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      Trump to back ceding of Ukrainian territory to Russia as part of peace deal

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      Donald Trump will back a plan to cede unoccupied Ukrainian territory to Russia to secure an end to the war between the two countries, it was reported on Saturday, after details of his post-summit call with European leaders leaked out.Trump told European leaders that he believed a peace deal could be negotiated if the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, agreed to give up the Donbas region, which Russian invaders have not been able to seize in over three years of fighting, the New York Times reported, citing to two senior European officials.Two sources with direct knowledge of the talks in Alaska told the Guardian that Putin demanded Ukraine withdraw from Donbas, which is made up of the Donestk and Luhansk regions, as a condition for ending the war, but offered Trump a freeze along the remaining frontline.Although Luhansk is almost entirely under Russian control, Ukraine still holds key parts of Donetsk, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and heavily fortified positions whose defence has cost tens of thousands of lives.Putin told Trump that in exchange for Donetsk and Luhansk, he would halt further advances and freeze the frontline in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where Russian forces occupy significant areas.Trump’s support for ceding Ukraine’s Donbas region, which is rich in mineral resources, including coal and iron ore, to Russia comes as he voiced support for moving straight to a peace deal and not via a ceasefire, which, Trump said in a social media post on Saturday, “often times do not hold up.”US support for ceding the Donbas to Russia represents a breach with Ukraine and European allies that oppose such a deal.As part of a deal, the US is ready to be part of security guarantees for Ukraine, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said on Saturday. Trump has threatened economic penalties on countries that buy Russian oil if Moscow refuses a deal and flew US bombers over the Russian leader as he arrived in Alaska.But Ukrainian and European leaders fear that a straight-to-peace deal, skipping over a preliminary ceasefire, gives Moscow an upper hand in talks. Zelensky is expected in Washington on Monday to meet with Trump. Europeans were invited to join the Ukrainian leader at the White House, officials told the New York Times.Trump claimed on Saturday in his post that “it was determined by all” that it was better to go directly to negotiated a peace agreement, though European leaders indicated this was not their view.A joint statement issued by European leaders said they were “ready to work with US President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy towards a trilateral summit with European support” but “it will be up to Ukraine to make decisions on its territory. International borders must not be changed by force.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe statement was signed by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen; the French president, Emmanuel Macron; the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni; the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz; the British prime minister, Keir Starmer; the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb; the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk; and the European Council president, António Costa.They said they “welcomed President Trump’s efforts to stop the killing in Ukraine, end Russia’s war of aggression, and achieve just and lasting peace”.Zelensky said in a statement after his conversations with Trump and the European leaders: “The positions are clear. A real peace must be achieved, one that will be lasting, not just another pause between Russian invasions. Killings must stop as soon as possible, the fire must cease both on the battlefield and in the sky, as well as against our port infrastructure. All Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians must be released, and the children abducted by Russia must be returned.”European leaders, including Macron, Merz and Starmer, are set to discuss the issues with Zelenskyy on Sunday via video call ahead of his meeting with Trump, the French president’s office said in a statement. More

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      Putin ready to make Ukraine deal, Trump says before Alaska summit

