“Ukraine – Russia”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a law allowing people over the age of 60 to voluntarily join the armed forces, which have struggled to find recruits since the Russian invasion started in February 2022.

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.

E.U. Cuts $1.7 billion in Aid to Ukraine Over Corruption Concerns

Remember when Zelensky said he doesn't even know where $100 Billion is of the money that the U.S. gave him??? pic.twitter.com/MNDbpDbtwR

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 29, 2025

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s anticorruption policies have already provoked Ukraine’s first antigovernment protests since the Russian invasion in 2022. Now, it seems, they may cost the country a portion of its foreign aid from the European Union, in a clear rebuke from the bloc, once a staunch ally.

The European Union said on Friday that it would withhold 1.5 billion euros, or $1.7 billion, from an overall fund of 4.5 billion euros whose disbursement is dependent on achieving good governance standards and that can’t be used for military purchases. The decision is not final, however, and the funding can be restored if Ukraine meets certain benchmarks.

… The E.U.’s decision capped a tumultuous week for Mr. Zelensky, who first pushed a measure through Parliament that stripped the independence of two anticorruption agencies, raising protests from foreign leaders as well as the Ukrainian people.