An agreement has been reached for Putin and Trump to meet ‘in the coming days’ to discuss a ceasefire, a Kremlin aide reportedly told Russian media.
The venue for the meeting has been agreed and is due to be announced later, and all parties have begun working on the details, IFAX reports, citing Yuri Ushakov.
It comes after Trump said there was “a good chance” of a leaders' summit between Putin and Zelensky, which would be their first meeting since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The face-to-face meeting would also be the first between a sitting US and Russian president since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021, some eight months before Russia launched the biggest attack on a European nation since the Second World War.
Earlier, Trump said his envoy Steve Witkoff made “great progress” in a meeting with Putin in Moscow, adding: “Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come.”
Read More
Ukraine-Russia latest: Key Points
- Kremlin: Trump and Putin to hold meeting 'in coming days'
- US sanctions expected to hit Russia despite high-level talks
- Russia more inclined to ceasefire now, says Zelensky
- Trump hails ‘great progress’ in Putin talks – but no sign of end to Ukraine war
- Zelensky to speak to Germany, France, Italy to discuss peace steps
- Zelensky will be bullied if Britain not invited to peace talks: UK former defence secretary
Putin to visit soon: reports
12:00
,
Steffie Banatvala
Russian President Putin is set to visit India soon, NDTV reported, citing India’s National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval.
Mr Doval is in Moscow but did not specify dates.
We are very excited and delighted to learn about the visit of President Putin to India. I think the dates are almost finalised now.
The NSA
ICYMI Watch: Trump envoy Witkoff meets Putin in Moscow as Russia-Ukraine peace deadline looms
11:30
,
Steffie Banatvala
Putin-Trump meeting likely to take place next week: reports
11:29
,
Steffie Banatvala
Putin and Trump are likely to meet next week, RIA reported, citing Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov.
More follows...
Zelensky will be bullied if Britain not invited to peace talks: UK former defence sec
11:23
,
Steffie Banatvala
Zelensky will be bullied by Trump and Putin if Britain is not invited to peace talks, UK former defence secretary has said.
“Because both Trump and Putin are known to be bullies, they bully people all the time, and I don’t think two bullies versus Zelensky, who is a brave man, but I don’t think would necessarily produce the right outcomes,” Sir Ben Wallace told Times Radio.
Ukraine says it struck Russia's Afipsky oil refinery
11:19
,
Steffie Banatvala
The Ukrainian military said on Thursday its drone units had hit the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar region, sparking flames in gas processing equipment.
Russian emergency services reported a fire at the plant caused by falling drone debris.
Explained: How much Russian oil does India buy?
11:00
,
Steffie Banatvala
As Trump’s sweeping new global tariffs have come into force today, India is set to be hit by another 25 percent in late August, bringing the total to 50 percent.
The tariffs aim to target India’s big purchases of Russian oil, the cornerstone of Moscow’s war coffers and economy.
Here, Arpan Rai explains:
Russia says it shot down eight Storm Shadow missiles: Ifax
10:43
,
Steffie Banatvala
Russia's Defence Ministry said on Thursday it had shot down eight British-made Storm Shadow missiles in service with the Ukrainian army over the past 24 hours, Interfax news agency reported.
Russia also hit a railway hub used for transferring weapons and military equipment to Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, the ministry added.
In pictures: Ukraine troops on the front line in Donetsk
10:30
,
Steffie Banatvala
Russian security official meets Indian national security adviser, stresses 'strategic partnership'
10:01
,
Steffie Banatvala
Russian security official Sergei Shoigu met Indian national security adviser Ajit Doval on Thursday and told him Moscow was committed to a “comprehensive strengthening of the joint strategic partnership” between the two countries.
The meeting, extracts of which were aired on the Russian state TV channel Zvezda, came a day after US President Donald Trump vowed to raise tariffs on India further because of its purchases of Russian oil.
Russian stock index jumps after Putin-Trump meeting announced
10:00
,
Steffie Banatvala
Russia's stock market index rose 4.5 percent after the Kremlin announced Putin and Trump would meet ‘in the coming days’.
There has been no summit of U.S. and Russian leaders since Putin and Joe Biden met in Geneva in June 2021 - before Russia went to war in Ukraine in February 2022.
Trump has moved to mend relations with Russia and try to end the war, although in his public comments he has veered between admiration and sharp condemnation of Putin.
6 killed, 35 injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine over past day: reports
09:45
,
Steffie Banatvala
At least six civilians died and 35 people were injured in Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day, local media cited regional authorities as saying.
Russia launched 112 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy drones overnight, Ukraine’s air force said.
Trump’s new import tariffs now in force against scores of countries
09:15
,
Steffie Banatvala
Sweeping new global tariffs imposed by Donald Trump have come into force today.
This includes a 50 per cent tariff for goods from Brazil, 39 per cent from Switzerland, 35 per cent from Canada and 25 per cent from India.
A separate 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods on Wednesday will be imposed in 21 days over the country's purchases of Russian oil.
Kremlin: Trump and Putin to hold meeting 'in coming days'
09:10
,
Steffie Banatvala
Russia and the United States have agreed on a meeting between Putin and Trump in the coming days, the Russian news agency IFAX reports, citing Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov.
All parties have begun working on the details, the official reportedly said.
The venue for the meeting has also been agreed and is due to be announced later.
“At the suggestion of the American side, an agreement was agreed in principle to hold a bilateral summit in the coming days, that is, a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump,” Ushakov said.
Opinion: Witkoff will bring back humiliation from Putin meeting
08:45
,
Steffie Banatvala
Steve Witkoff – the president’s international diplomatic Mr Fixit – has failed to bring peace to the Middle East or deliver on Trump’s boast that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley:
Zelensky to speak to Germany, France, Italy to discuss peace steps
08:18
,
Steffie Banatvala
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he planned contacts with Germany, France and Italy to discuss progress toward peace.
Zelensky said he planned to discuss a ceasefire, a leaders' summit and long-term security, following a the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US special envoy Steve Witkoff on Wednesday.
In pictures: Ukraine forces fire towards Russian troops in Donetsk
08:15
,
Steffie Banatvala
Trump could meet Putin in person as soon as next week, says White House official
08:00
,
Arpan Rai
President Donald Trump could meet in person with Russian president Vladimir Putin as soon as next week in his bid to continue to negotiate for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, a White House official has said.
The official added that a meeting has not been scheduled yet and no location has been determined.
The White House said Trump was also open to a meeting with both Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump, appearing before reporters later at the White House, didn't answer questions about a potential location for a meeting but when asked about a summit with Putin and Zelensky, said "there's a very good prospect that they will" meet.
However, the president declined to predict how close he was to reaching a deal to end the fighting, saying, "I've been disappointed before with this one."
More Ukrainians now want a negotiated end to the war with Russia, new Gallup poll shows
07:50
,
Arpan Rai
Ukrainians are increasingly eager for a settlement that ends the fight against Russia's invasion, according to a new Gallup poll published today.
In the survey conducted in early July, about seven in 10 Ukrainians say their country should seek to negotiate a settlement as soon as possible.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky last month renewed his offer to meet with Russia's Vladimir Putin, but his overture was rebuffed as Russia sticks to its demands, and the sides remain far apart.
Most Ukrainians do not expect a lasting peace anytime soon, the poll found. Only about one-quarter say it's "very" or "somewhat" likely that active fighting will end within the next 12 months, while about seven in 10 think it's "somewhat" or "very" unlikely that active fighting will be over in the next year.
The enthusiasm for a negotiated deal is a sharp reversal from 2022 — the year the war began — when Gallup found that about three-quarters of Ukrainians wanted to keep fighting until victory.
Now only about one-quarter hold that view, with support for continuing the war declining steadily across all regions and demographic groups.
The findings were based on samples of 1,000 or more respondents ages 15 and older living in Ukraine. Some territories under entrenched Russian control, representing about 10 per cent of the population, were excluded from surveys conducted after 2022 due to lack of access.
When did Putin and Trump last meet?
07:36
,
Arpan Rai
A face-to-face meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin would be the first between a sitting US and Russian president since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021.
This came eight months before Russia launched the biggest attack on a European nation since the Second World War.
Trump himself last met Putin in Helsinki in 2018 where the two men held nearly two hours of closed-door talks in the capital city.
In March this year, Putin gifted Trump a portrait of the US president commissioned by him and sent via Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff when he was in Moscow for a meeting.
Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky have not met since December 2019 and make no secret of their contempt for each other.
However, Zelensky has issued open invitations to his Russian counterpart for a face-to-face meeting to negotiate an end to the war.
Russia's Afipsky oil refinery on fire after Ukraine drone attack
07:14
,
Arpan Rai
A fire has broken out at the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar region due to falling drone debris, local emergency services said this morning.
The fire was extinguished soon after it started, the local emergency services added.
The Russian defence ministry said that air defence systems had shot down nine Ukrainian drones over the region overnight.
Fighting on frontline in Ukraine continues as Moscow and Kyiv gear up for diplomacy
07:09
,
Arpan Rai
At least two people were killed and 12, including two children, were injured in Russian attacks from Tuesday overnight into Wednesday, officials said.
Russian forces hit a recreational centre in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region yesterday, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said.
Russian forces launched at least four strikes on the area and initially attacked with powerful glide bombs.
"There is zero military sense in this strike. Only cruelty to intimidate," Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on Telegram.
Russia also struck the Ukrainian power grid and facilities for heating and cooking gas, Mr Zelensky said, as Ukraine makes preparations for winter.
Western analysts and Ukrainian officials say Russian president Vladimir Putin is stalling for time and avoiding serious negotiations while Russian forces push to capture more Ukraine land.
A Russian offensive that started in the spring and is expected to continue through the fall is advancing faster than last year's push but is making only slow and costly gains and has been unable to take any major cities.
The situation on the frontline is critical for Ukrainian forces but defences are not about to collapse, analysts say.
Editorial: If Trump is finally ‘done’ with Putin, a new dimension of uncertainty opens up
06:48
,
Arpan Rai
In a remarkably calm and candid interview with the BBC’s Gary O’Donoghue a few weeks ago, Donald Trump was asked if he was “done” with Vladimir Putin. The president replied directly: “I’m not done with him, but I’m disappointed in him.”
A week later, as if to prove the point, President Trump announced a 50-day deadline for Putin to end the war. Last week, with zero response from the Kremlin and continued attacks on Ukrainian civilians, that deadline was brought forward to the end of this week, and Mr Trump sent his personal envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Moscow.
It may be that, much against his intentions both in the campaign last year and in his diplomacy during his first term, President Trump may well be soon “done” with Putin. That opens up a whole new dimension of uncertainty.
Watch: Trump envoy Witkoff meets Putin in Moscow as Russia-Ukraine peace deadline looms
06:30
,
Arpan Rai
What we know about Putin's meeting with Trump's peace envoy Witkoff
06:18
,
Arpan Rai
Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow yesterday, which the US president lauded as “a highly productive meeting" in which "great progress was made."
- Witkoff met with Putin days before the White House's deadline for Russia to reach a peace deal with Ukraine or potentially face severe economic penalties that could also hit countries buying its oil.
- The meeting between Putin and Witkoff lasted about three hours, the Kremlin said.
- Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said Putin and Witkoff had a "useful and constructive conversation" that focused on the Ukrainian crisis and, in a nod toward improving relations between Washington and Moscow, "prospects for possible development of strategic cooperation" between the United States and Russia.
- White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said after the meeting that Trump intends to meet with both Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.
- Additionally, two people familiar with the matter said Trump could hold a bilateral meeting with Putin followed by a trilateral meeting with Zelensky as soon as next week, reported the New York Times.
Zelensky marks one year of Kursk incursion: 'A truly Ukrainian historic operation'
06:04
,
Arpan Rai
Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ukrainian forces who carried out the country’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk oblast a year ago as he marked the anniversary.
Ukrainian forces pushed into Kursk on 6 August last year in a surprise attack, with battle-hardened mechanised units quickly overwhelming lightly armed Russian border guards and inexperienced army conscripts. Hundreds were taken prisoner.
The incursion was a humiliating blow to the Kremlin – the first time the country’s territory was occupied by an invader since the Second World War.
“Today marks the anniversary of the Kursk operation – a truly Ukrainian historic operation. We brought the war onto the territory of the aggressor state and are still operating on its territory. At a time when many spoke that the situation had reached a stalemate, and were losing faith in Ukraine, we proved that Ukrainians know how to act right,” he said in his nightly address.
Ukraine proved that many of Russia’s threats were just bluffs, he said.
“Thirteen hundred kilometres of Russian territory were under our control. And this forced the Russians not only to pull their forces away from the Donetsk region, but also to ask North Korea for help,” Zelensky said, calling the historic incursion “the most important chapters of this war”.
Chris Stevenson explains why Ukraine launched an audacious cross-border attack on Putin’s forces in Russia:
US understands conditions under which Russia would end war in Ukraine, says Rubio
05:45
,
Arpan Rai
The US has a better understanding of the conditions under which Russia would be prepared to end its war in Ukraine after president Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff met with Vladimir Putin, secretary of state Marco Rubio said.
The key elements of any ceasefire agreement would involve territory, he said.
"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”.
Trump hails ‘great progress’ in Putin talks – but no sign of end to Ukraine war
05:33
,
Arpan Rai
Donald Trump has claimed the end of the Ukraine war could come in weeks, despite his deadline for Vladimir Putin to reach a ceasefire running out in a matter of days.
The US president insisted “great progress” had been made between his special envoy Steve Witkoff and the Russian president following a three-hour meeting in Moscow yesterday.
Mr Witkoff had travelled to Russia in an attempt to convince the Russian president to sign a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine.
Afterwards, Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social: “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. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”.
Trump’s envoy Witkoff will bring back only humiliation from his meeting with Putin
05:13
,
Arpan Rai
Arriving in Moscow ahead of Donald Trump’s “ceasefire or suffer” Friday deadline for the Kremlin, Steve Witkoff might have wondered what he’s there for. To threaten? Reassure? Or repeat the cooing, craven performances he’s shown Vladimir Putin in the past?
The US president has been taking a much tougher line, in public, when it comes to getting Russia to wind down its war against Ukraine, in a shift away from the blatantly pro-Putin stand of his earlier presidency.
If Russia doesn’t join ceasefire discussions by Friday, Trump has threatened to implement more sanctions against Moscow.
World affairs editor Sam Kiley writes:
US sanctions expected to hit Russia tomorrow despite high-level talks
05:10
,
Arpan Rai
The US is expected to continue with its plan to impose secondary sanctions against Russia on Friday, after a 10-day deadline that Donald Trump imposed is to expire, a White House official said yesterday.
The high-level talks between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian president Vladimir Putin did not yield results to prevent the sanctions from Trump administration, the officials said.
“The Russians are eager to continue engaging with the United States,” a White House official said after the meeting, adding that “the secondary sanctions are still expected to be implemented on Friday”.
The White House has not yet released details about the sanctions.
Washington has threatened "severe tariffs" and other economic penalties if the killing in the Russia-Ukraine war doesn't stop.
Trump also has threatened to slap tariffs on nations that buy Russian oil, which could increase import taxes dramatically on China and India. On Tuesday, he said he hadn't publicly committed to any particular tariff rate, and indicated that his decision could depend on an outcome of the meeting with Putin.
Russia more inclined to ceasefire now, says Zelensky
04:58
,
Arpan Rai
Russia is now more inclined to agree to a ceasefire in the Ukraine war, president Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday.
In a social media post yesterday evening, Zelensky said he and Donald Trump spoke on the phone after US special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Vladimir Putin.
He said "European leaders also participated in the conversation," and "we discussed what was said in Moscow."
"It seems that Russia is now more inclined to agree to a ceasefire," Mr Zelensky said, adding that the pressure on Moscow "is working," without elaborating.
The Ukrainian war-time leader stressed it was important to make sure Russia does not "deceive us or the United States" when it comes to "the details" of a potential agreement.
Kyiv proposes that Ukraine and its allies soon "talk to determine our position, our common position, and our common view."
Rubio says 'a lot must happen' before Trump and Putin meet
04:49
,
Arpan Rai
US secretary of state Marco Rubio, who was asked in an interview on Fox Business about a potential meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, said "a lot has to happen before that can occur."
Rubio said the US would be having talks with its European allies and the Ukrainians over the next few days.
He said Trump meeting directly with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine would help close an agreement, but said: "We've got to get close enough to that point so that a meeting like that will be productive and worth doing."
"Today was a good day, but we've got a lot of work ahead," he said. "There's still many impediments to overcome."
Trump could meet Putin in person as soon as next week, says White House official
04:41
,
Arpan Rai
President Donald Trump could meet in person with Russian president Vladimir Putin as soon as next week in his bid to continue to negotiate for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, a White House official has said.
The official added that a meeting has not been scheduled yet and no location has been determined.
The White House said Trump was also open to a meeting with both Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump, appearing before reporters later at the White House, didn't answer questions about a potential location for a meeting but when asked about a summit with Putin and Zelensky, said "there's a very good prospect that they will" meet.
However, the president declined to predict how close he was to reaching a deal to end the fighting, saying, "I've been disappointed before with this one."