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      Donald Trump has said he believes Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal on the war in Ukraine as the two leaders prepare for their summit in Alaska on Friday, but his suggestion the Russian leader and Volodymyr Zelenskyy could “divvy things up” may alarm some in Kyiv.The US president implied there was a 75% chance of the Alaska meeting succeeding, and that the threat of economic sanctions may have made Putin more willing to seek an end to the war.Trump insisted that he would not let Putin get the better of him in Friday’s meeting, telling reporters: “I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me.“I’ll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes … whether or not we’re going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting.“And if it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly, and if it’s a good meeting, we’re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future,” said Trump.He also said a second meeting – not yet confirmed – between him, Putin and Zelenskyy would be the more decisive.“The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that’s going to be a meeting where they make a deal. And I don’t want to use the word ‘divvy’ things up, but you know, to a certain extent, it’s not a bad term, OK?” Trump told Fox News Radio.He was referring to the possibility that Zelenskyy will have to accept “land swaps” – in practice the handing over of Ukrainian territory to Russia, potentially including some not captured by Moscow.Later on Thursday, Trump suggested that any second, trilateral meeting could happen quickly – and possibly take place in Alaska.“Tomorrow, all I want to do is set the table for the next meeting, which should happen shortly,” he said. “I’d like to see it actually happen, maybe in Alaska.”Any such meeting would be a concession by Putin since he refuses to recognise Zelenskyy as the legitimate leader of Ukraine.Trump conceded he was unsure whether an immediate ceasefire could be achieved, but expressed interest in brokering a peace agreement. On Putin, he said: “I believe now, he’s convinced that he’s going to make a deal. I think he’s going to, and we’re going to find out.”Zelenskyy will face a difficult choice if Putin rejects Ukraine’s call for a full 30-day ceasefire and offers only a partial break in the fighting, particularly if Trump thinks a three-way meeting should still go ahead.The Ukrainian president spent much of Thursday in London discussing Wednesday’s video call between European leaders and Trump with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer. European leaders were largely relieved with the way the conversation went, but know Trump is unpredictable and prone to acting on instinct, rather than sticking to a script.View image in fullscreenThe US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said changes on the battlefield could make peace harder. “To achieve a peace, I think we all recognise that there’ll have to be some conversation about security guarantees,” he said.Trump has rejected offering such guarantees before, but it is possible European security guarantees could be agreed. Rubio said he believed Trump had spoken by phone to Putin four times and “felt it was important to now speak to him in person and look him in the eye and figure out what was possible and what isn’t”.Starmer and Zelenskyy met in Downing Street for breakfast on Thursday and hailed “a visible chance for peace” as long as Putin proved he was serious about ending the war.European leaders emerged from Wednesday’s meeting reassured that Trump was going into his summit focused on extracting Putin’s commitment to a durable ceasefire and was not seeking to negotiate over Ukraine’s head.The plan for Trump and Putin to hold a joint press conference after their talks suggests the White House is optimistic the summit will bring about a breakthrough. Moscow is determined that the summit should not just focus on Ukraine but also agree steps to restart US-Russian economic cooperation.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a brief summary of the Downing Street meeting, British officials said Zelenskyy and Starmer expressed cautious optimism about a truce “as long as Putin takes action to prove he is serious” about peace. In a separate statement, Zelenskyy said there had been discussions about the security guarantees required to make any deal “truly durable if the United States succeeds in pressing Russia to stop the killing”.On Wednesday Starmer co-chaired a virtual meeting of the “coalition of the willing” – a European-led effort to send a peacekeeping force to Ukraine to enforce any deal – where he said there was a “viable” chance of a truce.On Thursday the prime minister gave Zelenskyy a bear hug in the street outside the door to No 10 in a symbol of continuing British solidarity with the Ukrainian cause. Similar public displays of solidarity followed the disastrous February meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy, when the two leaders quarrelled in front of the cameras in the White House.View image in fullscreenFurther sanctions could be imposed on Russia should the Kremlin fail to engage, and Starmer said the UK was already working on its next package of measures targeting Moscow.Trump has frequently said he will know if he can achieve peace in Ukraine only by meeting Putin personally. He sets great faith in his personal relationship with the Russian leader, but on Wednesday he played down expectations of what he could do to persuade Putin to relent. At the same time he warned there would be “very severe consequences” for Russia if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire, a veiled threat to increase US sanctions on Russian oil exports.He has so far held off from imposing such economic pressure on Russia, but by the end of the month the US is due to impose additional tariffs on Indian imports into the US as a punishment for India continuing to buy Russian oil.The UK would like to see the US consider other, more targeted sanctions, either on the so-called shadow fleet of Russian oil tankers or on refineries that use Russian oil. But Moscow briefed that the Alaska summit, far from leading to extra economic pressure on the Russian economy, would instead include discussion and agreements on new US-Russian economic cooperation, a step that would relieve the pressure on Russian state finances.Some European leaders took heart from the detailed grasp of the issues shown on the call by the US vice-president, JD Vance, and by hints that Trump could be willing to contribute US assets to a European-led security guarantee for Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement.The Alaska summit, due to start at 11.30am local time (2030 BST), will include a one-to-one meeting between Trump and Putin, with interpreters, then a wider meeting.The Russian delegation will include the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov; the defence minister, Andrei Belousov; the finance minister, Anton Siluanov; the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev; and Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov. More

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      Trump to seek extension of DC police takeover past 30-day limit and touts Republican support – live

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      At the Kennedy Center today, Donald Trump announced that he would host this year’s honors himself – scheduled for December. But some of the biggest news came out of the far-reaching press conference he held after announcing this year’s honorees (which include ‘Rocky’ star and fervent Trump supporter Sylvester Stallone).

      Trump promised ‘very severe consequences’ if Vladimir Putin doesn’t agree to ceasefire at their Friday meeting in Alaska. He didn’t, however, elaborate on what those penalties will be. He also floated the idea of a trilateral summit with Volodymyr Zelenskyy “almost immediately” after his individual meeting with Putin.

      The president said that he’s eyeing an extension of the initial 30-day limit for the federal takeover of the DC Metropolitan Police. “I don’t want to call national emergency. If I have to I will. But I think the Republicans in Congress will approve this pretty much unanimously,” Trump said. He added that any discussions about DC statehood are “ridiculous” and “unacceptable”.

      When it comes to the surge of federal law enforcement on DC streets, a White House official said 43 arrests were made on Tuesday night –twice the total of the previous evening. More than 1,450 officers participated, about half of which were from the city’s police department, while only 30 national guard troops were deployed of the roughly 800 that defense officials have said are expected to arrive for the mission.

      The city’s Democratic mayor, Muriel Bowser, has sought a cordial working relationship with the president since his return to the White House, but changed her tone on Tuesday, urging residents and voters during a social media event “to protect our home rule and get to the other side of this guy and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push”.

      At his Kennedy Center appearance today, the president continued to disparage Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. “He’s truly incompetent,” Trump said. He went on to reveal that he’ll be naming the nomination for Powell’s replacement “sometime in the next week”. He’s down to “three of four names,” he added. A reminder that Powell’s term ends in May.

      Additionally, on the foreign diplomacy front, the president took part in a virtual meeting with Zelenskyy and European leaders today which the German chancellor described as “very good” and “constructive”. Zelenskyy confirmed that Trump would call him straight after the Friday meeting with Putin to talk it through details.

