quickly be arranged, according to Russian news reports.
The comments from the Kremlin came two days after the US president showed growing impatience with Russia over its war in Ukraine.
In his sharpest rebuke of Moscow so far, Trump announced on Monday that Putin had until early September, 50 days, to accept a peace deal or his country would face steep US sanctions.
Trump said they would be secondary tariffs targeting Russia’s trading partners in a bid to isolate it from the global economy.
Russia’s approach, in the meantime, is to “keep calm and carry on” in the face of Trump’s threats, experts said. There’s no certainty the pressure will push Putin towards ending the war.
On the campaign trail before November’s presidential election, Trump boasted that he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office.
However, after at least six phone conversations between Trump and Putin as well as several meetings between US officials and officials from Russia and Ukraine, no ceasefire has been reached.
“My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,” Trump said of his frustration with Putin.
The US leader added that he would supply more weapons to Ukraine with European allies buying “billions and billions” of dollars of US military equipment to be transferred to Kyiv.
Patriot air defence systems are included in the plan, which Ukraine needs to defend itself against Russian missile and drone attacks.
Trump, however, has said Ukraine should not target Moscow after he reportedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy if Kyiv could strike the Russian capital if he provided long-range weaponry.
Trump made the comments after The Financial Times on Tuesday reported that Trump had encouraged Zelenskyy to step up strikes deep inside Russian territory during their phone call on July 4.
The report, which quoted two unnamed people familiar with the discussion, said Trump had also asked his Ukrainian counterpart whether he could hit Moscow and St Petersburg if supplied with weapons with enough range.
In response to a question on Tuesday about whether Zelenskyy should target Moscow, Trump told reporters at the White House that he should not.
Overnight, the Russian military launched 400 drones and one ballistic missile, targeting cities across Ukraine, including Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih and Vinnytsia.
The strikes injured at least 15 people and damaged energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian authorities said on Wednesday.
Power was down for 80,000 families in Kryvyi Rih and other parts of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine’s private energy company DTEK said on Telegram.
The Ukrainian air force stated it had successfully shot down most of the drones but 12 targets were hit by 57 drones and the missile.
In recent weeks, Moscow has increased its aerial bombardments against Ukraine with daily record numbers of drones and missiles being fired.
“Russia does not change its strategy, and to effectively counter this terror, we need a systemic strengthening of defences: more air defences, more interceptor [missiles], more determination to make Russia feel our response,” Zelenskyy wrote on X on Wednesday.
After starting his second presidential term in January, Trump sought to portray Washington’s support for Ukraine as a drain on US resources.
Despite Trump’s more critical stance against Moscow this week, some American politicians continue to express concerns about his approach, warning that Putin could use the 50-day tariff deadline to capture more Ukrainian territory.
In a report that has yet to be independently verified, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday that its army seized the settlement of Novokhatske in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.