It’s just gone 6pm in Ukraine. Here’s the latest.
Trump-Putin meeting
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected Donald Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine will have to give up territory in any potential peace deal.
It comes after the US leader announced a summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska to take place on Friday.
“I think my instinct really tells me that we have a shot at it,” Trump told reporters yesterday.
“There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.”
Watch: What do Trump and Putin want from Alaska summit?
However, Ukraine is not in control of any Russian land after it was pushed out of Kursk.
This morning, Zelenskyy responded: “Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier.”
He warned that any agreements made in Alaska against Ukraine “will not achieve anything. These are stillborn decisions. They are unworkable decisions”.
Allies of Ukraine are worried Kyiv is being sidelined and might be forced to swallow or reject a peace plan worked up by Moscow and Washington alone.
Military analyst Michael Clarke is holding out little hope for the meeting, given Trump’s team are out of their depth…
Sanctions?
Absent from Donald Trump’s social media posts is his deadline for Putin to end the war.
He had threatened Russia with sanctions should it not cease its invasion by 8 August.
The Alaska meeting may have allowed Putin to sidestep sanctions – and wouldn’t be the first time in this conflict that the Kremlin has given just enough to keep Trump onside without actually changing anything on the battlefield.
UK security meeting
At the behest of the US, a meeting between national security advisers is taking place at Chevening, the foreign secretary’s official country residence in Kent, where US vice president JD Vance and his family are staying.
Keir Starmer also held a call with Zelenskyy, one of a number of European leaders to do so.
Attacks continue
Russia has continued its nightly attacks on Ukraine.
At least eight people were killed last night, Ukraine says, with more than twice that injured.
This included two men being killed when Russia attacked a bus, the country’s police say.