      And finally, for now at least, a federal appeals court lifted a lower court’s injunction that required the state department to continue making payments to foreign aid contractors. In a 2-1 decision, the appellate panel effectively granted a Trump victory – allowing the administration to cut billions in congressionally appropriated funding for foreign assistance.
      Donald Trump named David Rosner chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc), where he has served since June 2024 as a commissioner, the agency announced on Wednesday.The appointment of Rosner, a Democrat whose nomination to the commission was supported by then Senator Joe Manchin, is expected to be temporary. In June, Trump nominated two Republicans to the commission who are awaiting Senate confirmation.Ferc, which has a maximum of five members, regulates the power grid, liquefied natural gas projects and interstate transportation of oil and natural gas. It currently has just three members, after Mark Christie, a Republican, left last week.In June, Trump nominated Laura Swett to take Christie’s place and the president is expected to name her to become chair once the Senate confirms her.If both of Trump’s nomines are confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate, Ferc would then have a 3-2 Republican majority.Rosner, who has worked in energy in and out of government for two decades, said he was honored to be named.Last year the environmental group Friends of the Earth ran a campaign calling on the Senate, then controlled by Democrats, to block Rosner’s nomination, calling him “a paid cheerleader for the LNG boom”.Trump has said he wants to open pipelines to bring natural gas from Pennsylvania’s gas fields to states in the Northeast. The projects have been opposed by states.A judge in Adams County, Illinois just rejected a request from the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, to order the arrest of Democrats from the Texas state legislature who left Texas to block a Republican plan to redraw congressional districts.In a petition filed last Thursday, Paxton had asked the court in a conservative county that overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump to to honor so-called quorum Warrants — civil arrest orders issued by Dustin Burrows, the Republican speaker of the Texas state house — and order Illinois police officers to “effectuate the civil arrest” of the Democratic lawmakers.In the ruling, which was posted online by Aarón Torres of the Dallas Morning News, the judge ruled that the Illinois circuit court “does not have the inherent power to direct Illinois law enforcement officers, or to allow the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives of the State of Texas, or any officer appointed by her, to execute Texas civil Quorum Warrants upon nonresidents temporarily located in the State of Illinois.”Today, a US federal judge struck down rules from 2018 that allow employers to not provide insurance coverage for birth control on religious or moral grounds, Reuters is reporting.During Donald Trump’s first term in office, the supreme court ruled that employers were eligible for religious exemptions when it comes to providing health insurance that covers women’s birth control.The Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, requires employers to offer health insurance with access to contraception, but stipulates that they can apply for religious exemptions. The 2018 rules, however, offered a blanket exemption.According to Reuters, Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia said there was a gap between how vast the exception is, and the number of employers who would need it.Planned Parenthood clinics treated people who rely on Medicaid at more than 1.5m visits in 2024, new research published on Wednesday shows.But the reproductive health giant’s ability to treat those patients is now in jeopardy due to Republicans’ efforts to “defund” Planned Parenthood by kicking it out of Medicaid.Donald Trump’s tax and spending package, passed in July, bans Planned Parenthood from receiving reimbursements from Medicaid, the US government’s insurance program for low-income people. After Planned Parenthood sued over the ban, a judge temporarily stopped it from taking effect.If the ban moves forward, experts warn that it could cripple the entirety of the US healthcare social safety net.Republicans have long sought to defund Planned Parenthood over the organization’s commitment to providing abortions. But Planned Parenthood does not rely on Medicaid to fund its abortion provision as it is already illegal to use federal dollars, including Medicaid, to pay for the vast majority of abortions. The 1.5m visits documented in Wednesday’s research paper, which was published in the medical journal Jama, only include visits for reasons other than abortion.“Planned Parenthood has filled a very important role in the reproductive healthcare safety net for people living on low incomes,” said Kari White, executive and scientific director at Resound Research for Reproductive Health. White was the lead author on the research paper released on Wednesday. “Other providers have counted on them to do so. They just don’t have the capacity to step in and fill the place that Planned Parenthood has had in the safety net.”The state department has approved potential sales of munitions, precision bombs and precision rockets to Nigeria, according to a statement from the Pentagon. The estimated cost totals $346 million.Several Texas Democratic lawmakers are now speaking about their redistricting fight alongside Indiana Democrats. They’re joining the legislators to push back against the president’s push for Indiana governor Mike Braun to redraw the state’s congressional map – in a similar vein to Texas governor Greg Abbott.Today, state representative Gene Wu, who is also chair of the Texas House Democrats, said that “we need more people to join us”.He added that if Texas Republicans continue to “block the will of the people” Democrats will make to “nullify their actions”.A number of Indiana Democratic lawmakers said that they stand in solidarity with their Texas counterparts. “We need to support them and stand with them, otherwise our people will be subjected to ever changing districts, none of which are representative,” said Indiana state representative Ed DeLaney.

      At the Kennedy Center today, Donald Trump announced that he would host this year’s honors himself – scheduled for December. But some of the biggest news came out of the far-reaching press conference he held after announcing this year’s honorees (which include ‘Rocky’ star and fervent Trump supporter Sylvester Stallone).

      Trump promised ‘very severe consequences’ if Vladimir Putin doesn’t agree to ceasefire at their Friday meeting in Alaska. He didn’t, however, elaborate on what those penalties will be. He also floated the idea of a trilateral summit with Volodymyr Zelenskyy “almost immediately” after his individual meeting with Putin.

      The president said that he’s eyeing an extension of the initial 30-day limit for the federal takeover of the DC Metropolitan Police. “I don’t want to call national emergency. If I have to I will. But I think the Republicans in Congress will approve this pretty much unanimously,” Trump said. He added that any discussions about DC statehood are “ridiculous” and “unacceptable”.

      When it comes to the surge of federal law enforcement on DC streets, a White House official said 43 arrests were made on Tuesday night –twice the total of the previous evening. More than 1,450 officers participated, about half of which were from the city’s police department, while only 30 national guard troops were deployed of the roughly 800 that defense officials have said are expected to arrive for the mission.

      The city’s Democratic mayor, Muriel Bowser, has sought a cordial working relationship with the president since his return to the White House, but changed her tone on Tuesday, urging residents and voters during a social media event “to protect our home rule and get to the other side of this guy and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push”.

      At his Kennedy Center appearance today, the president continued to disparage Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell. “He’s truly incompetent,” Trump said. He went on to reveal that he’ll be naming the nomination for Powell’s replacement “sometime in the next week”. He’s down to “three of four names,” he added. A reminder that Powell’s term ends in May.

      Additionally, on the foreign diplomacy front, the president took part in a virtual meeting with Zelenskyy and European leaders today which the German chancellor described as “very good” and “constructive”. Zelenskyy confirmed that Trump would call him straight after the Friday meeting with Putin to talk it through details.

      And finally, for now at least, a federal appeals court lifted a lower court’s injunction that required the state department to continue making payments to foreign aid contractors. In a 2-1 decision, the appellate panel effectively granted a Trump victory – allowing the administration to cut billions in congressionally appropriated funding for foreign assistance.
      We can soon expect to hear from Texas Democrats in Chicago, who will join several Indiana Democratic lawmakers who are pushing back against the president’s pressure campaign to redraw their own state’s congressional map.The White House said on Wednesday that law enforcement made dozens of arrests in Washington DC overnight after federal agents and national guard troops fanned out across the city as part of Donald Trump’s campaign to quell a “crime crisis” that local officials say does not exist.The national guard arrived on the National Mall late on Tuesday, while agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), FBI and Department of Homeland Security were seen in several neighborhoods , sometimes accompanied by local police officers.Video circulating on local media showed police and federal agents arresting at least one person that evening in Columbia Heights, home to the city’s largest Hispanic population. Other videos showed traffic stops near Kennedy street in Northwest Washington, which in years past has been the site of gang activity.A White House official said to expect a “significantly higher” presence of national guard troops over the days to come, as well as round-the-clock patrols by federal agents, which have thus far only been present in the evenings. The administration argues the steps are necessary to fight what Trump has called an “out of control” crime problem in the nation’s capital, but local officials have disputed that characterization.Data shows that crime rates plunged last year to the lowest levels in three decades, though the capital does have higher rates of some violent crimes compared with cities with similar populations.Democratic lawmakers have condemned Trump’s incursion as an authoritarian move intended to distract his supporters from outrage over his refusal to make public files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, a one-time friend who has become a fixation of conspiracy theorists.The Democratic mayor, Muriel Bowser, has sought a cordial relationship with Trump since his return to the White House, but changed her tone on Tuesday, urging residents and voters during a social media event “to protect our city, to protect our autonomy, to protect our home rule and get to the other side of this guy and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push”.A White House official said a total of 43 arrests were made on Tuesday night, twice the total of the previous evening. More than 1,450 officers participated, about half of which were from the city’s police department, while only 30 national guard troops were deployed of the roughly 800 that defense officials have said are expected to arrive for the mission.The White House said a total of 19 teams of officers from various federal agencies are in the city “to promote public safety and arrest violent offenders”, while the national guard will “protect federal assets, provide a safe environment for law enforcement officers to make arrests, and deter violent crime with a visible law enforcement presence”.More than 40 Ice agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI, which does long-term investigations into transnational crimes) are working with the DC police, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies this week as part of Trump’s takeover of the capital to mitigate crime, NBC News is reporting.Per NBC’s report, “they can make arrests of citizens with no nexus to immigration violations”. “Yesterday, HSI worked with other agencies in an operation near the DC Metro in Union Station; its agents told NBC News that they were not there for anything immigration related, but were surveying busy areas around DC.”Separately, Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO, which carries out operations like arresting immigrants for immigration crimes and detaining and deporting them) is increasing its operations in DC, according to NBC. The news outlet reports that “there was a ‘targeted enforcement operation’ to arrest immigrants in a Home Depot parking lot in DC yesterday, and there have been reports of other immigrant arrests in the DC area.”“The President was clear, he will make DC safe and beautiful again, and ICE is proud to be a part of the solution alongside our federal law enforcement partners,” an agency spokesperson told NBC about the operations. The agency is conducting both immigration enforcement operations and undertaking efforts to fight crime in support of the US Marshals Service, they said.They said the operations were intelligence-based, and the efforts at Union Station and the Home Depot resulted in arrests of criminal undocumented immigrants convicted of assault, theft and gang activity.“We will support the re-establishment of law and order and public safety in DC, which includes taking drug dealers, gang members, and criminal aliens off city streets,” they said.A senior official appointed to the defense department led a thinktank that promoted fake news about the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, according to InSight Crime, a non-profit analyzing organized crime.Joseph Humire was appointed this summer to be the head of policy focusing on the western hemisphere within the office of the under secretary of defense for policy. He was previously the executive director of a conservative thinktank focused on global security. Humire’s appointment comes as the Trump administration is ramping up its aggressive strategy against organized crime in Latin America and the Venezuelan government, which it accuses of working with TdA.Under Humire’s leadership, the Center for a Secure Free Society thinktank published the “TdA Activity Monitor”, tracking alleged crimes by accused members of the gang throughout the US. According to InSight Crime, at least five event entries in the tracker appeared to have been “completely fabricated”. InSight Crime found zero basis for the false entries, with local police departments telling researchers the purported crimes were nonexistent. InSight Crime analyzed more than 90 of the entries, finding many relied on unverified sources.“Some incidents are included multiple times, inflating the gang’s perceived presence and activities,” researchers found.Asked if he was confident he could get Putin to stop targeting civilians in Ukraine, Trump said:
      Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ve had that conversation with him. I’ve had a lot of good conversations with him. Then I go home and I see that a rocket hit a nursing home, or a rocket hit an apartment building and people are laying dead in the street.
      So I guess the answer to that is no, because I’ve had this conversation.
      He ended his briefing there. More

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      Confusion over the Alaska summit shows Vladimir Putin still calls the shots

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      In the five months since Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy met at the Oval Office in late February, Ukrainian officials have worked hard to repair the damage of that day, which ended with the Ukrainian president being kicked out of the White House.With advice from European allies, Zelenskyy recalibrated his strategy for dealing with the Trump administration, and there was a feeling it was broadly going well. “We managed to reset communications, to find a new language to work with Trump,” said one senior official in Kyiv a week ago.It has also seemed as if Trump’s rhetoric was finally shifting, as he termed Russia’s bombing of Ukrainian cities “disgusting” in recent weeks and set Vladimir Putin a deadline of last Friday to stop the war or face the imposition of crippling new sanctions.Then came envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow last Wednesday. Putin appears to have made no major concessions during the three-hour Kremlin meeting, and in return was rewarded not with debilitating sanctions but with an invitation to meet Trump in Alaska. The offer to thrash out a Ukrainian peace deal at a bilateral summit with Trump represents exactly the sort of great-power deal-making Putin has always craved. It will be his first trip to the US since 2007, with the exception of visits to the UN.Exactly how the Alaska summit will look is still unclear, with a particularly Trumpian kind of confusion and chaos accompanying its announcement. Kyiv, European capitals and even Trump’s own staff have been trying to understand what exactly was agreed in the Kremlin.The first announcements from the White House suggested Putin would meet Trump, followed by a three-way meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelenskyy. This was swiftly denied by Putin. As he put it, “we are still far from creating the conditions” for a meeting with Zelenskyy. An aide denied that the Russian side had ever agreed to a three-way meeting.A White House source told the New York Post on Thursday that if Putin did not agree to meet Zelenskyy, the meeting with Trump would not go ahead. But a few hours later, Trump denied that: he was happy to meet Putin anyway. The back-and-forth gave the distinct impression, not for the first time, that in the relationship between Trump and Putin, it is the Russian president who calls the shots.View image in fullscreenSome administration officials later briefed US media outlets that they may invite Zelenskyy anyway, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said in a Sunday interview he “hopes and assumes” that Zelenskyy will take part. For now, this does not seem likely. A senior White House official told NBC that Trump was “open” to a trilateral summit, but was “focusing on planning the bilateral meeting requested by president Putin”.As worrying for Kyiv as the planned format of the talks is the apparent Russian deal now on the table. The plan, as it has been reported after filtering through the Trump administration and then to European capitals, is that the Ukrainian army should unilaterally withdraw from the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk it still controls, which would presumably include the fortified military stronghold of Kramatorsk. In exchange, the Kremlin would agree to freeze the lines in other places.“Ukrainians will not give their land to occupiers,” Zelenskyy said over the weekend, adding that handing over land to Russia would violate the Ukrainian constitution. He said any deal done without Ukraine was destined to be “stillborn”.Zelenskyy’s public posture that Ukraine will never cede land is true up to a point. Kyiv is unlikely to renounce legal claims to its own territory, but the Ukrainian elite and much of Ukrainian society is increasingly ready for a deal that would recognise Russian de facto control, perhaps for a set period of time, in exchange for ending the fighting.The main problem with such a deal has always been what kind of guarantees Ukraine would receive that Russia would not simply use a ceasefire as time to regroup before attacking again. Brief discussions earlier this year about a European peacekeeping force to police a ceasefire were quickly scaled back to a “reassurance force” stationed far from the frontlines. Ukrainians would therefore have not much to rely on but Putin’s word, which they have learned from experience not to trust.Even still, there is a significant camp in the Ukrainian political and military elite who believe that, after more than three years of war, the situation has become so dire that the country is obliged to take such a deal, simply to allow for a pause in the fighting.The problem for Kyiv is the deal Putin apparently pitched to Witkoff is significantly worse than simply freezing the lines. “As things stand, Ukraine and Europe are on the verge of being confronted with exactly the kind of Faustian deal they feared would emerge back in February,” Sam Greene, a professor at King’s College London, wrote on X.Over the past few days, Zelenskyy and his team have been rallying support among European leaders and trying to put together an alternative, European plan. Unfortunately for Kyiv, previous experience suggests Trump is unwilling or unable to exert real pressure on Putin.“If Putin and Trump reach an agreement directly, Europe will be faced with a fait accompli. Kyiv – even more so,” said Roman Alekhin, a Russian war blogger, on Sunday. It is exactly that prospect Ukraine’s leadership will be doing their utmost to prevent in the days before Friday’s summit. More

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      World awaits Trump’s next move as Russia ceasefire deadline approaches

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      After taking six months to conclude that Vladimir Putin may not be a kindred transactional authoritarian leader but an ideological nationalist seeking the return of what “belongs to Russia”, the deadline Donald Trump set for the Russian president to agree a Ukraine ceasefire or face US sanctions on oil exports arrives on Friday.What Trump – who some had claimed was a Russian asset – does next to punish Putin could define his presidency.It is a remarkable turnaround and one that seasoned Trump watchers such as Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia, said they had never expected. Only months ago the debate was about what further inducements Trump would offer Putin to end the fighting. His administration has not introduced any sanctions against Russia, compared with at least 16 sets of actions in every prior six months back to February 2022, according to a report submitted to the Senate banking committee by top Democrats this week.Trump first set Putin a 50-day deadline then cut weeks off it. “Secondary sanctions and tariffs against China, India and Brazil, which buy Russian oil, are the obvious next step in an attempt to stop the conflict,” the US ambassador to Nato, Matthew Whitaker, predicted on Tuesday.But as the deadline approaches, there is lingering scepticism about how far Trump will go. He has dispatched his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Moscow for the fifth time for last-minute talks and on Friday Trump admitted he did not think sanctions would have much impact as Russians are “wily characters and pretty good at avoiding sanctions”.He has also given himself maximum room for political manoeuvre by ensuring the US Senate did not pass legislation before its summer recess that would have empowered him to slap bone-crushing 500% tariffs on exports from countries that import Russian oil, principally India, China, Brazil and Turkey.View image in fullscreenTrump had argued that the congressional legislation was unnecessary as he can act through executive orders, mentioning instead 100% tariffs on economies that import Russian oil – a whopping number, even if lower than the 500% floated by the Republican senator Lindsey Graham.It is striking that in the run-up to Witkoff’s talks in Moscow that Trump, normally keen to tout his leverage before a negotiation, has given only sketchy detail of the punishments the importers of Russian energy may face, either in terms of US sanctions on foreign refineries importing Russian oil or US tariffs on countries importing Russian oil.Some of Trump’s warnings this week to the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, that he would raise tariffs on India because its government did not care “how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian war machine” do not yet seem to fit into a wider strategy. The tensions appears as much about Trump’s previous complaints with India’s trade practices as its purchases of cheap Russian oil. They are due to start on August 27.Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Century, said if India was to receive a penalty but China – the largest buyer of most Russian crude – did not, the Russian oil trade may just go further underground. Some of Trump’s advisers, notably the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, warned China last week of tariff hikes related to Russia energy purchases, but it is hard to see such threats as credible given Trump’s eagerness for a trade deal with China and the risks associated with a sudden stop to trade between China and the US. In 2024 China accounted for 32% of Russian petroleum and oil exports.McFaul told Foreign Policy magazine about a possible boomerang effect if generalised increases in tariffs turn into a full trade war.Trump has wavered about the impact of economic pressure on Putin. Many academics say that sanctions on oil reshape economic relationships and change markets rather than produce changes in state behaviour.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThree years of sanctions on Russia have so far been – at best – a slow burn. Russia chalked up economic growth of 4% in 2023 and 2024, kept unemployment to an astonishing 2%, and even reduced social inequality by sustaining real wage growth that has disproportionately benefited Russians at the lower end of the economic ladder, a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based thinktank, found. The authors predicted that Russia’s economy can withstand the current level of sanctions for at least three more years.But the report also pointed to developing vulnerabilities in Russia. Interest rates are at 18%, inflation stubbornly high and growth is stalling. Russia has had to rework its 2025 budget as oil revenues slipped, largely because of a fall in prices and the discounts importers such as India could demand. As a result, government revenues from Russian oil and gas in May-June were 35% lower than the same period in 2024, the Kyiv School of Economics said in its July review. Russian oil export revenue is projected to drop 16% from $189bn (£142bn) in 2024 to $163bn in 2025 and $151bn in 2026.The federal budget deficit reached 3.7tn rubles ($40.4bn) in the first half of 2025 – 97% of the full-year target of 3.8tn rubles. This is more than five times larger than the deficit in the first half of 2024 and 57% higher than the largest first six-month deficit in recent years (2023). Oil prices are unlikely to recover significantly, meaning Russia will miss its budget target by a wide margin, increasing reliance on its national welfare fund (NWF) and domestic debt issuance.View image in fullscreenThe NWF’s liquid assets are also under pressure, with Russia expected to draw heavily on these reserves by year end. In a report this week, Oxford Economics predicted that Russia “may tip into recession”.The overall reason is simple: the level of military spending, including the cost of voluntary recruitment is distorting the economy. The economist Janis Kluge, who conducts research on Russia at the Berlin thinktank SWP, thinks overall Russian military spending is 8 to 10% of GDP once all expenditure including regional recruitment is included.The pressure could grow. The EU’s most recent sanctions package included a ban from next January on buying oil products made from Russian crude. The package for the first time put sanctions on a big Indian refinery, Nayara Energy, causing Microsoft this week to suspend software services. Other refineries could be placed under sanction – with the UK likely following suit – but the question then arises as to how the supply gap created by the loss of Russian oil can be filled.Moreover, if Trump is joining sanctions, the US and Europe will have to come to a joint decision on the continuing value of the elaborate oil price cap, a Biden-era device designed to squeeze Russian oil profits while keeping the global price of oil low.The cap was introduced across the G7 in December 2022 and operates by withdrawing insurance from any shipping company that has not obtained a certificate that it is selling Russian oil below $60 a barrel, but a multitude of problems have arisen.In recent months, as the price of oil has fallen, it’s become evident the $60 cap was set too high. The cap has also led to the birth of a shadow fleet of oil tankers operating without formal insurance that are now being sanctioned by the EU, the US and the UK. The UK and the EU have agreed to lower the price cap from 2 September to $47.60 a barrel, but Trump is keeping the US cap at $60 a barrel, a recipe for circumvention.The one prerequisite is that Trump must not back off, McFaul said. “Making threats and not carrying through with them is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in diplomacy.” The former ambassador recalled George Shultz, the great Reagan-era US secretary of state, saying “never point a gun at anyone unless you are prepared to shoot”. More

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      Trump cuts deadline for Putin to reach Ukraine peace deal to ‘10 or 12 days’

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      Donald Trump’s timeline for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine has sped up, the president said while visiting Nato ally Great Britain on Monday.“I’m going to make a new deadline of about 10, 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump said in response to a question while sitting with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer. “There’s no reason in waiting. There’s no reason in waiting. It’s 50 days. I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.”Russian and Ukrainian diplomats met in Istanbul last week, agreeing on little more than a prisoner exchange. Ukraine proposed a summit by the end of August between the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, but Russia’s reply was that such a meeting would only be appropriate if it were to sign an agreement. The meeting was the third negotiation in Istanbul. Putin has not attended any of the talks, despite Trump’s exhortations.Trump’s comments in recent weeks reflect the continuing change from his almost-conciliatory posture. US diplomats asked China to stop exports of dual-use goods that the Washington says contribute to Russia’s military industrial base.Trump said he was “disappointed” in Putin earlier on Monday. “We thought we had that settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever. You have bodies lying all over the street, and I say that’s not the way to do it. So we’ll see what happens with that.”Two weeks ago, Trump promised a punishing round of new sanctions against Russia if Putin did not begin a ceasefire period for negotiations. An agreement for European allies to purchase billions of dollars in additional armaments for Ukraine, including Patriot missile defense systems, accompanied the 15 July statement during a meeting with Nato’s secretary general, Mark Rutte.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump hosted Starmer and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, at his Turnberry golf course in Scotland, where ending the war in Ukraine and trade issues have been at the top of the agenda. Before leaving Washington on Friday, Trump said that he was considering secondary sanctions on Russia amid the war in Ukraine. More

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      Trump news at a glance: president tells Europe to ‘stop the windmills’ ahead of EU and UK trade talks

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      Donald Trump spent the night at his family-owned golf resort in Scotland but took time to criticise European leaders over wind turbines and immigration, claiming there won’t be a Europe unless they “get their act together”.“I say two things to Europe. Stop the windmills. You’re ruining your countries. I really mean it, it’s so sad. You fly over and you see these windmills all over the place, ruining your beautiful fields and valleys and killing your birds,” he said.“On immigration, you better get your act together or you’re not going to have Europe any more.”Intensive negotiations continued on Saturday between the EU and the US before a crunch meeting in Scotland between Trump and the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, seeking to avert a costly trade war.Here’s more on this and the day’s other key Trump administration stories.Trump skips press meeting to play golf before US-EU talksDonald Trump abandoned a scheduled meeting with the press on Saturday morning for a round of golf at his seaside course in Turnberry, with music blaring from the buggy he drove.During what is billed as a four-day family visit to Scotland, Trump is meeting European leaders and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, raising hopes of new and refined trade deals with the EU and the UK.On the prospects of an EU trade deal, the US president has said there are “20 sticking points”. When asked what they were, he said: “Well, I don’t want to tell you what the sticking points are.”He described Ursula von der Leyen as a “highly respected woman” and said the meeting on Sunday with the EU chief would be “good”, rating the chances of a deal as “a good 50-50”.Read the full storyDemocrats request copy of Epstein ‘birthday book’ House Democrats on Friday sent a letter to the attorneys representing the estate of Jeffrey Epstein requesting a copy of the so-called “birthday book” that reportedly contains a crude poem and doodle from Donald Trump in celebration of the late sex offender’s 50th birthday.In the letter, California congressmen Ro Khanna and Robert Garcia say the contents of the book may be “essential” to congressional oversight of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein controversy. In the letter, they ask for a “complete and unredacted” copy of the book by 10 August.Read the full storyDoge reportedly using AI tool to create ‘delete list’ of federal regulationsThe “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is using artificial intelligence to create a “delete list” of federal regulations, according to a report, proposing to use the tool to cut 50% of regulations by the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s second inauguration.The “Doge AI Deregulation Decision Tool” will analyze 200,000 government regulations, according to internal documents obtained by the Washington Post, and select those it deems to be no longer required by law.Read the full storyTrump says Cambodia and Thailand agree to ‘immediate’ ceasefire talksThailand and Cambodia have agreed to “immediately meet” to work out a ceasefire, according to Donald Trump, who spoke to the leaders of both countries as he sought an end to clashes that continued for a third consecutive day.In social media posts, Trump said: “Both parties are looking for an immediate ceasefire and peace”, adding he would not negotiate a trade deal with either side until the fighting stopped.Read the full storyUnease as crowded Cotswolds braces for JD Vance’s summer holidayThe narrow lanes and honeyed stone walls of Stow-on-the-Wold are not the setting where one would expect to see an angry altercation. But could this charming UK town soon find itself at the heart of the angry US culture wars?According to reports, the US vice-president, JD Vance, will be holidaying in the Cotswolds with his family next month, and protesters are determined to let him know just how warm the welcome will not be in England’s chocolate box countryside.Read the full storyWoman who fled Cuba for asylum arrested at US immigration courtroomJenny, 25, entered the US legally, but Ice agents arrested her after a hearing, part of a growing trend of court detentions.Read the full storyMen freed from El Salvador mega-prison endured ‘state-sanctioned torture’, lawyers sayVenezuelans whom the Trump administration expelled to El Salvador’s most notorious megaprison endured “state-sanctioned torture”, lawyers for some of the men have said, as more stories emerge about the horrors they faced during capacity.Read the full storyCan a rural hospital on the brink survive Trump’s bill?Republican lawmakers voted for the “big beautiful bill” but cuts to Medicaid will hit hard in rural areas like Missouri’s poorest county, Pemiscot.The Pemiscot Memorial hospital has long been the destination for those who encounter catastrophe in this rural stretch of farms and towns. Yet its days of serving its community may be numbered.Read the full storyHundreds removed from ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ detention camp, DeSantis saysFlorida has begun deporting people from the notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” detention camp, the state’s governor said, and deportations are expected to increase in the coming weeks.At a press conference at the controversial facility, Ron DeSantis said “hundreds of illegals have been removed” from the facility. He later clarified that most of those were flown from Alligator Alcatraz to other detention facilities in the US.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      A debating opponent of the leftwing media figure Mehdi Hasan in a controversial viral YouTube video was previously the organizer of two violent far-right protests in Berkeley, California, in 2017, the Guardian can reveal.

      Authorities in Michigan are investigating after multiple people were stabbed at a Walmart in Traverse City, police said on Saturday.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 25 July 2025. More

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      Trump’s shift on Ukraine has been dramatic – but will it change the war? | Rajan Menon

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      Donald Trump presents himself as a peerless president, an unrivaled negotiator, even a “genius”. So it’s a unique moment when he comes close – I emphasize the qualifier –to conceding that another leader has outfoxed him. Trump suggested as much recently when characterizing Vladimir Putin’s modus operandi. “Putin,” he told reporters on 13 July, “really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice and then bombs everybody in the evening.” Melania Trump may have contributed to this reassessment. As Trump recounted recently, when he told her about a “wonderful conversation” with the Russian leader, she responded, “Oh, really? Another city was just hit.”Trump’s new take on Putin is a break with the past. His esteem for Putin – whose decisions he has described as “savvy” and “genius” – has contrasted starkly with his derisive comments about the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he memorably disrespected during a White House meeting and even blamed for starting the war.As recently as February, he declared that Russia’s invasion didn’t matter to the United States because, unlike Europe, it was separated from Ukraine by “a big, big beautiful ocean”. He criticized Joe Biden’s assistance to Ukraine as a waste of taxpayers’ money.Now, Trump has not only changed his view of Putin, stunning many within his “America First” MagaA movement; he’s decided to start arming Ukraine. Well, sort of.Trump has gone beyond in effect conceding that Putin has played him. He has decided to sell military equipment to individual European countries so that they can supply Ukraine and restock their arsenals with purchases from the United States. The president formally announced the change during his 14 July meeting with Mark Rutte, Nato’s secretary general.There was more. Trump warned Putin that if he did not accept a ceasefire – which he has steadfastly refused, just as he has ignored Trump’s demand to stop bombing Ukraine’s cities – within 50 days, Russia would be slammed with tariffs as high as 100%, as would countries that continued to trade with it after the deadline.Two things are clear. First, Trump’s perspective on Putin has changed, unexpectedly and dramatically. Second, a war that Trump once said was none of America’s business now apparently matters. The president said European countries would buy “top of the line” American military equipment worth “billions of dollars” to arm Ukraine. According to one report citing “a source familiar with the plan”, the total will be $10bn.This all sounds like a very big deal. But here’s where it becomes important to go beyond the headlines and soundbites and delve into the details.Take the $10bn figure. That’s certainly not chump change. Moreover, the main piece of equipment specified so far, the Patriot “long range, high altitude, all weather” missile defense system, will provide desperately needed relief to Ukrainian city dwellers, who have endured relentless waves of drone attacks – several hundred a night – followed by missiles that slice through overwhelmed defenses. Ukraine has some Patriots but needs more: it’s a vast country with a dozen cities whose populations exceed 400,000.However, a Patriot battery (launchers, missiles, a radar system, a control center, antenna masts, and a power generator) costs $1bn, the missiles alone $4m apiece. Ukraine may not need 10 Patriot batteries, but even a smaller number will consume a large proportion of the $10bn package. The other system that has been mentioned is the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (Jassm), which combines stealth technology and GPS guidance with a 230-mile range. Ukraine will be able to use its American-made F-16 jets to fire Jassms into Russia from positions beyond the reach of Russian air defense systems. But a single Jassm costs about $1.5m, so the costs will add up quickly. Additional items have been mentioned but only generically; still, their price must also be figured in, bearing in mind that the war could drag on. So, $10bn could be depleted quickly.Moreover, beyond a certain point the US cannot sell equipment from its own stocks without regard to its military readiness requirements. Precisely for that reason, the defense department recently declined to send Ukraine some of the equipment promised under Joe Biden.And Trump has not said that there will be follow-on sales to benefit Ukraine once the $10bn mark is reached. Even if he were to change his mind, individual European countries would be able to buy only so much American weaponry without straining their finances, especially because France and Italy have opted out of the arrangement. Trump has been uninterested in joining the recent move by the UK and the EU to impose a $47.60 per barrel price cap on Russian oil sales, toughening the $60 limit the west enacted in 2022. Finally, Trump isn’t going to resume Biden’s multibillion-dollar military assistance packages – 70-plus tranches of equipment, according to the DoD.Trump’s 50-day tariff deadline permits Putin to continue his summer offensive, and may even provide an incentive to accelerate it. Russia has already shrugged off Trump’s tariff threat. Its exports to the US in 2024 amounted to $526m, a tiny fraction of its global sales.By contrast, Trump’s secondary tariffs will hurt Russia, which earned $192bn in 2024 from its global exports of oil and related products, much of that sum from India and China. If the president follows through with his threat, Beijing will surely retaliate, and the consequence will be painful: the United States exports to China totaled $144bn last year. Will Trump proceed anyway, and during his ongoing trade wars, which have already started increasing prices in the US? His track record on tariff threats leaves room for doubt.Ukraine’s leaders are understandably elated by Trump’s reappraisal of Putin. But it’s premature to conclude that it’s a turning point that could change the war’s trajectory. Washington’s new policy may prove far less momentous than Maga critics fear and not quite as transformative as Kyiv and its western supporters hope for.

      Rajan Menon is a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies More