Kyiv must accept new borders, says Trump

Zelensky responded by saying said that Ukrainians would not “gift their land” to Russia. Going further on Monday, the Ukrainian leader said that any concessions to Putin would only encourage Russia to continue its brutal assault on his country’s statehood.

• Read in full: Concessions would only encourage Putin to continue brutal assault, says Zelensky

President Zelensky and European leaders will urge President Trump to insist on a credible ceasefire in Ukraine at a video conference brokered by Germany on Wednesday.

Sir Keir Starmer will join the leaders of France, Italy, Germany, Finland, Ukraine and the European Commission for an hour of talks before they present a joint position to Trump and JD Vance, the US vice-president.

The Europeans are expected to make the case that both sides must cease all fighting and Ukraine must be given solid security guarantees before there can be any meaningful negotiations over a possible exchange of territory with Russia.

“The guns really must fall silent so that one can talk,” Johann Wadephul, the German foreign minister, told the ARD public broadcaster. “Even the fact that Ukraine is already prepared to talk about the status quo is in itself a concession, because Russia is occupying Ukrainian territory against international law.”

Ukraine has deployed the elite 1st Azov Corps of the National Guard to defend the Pokrovsk sector and block Russia’s assault there.

Pokrovsk, a frontline city in Donetsk Oblast, has for months been one of the most heavily contested battlegrounds of Russia’s offensive in eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian unit said its forces arrived in the area “several days” ago and described the situation along the Pokrovsk axis as “complex and dynamic”.

The 1st Azov Corps was formed earlier this year as Kyiv’s military reorganised into a corps system. The unit takes its name from the Azov Brigade, whose fighters took part in some of the heaviest battles of the war — including the Russian siege of Mariupol in 2022.

Prosecutors have filed fresh charges against a US citizen and ex-marine who is serving an eight-year sentence in Russia.

Robert Gilman’s sentence has been extended several times after convictions for assaulting prison officials and a state investigator during his incarceration.

The 30-year-old was first arrested in 2022 for a purportedly drunken assault on a Russian police officer. Gilman is one of at least nine Americans incarcerated in Russia.

Under a prisoner swap in April, Ksenia Karelina, a Russian-American spa worker who lived in Los Angeles, was exchanged for a Russian whom the US had accused of passing sensitive electronics to the Russian military.

Russia and its closest ally Belarus will carry out war games next month to ensure their “readiness to repel possible aggression”, the Belarusian defence ministry said. The exercises will take place in Belarus from September 12-16.

President Zelensky of Ukraine had warned that Russia was “preparing something” in Belarus this summer under the guise of routine military exercises, without giving further details.

In an interview with Time Magazine last week, President Lukashenko of Belarus said he had decided to move the joint military drills away from the country’s western borders with EU countries, citing security concerns raised in Poland and the Baltic nations.

Lukashenko called the idea that Belarus would utilise the drills to attack the three Baltic countries and Poland “complete nonsense”.

President Trump is “doing no more than whistling in the wind from a position of weakness”, a former Nato commander has said, after the US president announced a summit with President Putin on Friday to discuss ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.

General Sir Richard Shirreff, the former deputy supreme allied commander Europe for the alliance, told Times Radio that the meeting in Alaska on Friday would do little to solve the conflict.

He said: “Trump needs to understand that the only way there will be a lasting peace in Ukraine is when Russia understands conclusively, finally, that it will never get its hands on Ukraine. We are miles away from that.”

Shirreff called on Europe and the US to “double down” on military support for Kyiv “to allow Ukraine to really take the fight to the Russians” with additional financial sanctions on Moscow. “Anything else is no good,” he added.

Russia’s FSB intelligence agency said it detained a Ukrainian special services agent who was planning to assassinate a high-ranking military officer with a car bomb, the state-run Tass agency reported.

The agent, known by the pseudonym Voron, had been recruited in a third country’s territory, according to the FSB, and was sent instructions on the encrypted messaging app Telegram. Voron had made an improvised device using more than 60kg of explosives and hidden it in a parked car, ready to be detonated when the member of the defence ministry passed by.

The suspect faces life in prison if convicted.

Russia has blamed Kyiv for a series of assassinations and attempted assassinations of politicians and military officials on its soil since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

North Koreans are being sent to work in “slave-like” conditions in Russia to plug labour shortages worsened by the war in Ukraine, according to a report.

South Korean intelligence officials told the BBC that Moscow was increasingly relying on North Korean labourers due to mass conscription of young Russian men.

Some workers told the broadcaster that they were confined to construction sites day and night, working in 18-hour shifts and sleeping under tarpaulins or in shipping containers.

Last year, more than 10,000 labourers were sent to Russia, according to a South Korean intelligence official, who added that the number could increase to more than 50,000 workers this year.

• Read in full: North Korea sends troops to Russia to rebuild Kursk region

Ever since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there have been two phrases that have been mainstays of President Zelensky’s daily addresses to the nation: “Victory” and “a just and lasting peace” (Marc Bennetts writes).

Before President Putin and President Trump’s summit in Alaska, the former appears to have slipped beyond Ukraine’s grasp, while the latter, if the Russian leader gets his way, has little chance of becoming a reality.

Even if Zelensky agrees to Putin’s expected demands to cede land, something that is prohibited by Ukraine’s Constitution, there are no indications that the Russian leader will be satisfied with limited territorial gains.

• Read in full: US underestimates Russian president’s fixation on conquering its neighbour

Overnight, Ukraine struck the Orenburg Helium Plant more than 1,000km into Russia — thought to be the only facility that produces a critically important component for rockets.

Meanwhile, Russia launched a missile strike on a Ukrainian training unit, killing one person, with more deadly attacks on Kharkiv and the Donetsk regions.

President Zelensky said on Monday night that Russian forces “used more than a thousand aerial bombs and nearly 1,400 attack drones against Ukraine” in the past week.

Russia has escalated its intense bombardment of the country in recent months — July saw a record 6,297 drone attacks, with fears that Russia may have the capacity to launch up to 2,000 drones a night by November, due to expanding production capabilities.

Military analysts using open source information to monitor the battles have said that the next 24-48 hours could be critical. Taking Pokrovsk would hand Russia an important battlefield victory ahead of the summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska.

It would also complicate Ukrainian supply lines to the Donetsk region, where the Kremlin has focused the bulk of its military efforts.

“A lot will depend on availability, quantity and quality of Ukrainian reserves,” Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group, wrote in a post on X on Monday.

He added: “During May-June period the Russian summer campaign netted only relatively small incremental advances pretty much across the front line with little meaningful net gains in terms of territory. Now in August it is possible that this will change as the number of ongoing crises begins to add up.”

Russia’s army is making significant gains in the Donetsk region towards the embattled city of Pokrovsk, according to analysts of the Ukrainian battlefield.

Russia has made a push toward the Dobropillia–Kramatorsk highway, with a lieutenant colonel warning on X that the Pokrovsk-Kosyantynivka line of contact “is complete chaos” and that it is “worsening with each passing day”.

Some sources said Russia had cut off one of the three main logistical routes for Ukraine’s forces after advancing more than 17km in two days — allowing them to launch deeper drone strikes.

Pokrovsk, a logistics and transport hub with vital railway and road links that support Ukraine’s operations in Donbas, is thought to be a strategic priority for Russia.

Analysts have warned that losing the city could collapse the broader defensive structure, fuelling concern about the trajectory of the war before ceasefire talks.

President Trump appeared to confuse Alaska with Russia during a White House press conference on Monday.

During an hour-long press conference — largely focused on crime and homelessness in Washington DC — Trump, 79, said he was embarrassed to be raising these issues before his meeting with President Putin in the largest US state.

He said: “You know, I’m going to see Putin. I’m going to Russia on Friday. I don’t like being up here, talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once-beautiful capital [is].”

Although Alaska was once part of Russia, it was purchased by the US government for $7.2 million in 1867.

Hungary did not endorse an EU statement published on Tuesday that supported Ukraine’s right “to choose its own destiny”.

The text, published on the European Council website, carried a footnote that said: “Hungary does not associate itself with this statement.”

Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, has maintained diplomatic and economic ties with Moscow as other EU members have sought to make President Putin a pariah. Orban has also opposed European sanctions on Russia and vowed to block moves to welcome Ukraine into the EU.

EU leaders stressed “the inherent right of Ukraine to choose its own destiny” before President Trump’s meeting with President Putin.

“We, the leaders of the European Union, welcome the efforts of President Trump towards ending Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and achieving a just and lasting peace and security for Ukraine,” a statement said.

“A just and lasting peace that brings stability and security must respect international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and that international borders must not be changed by force.”

The European preference (option one) is for a ceasefire on the current 680-mile long front line. Other possibilities include Russia extending gains in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions (option two), or also in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson (option three).

Trump’s insistence that any peace deal would involve “some ­swapping of territories” could mean a trade, whereby Putin gets the whole of the Donbas in exchange for returning parts of Kherson to Ukraine (option four).

• What are the options? The maps explained

Citing reports from Ukraine’s intelligence and military command, President Zelensky warned that President Putin was making preparations for new offensive operations in Ukraine.

“So far, there is no indication whatsoever that the Russians have received signals to prepare for a post-war situation,” Zelensky said in his nightly address. “On the contrary, they are redeploying their troops and forces in ways that suggest preparations for new offensive operations.”

Putin was “definitely not preparing for a ceasefire or an end to the war,” he added. “Putin is determined only to present a meeting with America as his personal victory and then continue acting exactly as before, applying the same pressure on Ukraine as before.”

Downing Street has warned President Trump not to trust President Putin to stick to a Ukraine ceasefire deal, as western leaders scrambled to help Kyiv prepare for a peace summit on Friday.

Putin cannot be trusted “as far as you could throw him”, No 10 said on Monday, as Britain pushed for guarantees to ensure that any pause in the fighting agreed at the meeting between the two presidents is not used by Russia simply as a breathing space to prepare for a new offensive.

European leaders urged Trump over the weekend to allow Ukraine to take part in the talks, nervous at what he might cede to Putin at the summit.

Trump confirmed that Zelensky would not attend his meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday. He said he would instead call the Ukrainian president once the summit was over. He speculated that Zelensky could meet Putin afterwards. “I’ll be there if they need,” he added.

Trump said he would only call Zelensky if Putin proposed a “fair deal”.

President Trump criticised President Zelensky for refusing to cede territory and repeated that there needed to be some “land swapping” to end the war.

In some of his harshest remarks about Zelensky in the past several months, Trump said he “very severely” disagreed with his handling of the war, saying “it never should have happened”.

“I was a little bothered by the fact Zelensky was saying ‘I have to get constitutional approval’,” he said. “He’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody? But he needs approval to do a land swap?”

European countries have said that any ceasefire should be agreed on the basis of the present front line, and have urged Trump not to accept a peace settlement that would award Putin more land.

President Trump has said Ukraine must accept the redrawing of its borders to achieve peace, before his talks with President Putin in Alaska on Friday.

In a press conference lasting longer than an hour, Trump confirmed that Zelensky would not attend the meeting at the end of the week.

Speaking about conditions for a ceasefire, Trump said: “There will be some land-swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody.

“We’re going to change the lines, the battle lines. Russia has occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They’ve occupied some very prime territory. We’re going to try and get some of that territory back for Ukraine. They have taken largely — in real estate we call it oceanfront property. That’s always the most valuable property.”

Trump appeared to be referring to the territory on the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, a stretch of coastline that includes the city of Mariupol. Mariupol was reduced to rubble in one of the most brutal battles of the war when more than 8,000 people died during a Russian siege.

• Read in full: Trump to ‘get back Ukraine’s oceanfront property’ from Russia