𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked his allies in Europe for supporting Kyiv’s stance on peace.

“The end of the war must be fair, and I am grateful to everyone who stands with Ukraine and our people today for the sake of peace in Ukraine, which is defending the vital security interests of our European nations,” he said on X.

“Ukraine values and fully supports the statement by president Macron, prime minister Meloni, Chancellor Merz, prime minister Tusk, prime minister Starmer, president Ursula von der Leyen, and president Stubb on peace for Ukraine,” he said.

European nations have rallied behind Ukraine, saying peace in the war-torn nation can’t be resolved without Kyiv, ahead of an upcoming meeting between US president Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

Trump said this Friday’s meeting with his Russian counterpart on US soil would focus on ending the war, now in its fourth year.

One person was killed and two others were hospitalised following a Ukrainian attack targeting an industrial zone in the Nizhny Novgorod region in western Russia, Gleb Nikitin, the governor of the region, said on the Telegram.

Earlier, Tula governor Dmitry Milyaev said at least two people died and two people were hospitalised in the Tula region as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack that also targeted Moscow and other regions.

Russian air defence units destroyed a total of 59 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 12 over the Tula region and two over the Moscow region. The ministry only reports how many drones its units down, not how many Ukraine launches.

Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte has said Donald Trump is “clearly putting pressure on” Vladimir Putin ahead of the two leaders’ upcoming summit.

Rutte on Sunday praised Washington for taking steps such as allowing more military equipment to flow to Ukraine and imposing secondary sanctions on India for purchasing Russian oil.

“Next Friday will be important because it will be about testing Putin – how serious he is – on bringing this terrible war to an end,” Mr Rutte said in an interview with ABC’s This Week.

He added: “It will be, of course, about security guarantees, but also about the absolute need to acknowledge that Ukraine decides on its own future, that Ukraine has to be a sovereign nation, deciding on its own geopolitical future.”

Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, now holds nearly a fifth of the country.

Rutte said a future peace deal could not include legal recognition of Russian control over Ukrainian land, although it might include de facto recognition.

He compared it to the situation after the Second World War when the United States accepted that the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were de facto controlled by the Soviet Union but did not legally recognise their annexation.

JD Vance told Fox News that US president Donald Trump “has to be the one to bring these two together”, before criticising Europe for not “stepping up”.

He said: “What we said to the Europeans is simply: this is in your neck of the woods, this is in your back door. You guys have gotta 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 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. We wanna bring about a peaceful settlement of this thing, we wanna stop the killing.”

The leaders of eight Nordic-Baltic nations jointly reaffirmed their support for Ukraine and said that peace could only come through consistent pressure being put on the Russian federation to halt its “unlawful” war.

The leaders of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden said in a statement yesterday that they “reaffirm the principle that international borders must not be changed by force”.

They added that they would continue to uphold and impose restrictive measures against the Russian Federation.

US president Donald Trump said on Friday he will meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin on 15 August in Alaska to negotiate an end to the war. A White House official has said Trump is open to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky attending but preparations are underway only for a bilateral meeting.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz said he hopes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be involved at the Russia-US summit.

Mr Merz said he will have a call with US president Donald Trump on Sunday in an interview with public broadcaster ARD.

“We are preparing intensively at the European level together with the US government for this meeting,” Mr Merz said.

“And we hope and assume that the Ukrainian government and president Zelensky will be involved in this meeting.”

Mr Zelensky won diplomatic backing from Europe and the Nato alliance on Sunday ahead of a Russia-US summit this week where Kyiv fears Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump may try to dictate terms for ending the three-and-a-half-year war.

“We cannot accept that territorial issues are decided between Russia and America over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians,” Mr Merz said.

He added that there can be no peace that rewards Russia’s aggressive actions and possibly encourages and emboldens further actions.

At least two people died in the Tula region as a result of a Ukrainian drone attack that also targeted Moscow and other regions, Russia’s defence ministry and regional officials said late last night.

Two people were also hospitalised following the attack on Tula , governor Dmitry Milyaev said.

The defence ministry said its air defence units destroyed 27 Ukrainian drones within a span of three hours late on Sunday, including 11 over the Tula region, one over the Moscow region and the rest over four other regions in Russia’s south and west.

The White House is reportedly trying to sway European leaders to accept an agreement that would include Russia taking the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and keeping Crimea. In exchange, it would give up the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, areas which Russia is partially occupying, CBS reported.

Tom Watling and Holly Bancroft report: