𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The talks today between Donald Trump, Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky and top European leaders are expected to cover territorial questions, including Russia’s demand for Ukraine to cede Donetsk and Luhansk.

They are also expected to address security guarantees for Ukraine, which could potentially be backed by US air power.

The role of Nato and European allies in enforcing a settlement is likely to be discussed, alongside sanction pressure on Russia.

European leaders want to ensure Ukraine is at the table for all negotiations.

Speaking alongside Zelensky in Brussels, von der Leyen said: “With regards to any territorial questions in Ukraine, our position is clear: international borders cannot be changed by force.

“These are decisions to be made by Ukraine and Ukraine alone, and these decisions cannot be taken without Ukraine at the table.”

European powers also want to help set up a trilateral meeting between Trump, Putin and Zelensky to make sure Ukraine has a seat at the table to shape its future.

At the Alaska summit, Vladimir Putin reportedly insisted that Ukraine must surrender Donetsk and Luhansk in full, abandon its Nato membership aspirations and declare neutrality. He offered to freeze the front lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, sources close to the meeting told The Independent.

Around 88 per cent of the Donbas is under Russian control. This includes almost all of the Luhansk region and 75 per cent of the Donetsk region.

Russia controls nearly 44,600 square miles or 19 per cent of Ukraine in total, including the Crimean peninsula, according to open-source maps of the battlefield.

Zelensky has rejected the idea of handing over territory, insisting talks must be based on current front lines and begin with a ceasefire.

Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said Putin agreed to allow the US and its European allies to offer Ukraine a security guarantee at his meeting with the US president on Friday.

“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,” Witkoff told CNN.

He added that it “was the first time we had ever heard the Russians agree to that” and called this “game-changing”.

Article 5 states that an armed attack against one or more of the Nato members shall be considered an attack against all members.

Sir Keir commended Trump’s commitment to providing security guarantees to Ukraine, following a meeting of the coalition of the willing on Sunday afternoon.

In the letter, which Putin reportedly read “immediately” in front of delegates at the summit, the first lady appealed the Russian leader to remember the innocence of the children caught in the midst of the fighting.

“Every child shares the same quiet dreams in their heart, whether born randomly into a nation’s rustic countryside or magnificent city-center,” the letter begins. “They dream of love, possibility, and safety from danger.”

A Russian air attack overnight on a residential area in Kharkiv killed three people, including a toddler, and injured 17, Ukrainian authorities said this morning, as the United States presses Kyiv to take a quick deal to end a war Moscow started.

A drone attack killed the two-year-old boy in Ukraine’s second-largest city in the early hours today, after a ballistic missile strike the previous night, said Oleh Synehubov, the governor of the wider Kharkiv region.

The number of the injured from the Kharkiv attack was “continuously increasing”, Synehubov added.

Also on Telegram, mayor Ihor Terekhov said two more were killed and 17 injured in both attacks, among them six children aged from six to 17.

“A woman has just been rescued from under the rubble: she is alive,” Terekhov said in a post early on Monday, warning that more might be trapped under the rubble.

Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine near the border with Russia, has been the target of regular Russian drone and missile attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The earlier ballistic missile strike on the city shattered about 1,000 windows, Synehubov said. Some residents had to be evacuated, Ukraine’s state emergency service said on Telegram.

Reuters witnesses saw medics attending to residents on a street and rescuers inspecting damage in residential buildings.

Two people were injured in Russia’s strikes on the adjacent region of Sumy that also damaged at least a dozen homes and an educational institution, authorities said.

“The enemy continues to deliberately target civilian infrastructure in the Sumy region treacherously, at night,” Oleh Hryhorov, the head of the regional administration, said on Telegram.

Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron praised Volodymyr Zelensky’s desire for a “just and lasting peace”, as the leaders prepare for talks in Washington with Donald Trump amid worries of a Russian land grab.

Giving a readout of the coalition of the willing call, a No 10 spokesman said: “President Macron and Prime Minister Starmer today co-chaired a virtual meeting of a grouping of ‘coalition of the willing’ leaders with the participation of President Zelensky.

“Leaders convened to discuss support for Ukraine and next steps in peace negotiations following President Trump’s meeting with President Putin in Alaska.

“The leaders reaffirmed their continued support to Ukraine, and praised President Zelensky’s desire for a just and lasting peace as he prepares for further consultations with President Trump in Washington DC.

“The leaders also commended President Trump’s commitment to providing security guarantees to Ukraine, in which the coalition of the willing will play a vital role through the Multinational Force Ukraine, among other measures.

“They re-emphasised the readiness to deploy a reassurance force once hostilities have ceased, and to help secure Ukraine’s skies and seas and regenerate Ukraine’s armed forces.

“The President and Prime Minister also informed leaders that they would travel to Washington DC tomorrow for a meeting with President Trump, alongside President Zelensky.”

US president Donald Trump urged Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky to come to a negotiated settlement in the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict with Russia.

“President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “No getting back Obama given Crimea…and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things never change!!!”

At least 20 people were killed and 134 injured by a fire at an production facility in Russia’s Ryazan region, state news agency RIA reported this morning, citing local emergency service.

It was not immediately clear from Russian media reports what caused the fire.

Russia’s air defence units destroyed 23 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s RIA state news agency reported this morning, citing data from Russia’s defence ministry.

In eastern Ukraine, quiet nights in the dim corridors of a front-line medical post can shatter in an instant. Medics roused from sleep rush to meet another stretcher wheeled in from the Donetsk front.

They work with urgency — chest compressions and shouted commands — until it becomes clear that the soldier arrived too late. The room falls silent as his body is sealed in a white bag.

He could not be saved, the anesthesiologist said, because evacuation took too long. By the time he reached the stabilization point, he was already dead.

It was not an isolated case, but part of a broader shift in the war where medical evacuation has become increasingly difficult.

“Because of drones … that can reach far, the danger is there for the wounded themselves and now for the crews working to get them out,” said Daryna Boiko, the anesthesiologist from the “Ulf” medical service of the 108th Da Vinci Wolves Battalion. “That’s why the main difficulty now is transport.”

His summit with Vladimir Putin is over, though the fallout continues. On Friday, the US literally rolled out the red carpet for the Russian leader and accused war criminal as he arrived in Anchorage for Ukraine peace talks – though no Ukrainians were invited to the meeting.

Trump flew back to Washington having publicly walked back his own call for a ceasefire and having reportedly endorsed a Russian demand for Ukraine to cede the entirety of the Donbas region, including territory currently controlled by Ukrainian forces.

Having completed one of his characteristically chummy conversations with Putin, Trump now faces the so-called “coalition of the willing”: a group of European leaders united behind the defence of Ukraine and adamant that no agreement can be made without the support of Kyiv.

The president’s guests could strike a very different tone, given how Trump’s last face-to-face meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office devolved into a near-shouting match.

Trump’s meeting with Putin rolled back key red lines that Zelensky says Ukraine won’t cross. But Europe could be relying on Trump to flip-flop once again, writes John Bowden: