Trump tells Putin: Agree ceasefire on Friday or face severe consequences

Donald Trump has warned Vladimir Putin there would be “severe consequences” if he did not agree to end his war on Ukraine at their summit in Alaska on Friday.

The US president revealed on Wednesday his intention to seek an immediate second meeting with Putin, this time involving Volodymyr Zelensky, after their one-on-one talks in Alaska.

Mr Trump said: “If the first one goes okay, we’ll have a quick second one. I would like to do it almost immediately, and we’ll have a quick second meeting between President Putin and President Zelensky and myself, if they’d like to have me there.”

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About 40% of Canadians, Americans believe lasting peace can be reached in Ukraine war: poll

Almost half of Canadians believe the federal government is providing the right amount of support to Ukraine in the war against Russia, while 14 per cent think Canada is not supportive enough, according to a new poll.

The poll, which was conducted by Leger for the Metropolis Institute and the Association for Canadian Studies, compared Canadian and American opinions about the war, which started in 2014, but reached a new height in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine.

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EU leaders defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide future ahead of Trump-Putin summit

European Union leaders made a rallying call to defend Ukraine’s freedom to decide its own future in advance of their virtual summit with Donald Trump – convened to discuss US strategy before the president’s talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday.

With the exception of Hungary, all EU leaders signed a joint statement, with Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, also calling for the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to attend the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Friday.

Trump insists his meeting with Putin is a “feel-out” to gauge the Russian leader’s willingness to compromise, but European leaders fear Trump will be lured into a joint declaration with Moscow that involves irretrievable concessions before substantive talks between Ukraine and Russia.

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Ukraine prepared to cede territory held by Russia

Ukraine could agree to stop fighting and cede territory already held by Russia as part of a European-backed plan for peace.

Volodymyr Zelensky told European leaders that they must reject any settlement proposed by Donald Trump which sees them giving up Ukrainian land they still hold – but that Ukrainian territory in Russia’s control could be on the table.

This would mean freezing the frontline where it is and handing Russia de-facto control of the territory it occupies in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea.

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America is done with funding Ukraine war, says JD Vance

Washington is “done with the funding” of Ukraine’s war against Russia, JD Vance, the US vice-president, has said, as Europe scrambles to build a united defence before in-person negotiations between Presidents Trump and Putin.

Speaking in an interview after an emergency summit with European and Ukrainian officials, co-hosted by David Lammy at Chevening, the foreign secretary’s mansion in Kent, Vance said Americans were fed up with paying towards the cost of the war.

“What we said to the Europeans is simply, first of all, this is in your neck of the woods. This is in your back door,” he told Fox News. “You guys have got to step up and take a bigger role in this thing. And if you care so much about this conflict, you should be willing to play a more direct and a more substantial way in funding this war yourself, I think the president and I certainly think that America, we’re done with the funding of the Ukraine war business.

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Frantic Europeans push their own Ukraine plan before Trump summit

Leaders are lobbying JD Vance with an alternative path to peace, fearing the meeting with Putin could redraw the map

European leaders were pulling together an alternative peace plan for Ukraine on Saturday night before Donald Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.

The US president will meet Putin on American soil without President Zelensky, to seek an end to the war. Trump has strongly suggested a deal would involve Kyiv conceding territory, but in an address to the nation yesterday morning, Zelensky insisted that Ukrainians “will not gift their land to the occupier”.

Hours later JD Vance, the US vice-president, outlined Trump’s plan for the summit to senior European and Ukrainian officials at a meeting co-hosted by David Lammy at Chevening, the foreign secretary’s mansion in Kent.

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Zelensky rejects giving up land to ‘occupiers’ ahead of Trump meeting with Putin

Volodymyr Zelensky has vowed Ukraine will never cede territory to “occupiers” as he dismissed the planned meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

The US president announced on Friday that his Russian counterpart will travel to the US on Aug 15 for the meeting in Alaska.

It could mark a significant step towards ending the war in Ukraine after weeks of Mr Trump expressing frustration that more has not been done to quell the conflict.

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Donald Trump confirms Putin is flying to US soil for showdown meeting

President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin next week in Alaska.

The president broke the news on his Truth Social social media platform, confirming that the meeting would take place on Friday, August 15.

‘The highly anticipated meeting between myself, as President of the United States of America, and President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, will take place next Friday, August 15, 2025, in the Great State of Alaska,’ Trump wrote. ‘Further details to follow. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’

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Putin offers little sign that Trump talks will lead to peace

In his attempts to end the war in Ukraine, President Trump has struggled to pin down Moscow to a deal he once boasted he would achieve within 24 hours of taking office.

After veering from optimism to despair and back again, the US leader is hoping for a summit in the coming days with President Putin, followed by three-way talks that would include President Zelensky of Ukraine.

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Russian Opposition Leader Predicts Peace Upcoming, Says Biden Administration Was ‘Afraid of Ukraine’s Victory’

Ten years after Ilya Ponomarev fled from Russia, the Putin government launched its fifth assassination attempt, leaving his Ukrainian home in ruins while the opposition leader and his wife were rushed, covered in blood, to the hospital. Three hundred sixty-eight days later, Ponomarev sat down with The American Spectator in Washington, D.C., for an exclusive interview.

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Conrad Black: Putin’s Cavalier Rejection of Trump’s Overtures Will End Badly for Russia

It is about to become obvious that Russian President Vladimir Putin has committed an error of historic proportions in unleashing an aggressive war on Ukraine and provocatively ignoring the Trump administration’s genuine efforts to give Russia a way to withdraw from this barbarous misadventure with something to show for it.

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Ukraine uncovers drone procurement corruption scheme

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies uncovered a major graft scheme in the procurement of military drones and electronic warfare equipment, two days after their independence was restored in a humiliating U-turn for Volodymyr Zelensky.

The Ukrainian president had pushed through a controversial bill that removed the autonomy of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (Nabu) and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (Sapo), placing them under the control of the General Prosecutor’s Office, which is led by Zelensky loyalists and mistrusted by many Ukrainians.

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Has Zelensky lost the West?

He is becoming a liability

As uneventful diplomatic talks in Istanbul wrapped up with little more than discussions of a prisoners-of-war swap and vague promises of further meetings, Volodymyr Zelensky found himself facing a crisis much closer to home: unprecedented protests erupting across major Ukrainian cities.

Thousands took to the streets to denounce a controversial law that, according to Zelensky, was designed to “curtail Russian influence” — but which would, in reality, compromise the independence of the country’s two leading anti-corruption agencies at a time when both were reportedly closing in on senior members of Zelensky’s own administration.

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Adam Zivo: Ukrainian protests quash Zelenskyy’s contentious power grab

ODESA, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tried to dismantle his country’s anti-corruption infrastructure last week in a shameful power grab that has stained his domestic and international credibility. Yet, the mass protests that followed, which forced Zelenskyy to quickly reverse course, illustrate that Ukrainian democracy remains resilient and that illiberal governance will not be tolerated by its citizens.

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