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During a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following the Alaska summit with Putin, U.S. President Donald Trump said that the Russian leader insists on gaining control over the entire Donbas region Bloomberg reported the information. According to sources, during the phone call, Trump noted that the final decision on the territories should be made by Kyiv, but Putin’s position remains unchanged. Russia wants full control over Donetsk and Luhansk regions, even though its forces have currently captured only part of these areas. If Kyiv agrees, Moscow is ready to drop claims to the parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson...

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said a "glimmer of hope" has opened for peace talks in Ukraine after the summit between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska. "A glimmer of hope has finally opened for peace talks in Ukraine. Italy is doing its part, along with its Western allies," Meloni said. Her remarks followed a joint European Union statement on the talks, which she also endorsed.

The European Union officials are weighing the possibility of easing sanctions on Russia if President Vladimir Putin agrees to a ceasefire in Ukraine, The Telegraph reported on Saturday. EU ambassadors are considering what concessions might persuade Moscow to accept a truce, though no timeline has been set for the potential offer. The news follows reports that an extraordinary meeting of ambassadors was held in Brussels shortly after United States President Donald Trump met with the Russian leader.

United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that United States President Donald Trump's efforts have "brought us closer than ever before" to ending the war in Ukraine. Starmer emphasized that the next steps must include talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, noting that peace cannot be decided without his involvement. The British prime minsiter also confirmed that he spoke with Zelensky, Trump and European partners on Saturday, noting that all parties are ready to support the next phase. Starmer also pledged continued sanctions against Russia until it ends it military operation.

During his meeting with Trump, Putin demanded Ukrainian troops to completely withdraw from Donbas in order to achieve a ceasefire, anonymous sources told Bloomberg, APA reports, citing UNIAN. US President Donald Trump informed the Ukrainian president and European leaders about this.

More than 120 firefighters were trying to extinguish a blaze at an oil depot in the Russian city of Sochi that was sparked by a Ukrainian drone attack, regional Governor Veniamin Kondratyev has said on the Telegram messaging app. In the Krasnodar region, where Sochi is located, a fuel tank with a capacity of 2,000 cubic metres was on fire, Russia's RIA news agency reported on Sunday, citing emergency officials. Rosaviatsia, Russia's civil aviation authority, said on Telegram that flights were halted at Sochi's airport to ensure air safety. The attack, which Kondratyev said was in the Adler district of...

Prominent Russian propagandists have warned Donald Trump of severe consequences following his approval of weapons to Ukraine and threat of sanctions. -snip- The move was met with fury in Moscow state TV propagandist and war pundit Aleksandr Sladkov accusing the United States of attempting to intimidate Russia into agreeing to peace. He said: “Trump is trying to scare us with missiles, but this is difficult to do, Trump should be scared. “Everyone is trying to push us to turn Kyiv and Lviv into Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Sladkov continued his threat of nuclear war, telling the audience that Russia’s strategic nuclear...

Donald Trump has claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin sabotaged a Ukraine peace deal four times. But the US President also said he was pleased with the progress made to increase NATO defence spending. Speaking in a frank interview with the BBC’s Gary O’Donoghue, Mr Trump said he had been close to brokering a ceasefire on multiple occasions, only for fresh Russian attacks to derail progress each time. The White House had contacted the BBC minutes before the conversation to say Mr Trump was ready to speak - underscoring the urgency he appeared to attach to the issue. Mr Trump said:...

VLADIMIR Putin has defied Donald Trump's ultimatum and unleashed a fresh blitz on Ukraine. The bombing came just hours after the US president warned the Russian tyrant of devastating sanctions and a flood of Nato weaponry unless Moscow agrees to peace in 50 days. -snip- Meanwhile, Kyiv launched its own counterstrikes. Ukraine staged attacks on military facilities deep inside Russia with a new drone strike on Energiya enterprise at Yelets in Liuptsk region - which makes the chemical-based power sources for multiple Russian weapons including Iskander-M ballistic missiles. -snip- "In the last 18 months Russia has gained about one per...

President Zelensky has an unlikely ally in the White House: Melania Trump. The first lady, who grew up in the former Yugoslavia, has been reminding her husband of the deadly toll of Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian cities and is thought to have played a role in convincing the president to sign off the delivery of Patriot air defence missiles to Kyiv this week. -snip- Her interest in the Ukraine war can be explained by her background. Born behind the Iron Curtain in 1970, in the former Yugoslavia, Melania has previously described her admiration for Ronald Reagan, the president who helped...

President Trump suggested Monday that first lady Melania may have helped convince him to ramp up military aid to Ukraine. As he explained his decision to get tough on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump said his wife was one of the people who directly pointed out to him that Putin always backs out of his promises following their phone calls over a peace deal. “I go home, I tell the first lady, ‘You know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.’ She said, ‘Oh, really? another city was just hit,'” he said, recounting one of their recent...

-snip- I go home, I tell the First Lady, "I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation." She said, "Oh really? Another city was just hit." So it's like, look, he's— I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy. It's been proven over the years. He's fooled a lot of people. He fooled Bush. He fooled a lot of people. He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn't fool me. But what I do say is that at a certain point, you know, ultimately talk—talk doesn't—it's got to be action. It's got to...

President Trump announced Monday the US will send “billions of dollars” worth of weapons to Ukraine via Washington’s NATO allies — and threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Moscow in 50 days if no peace is struck to end the 40-month-old war. During his press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the President mentioned that when he would tell his wife about his positive calls with Vladimir Putin, she would react skeptically. "I go home, I tell the first lady, you know, I spoke to Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation." She said, "Oh, really? another city was...

European Union envoys are on the verge of agreeing an 18th package of sanctions against Russia for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine that would include a lower price cap on Russian oil, four EU sources said after a Sunday meeting. -snip- The sources said they had also agreed to a dynamic price mechanism for the price cap. On Friday, the European Commission proposed a floating price cap on Russian oil of 15% below the average market price of crude in the previous three months. One of the sources said the initial price would be around $47 a barrel based on...

A new round of talks between Russia and Ukraine could be take place in the Vatican mid-June, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing informed sources. The newspaper said a US delegation led by Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio and including Special Presidential Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg would also be present. Pope Leo XIV has said the Vatican is willing to host peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv to try to end the war in Ukraine (ANSA).

Vladimir Putin has mysteriously disappeared from public view as his regime issued apocalyptic World War Three nuclear threats over the use of long-range Western missiles by Ukraine against Russian territory. It is unclear if during the past 12 days of high international tension the Kremlin dictator has been holed up in a hi-tech bunker, unwell, underwent another round of plastic surgery, took a secret holiday or simply chose to remain out of sight. Yet Putin, 72, has not been definitively seen since an appearance at the Valdai Forum in Sochi on November 7 when he congratulated a "courageous" Donald Trump...