𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The United States will keep trying to create a scenario to help end Russia’s war in Ukraine, but that might not be possible, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS on Sunday.

“If peace is not going to be possible here and this is just going to continue on as a war, people will continue to die by the thousands. We may unfortunately wind up there, but we don’t want to wind up there,” Rubio said in an interview with ‘Face the Nation.’.

“There are things that were discussed as part of this meeting that are potentials for breakthroughs, that are potential for progress,” said Rubio, adding that topics for discussion would include security guarantees for Ukraine.

According to sources, Trump and Putin discussed proposals for Russia to relinquish tiny pockets of occupied Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine ceding a swathe of fortified land in the east and freezing the front lines elsewhere.

Rubio said both sides would need to make concessions if a peace deal were to be concluded.

Special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said that Vladimir Putin agreed at his summit with President Donald Trump to allow the U.S. and European allies to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO’s Article 5 mandate.

“We were able to win the following concession: That the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Witkoff said it was the first time he had heard Putin agree to that.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, speaking at a news conference in Brussels with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that “we welcome President Trump’s willingness to contribute to Article 5-like security guarantees for Ukraine. and the ‘Coalition of the willing’ – including the European Union – is ready to do its share.”

Witkoff, offering some of the first details of what was discussed at Friday’s summit in Alaska, said the two sides agreeing to “robust security guarantees that I would describe as game-changing.”

He added that Russia said that it would make a legislative commitment not to go after any additional territory in Ukraine.

Witkoff defended Trump’s decision to abandon his push for Russian to agree to an immediate ceasefire, saying the president had pivoted toward a peace deal because so much progress was made.

“We covered almost all the other issues necessary for a peace deal,” Witkoff said, without elaborating. “We began to see some moderation in the way they’re thinking about getting to a final peace deal,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking in Brussels on Sunday, said the current front lines in his country’s war against Russia should be the basis for peace talks.

“We need real negotiations, which means we can start where the front line is now,” Zelensky said, adding that European leaders supported this.

Zelensky reiterated his position that it was necessary to establish a ceasefire in order to then negotiate a final deal.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters on Sunday the term “ceasefire” was less important than the need to stop the killing.

“It matters what’s the effect. And the effect must be to stop the killing,” von der Leyen said.

“So it’s not the term itself, it’s the content that matters. It is so important to have as soon as possible a trilateral meeting … between the President of Ukraine, the President of the United States, and of Russia.”

It is now conceivable, just, that Trump is prepared to consider security guarantees for Ukraine that reflect Nato’s Article 5, which could mean that if Ukraine signed up to a peace deal then its long-term future sovereignty and security would be protected, by force of arms, by allies including the US.

Read the full article here:

Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Sunday it had prevented a Ukrainian drone attack on the Smolensk nuclear power plant, Interfax news agency reported.

Earlier, Moscow’s forces announced they shot down 300 Ukrainian drones and struck storage sites for Sapsan missiles while fierce battles raged in the Donetsk region where Ukrainian forces were trying to halt a Russian advance, the defence ministry and war bloggers said.

“Four guided aerial bombs and 300 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles were shot down by air defense systems,” the ministry said.

Eight pages — containing a schedule, several phone numbers of government employees, and a luncheon menu — were found in a public hotel printer at Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage, a 20-minute drive from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson where the two world leaders met Friday to discuss the future of the war in Ukraine.

Read the full article here:

Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson will virtually attend Sunday’s meeting with the “Coalition of the Willing”, ahead of President Volodymyr Zelenskiys visit to Washington on Monday, a spokesperson from the prime minister’s office told Reuters.

Kristersson will however not fly to Washington together with Zelensky alongside other European leaders on Monday, the spokesperson said.

Despite launching an illegal invasion, Vladimir Putin is understood to have demanded that Kyiv surrender the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk provinces as a condition for ending the war.

Read the full article here:

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the press service of the Belarusian president said via its Telegram channel on Sunday.

“Two Presidents discussed the situation in the region in the light of the talks in Alaska. Putin informed his Belarusian counterpart in detail about the results of the last Russia-US summit,” the press service said.