Trump warns of 'very severe consequences' for Russia if Putin does not stop war in Ukraine

We are closing down our live coverage now of the flurry of meetings that have taken place between European leaders and the Ukrainian and US presidents, ahead of that anticipated summit in Alaska on Friday between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Before we go, here's a recap of some of the main developments from today:

• Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he warned his US counterpart Donald Trump and European allies that "Putin is bluffing" that sanctions do not work.

• Trump threatened "severe consequences" for Russia if it doesn't stop the war after the summit.

• Trump also described his meeting with Putin as "setting the table" for a possible Zelenskyy-Putin meeting.

• Trump called European leaders "Great people who want to see a deal done."

• French President Emmanuel Macron says any Trump-Putin-Zelenskyy meeting should be held in Europe.

• EU leaders outlined their position towards any resolution to the war in Ukraine in a joint statement which included a just and lasting peace. They also said they are ready to contribute security guarantees to Ukraine.

• NATO chief Mark Rutte described the call between European leaders and Trump as "great" and said "The ball is now in Putin’s court."

• The Kremlin dismissed the virtual meeting between Zelenskyy, European leaders and Trump as "insignificant" and accused the EU of "sabotaging" Moscow's diplomatic efforts.

US Vice President JD Vance has said that Donald Trump told him, "We are going to make it our mission as an administration to bring peace to Europe once again."

Vance was speaking at a Royal Air Force (RAF) base in Gloucestershire in the UK that hosts US military personnel.

The VP says it's impossible to bring peace unless "the bad guys are also worried that we've got a hell of a fine air force and military to back up the peace to begin with."

He thanked the troops stationed at RAF Fairford and said they make it possible for the US administration to do that.

Following the virtual meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, Donald Trump said he was “always going to meet Vladimir Putin” only, without Ukraine’s president and European leaders present at the talks.

Trump described the upcoming Alaska talks as “setting the table for the second meeting” (between Zelenskyy and Trump).

“We are going to have the second meeting if the first one goes well,” Trump said, adding that he would prefer the second meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy to take place “almost immediately”.

When asked about the format of the second meeting, Trump suggested it could be bilateral or trilateral, with the US president included if the presidents of Ukraine and Russia were interested. 

Trump also said that Russia will face consequences if the Friday meeting between Trump and Putin doesn't go well in terms of Moscow's willingness to end its war against Ukraine.

Newly-inaugurated Polish President Karol Nawrocki wrote on X following his participation in the call with Donald Trump that he reiterated the position Poland has upheld for years when it comes to Russia and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"Only through tough language and concrete action can the Russian Federation be restrained. Russia cannot be allowed to decide what the borders in Europe will look like or what direction the foreign policy of individual countries will take," Nawrocki said.

The meeting of the so-called coalition of the willing has started with US Vice-President JD Vance in attendance, Latvia's Prime Minister has revealed.

Evika Siliņa wrote in a post on X that they "will address a unified stance and unwavering support for Ukraine ahead of the upcoming Trump-Putin meeting".

In a statement following the call with Donald Trump, Downing Street said British Prime Minister Keir Starmer "was clear that our support for Ukraine is unwavering - international borders must not be changed by force and Ukraine must have robust and credible security guarantees to defend its territorial integrity as part of any deal".

European leaders also "looked forward to speaking again following the meeting in Alaska on Friday," the statement said, suggesting that the US president could debrief his European counterparts in another similar call later this week.

“I told Trump and all of our European partners that Putin is bluffing”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after the virtual meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump and Ukraine’s partners.

“Putin is bluffing that the sanctions do not work, that they are nothing. In fact sanctions are hitting Russian economy hard,” Zelensky said, adding that Russia’s president has not changed his ultimate goal and he still wants to “to occupy the whole of Ukraine”.

Following the call with the US president, Zelenskyy said he hopes the central topic at the upcoming meeting in Alaska will be an immediate ceasefire.

“The US President has repeatedly spoken about this. He suggested to me that after the meeting in Alaska, we would be in contact and discuss all the results, if any, and determine our next steps.”

European Council President António Costa, who took part in the call with Donald Trump from France alongside Emmanuel Macron told reporters: "What I would like to express is my best wishes for the great success of Friday's meeting between President Putin and President Trump to achieve a ceasefire and pave the way for peace in Ukraine."

Costa said he joined Macron in Bormes-les-Mimosas, in southern France, because he is currently holidaying in the country.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, who took part in the call with Donald Trump, described the meeting as "very good" on X.

"Today Europe, the US and NATO have strengthened the common ground for Ukraine," she wrote, adding that Washington and European capitals "will remain in close coordination".

NATO chief Mark Rutte described the call between a group of European leaders and Donald Trump as "great" in a post on X.

He said both sides of the Atlantic "are united" in securing a "just and lasting peace" for Ukraine and that he appreciated the "close coordination" between the US and its NATO allies.

"The ball is now in Putin's court," he added.

The French president also told reporters that Trump said he would fight to secure a trilateral meeting with Putin and Zelenskyy.

"We hope that it can be held in Europe, in a neutral country, which is acceptable to all parties," Macron said.

Meanwhile, he tried to downplay Europe's absence at Friday's summit as evidence of its weakness on the global geopolitical stage, saying that it's "only natural for the United States of America to meet with Russia. It is rather a good thing for pacifying the climate. They also have many bilateral issues to discuss."

"What is good, and where Europe is respected, is that there is coordination on issues that concern it," he added.

Photo credit: French President Emmanuel Macron, left, Antonio Costa, President of the European Council, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, second right, and French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu, right, attend a video conference on Ukraine at the Fort de Bregancon in Bormes-les-Mimosas, southern France, on 13 Aug, 2025. 

French President Emmanuel Macron is updating reporters following the talks with US President Donald Trump before heading into the third meeting of the day.

Macron said Trump was "very clear" that his main objective was to secure a ceasefire during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.

"We support this initiative," Macron said.

Trump also told the European leaders who participated in the meeting that he agrees that territorial issues pertaining to Ukraine cannot and will not be negotiated without Ukraine and its President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to Macron.

Finally, the third main takeaway from Trump's comments is that the US is willing to provide security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, the French leader added.

Over three decades ago, Chechen leader Dzhokhar Dudayev, himself embroiled in a bloody and destructive war with Russia, rightfully predicted that Moscow would eventually turn its sights on Ukraine.

As the Soviet Union dissolved in front of the eyes of the world in 1991, the small Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic vied for its own independence, led by Dudayev, backed by overwhelming popular support.

Powerless to stop other republics from leaving the fold, the Kremlin went after the minnows.

Four years of constant bombardment, laying waste to its capital Grozny and Soviet-style heavy-handed punitive warfare — including blowing up Dudayev with two laser-guided missiles after intercepting his satellite phone call — left tens of thousands of civilians dead and more than half a million people displaced.

Yet it was all smiles as Boris Yeltsin and Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov signed a peace deal in Moscow in 1996. 

The Kremlin then pledged reparations, amnesty for Chechen fighters, and other promises that Maskhadov himself believed were a step towards avoiding “ill feelings”.

Two years later, Moscow troops were on their way to Grozny again, triggered by apartment bombings in the Russian capital and other cities that the security services said were conducted by Chechen extremists — a claim disputed by many, including US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

The Second Chechen War, in many ways even murkier than the first, led to the rapid rise in power of one Vladimir Putin within months.

Putin eventually took control of Chechnya by proxy, appointing a former leading separatist mufti who switched sides in 2000, Akhmad Kadyrov, as president. His son, Ramzan, remains in power until today, despite ever-present allegations that the Kadyrov dynasty is nothing more than a puppet regime there to do the dirty work for Moscow.

Then came the invasion of Georgia in 2008. 

Writing his own handbook on the go, Putin tried in Georgia what he later conducted in Ukraine: after provocations and accusations from Moscow of “genocide”, troops rolled in on a full-scale invasion, occupied Russian-backed separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, unilaterally recognised their independence and then froze the conflict, while suffering no international consequences to its image at the time.

All of it was practice for the ultimate prize of Putin’s fever dream: Ukraine.

In 2014, feeling both provoked and emboldened by the Euromaidan protests in Kyiv that ended up in a bloody standoff and eventual removal from power of Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych, Putin deployed his “little green men” in the Donbas and Crimea, effectively occupying the entirety of the latter and illegally annexing it.

Although he denied Russia’s presence in the Donbas until openly admitting to it on the eve of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin’s false justification was the same: going after alleged "extremists" committing "human rights abuses". 

Same happened again: all-out invasion, indiscriminate bombardment of cities, thousands dead, millions on the run. Unilaterally recognised “republics” with puppet governments.

Only then, in 2022, did most of the world stop buying it, and Moscow found itself on the receiving end of a series of sanctions, while allies backed Ukraine militarily and otherwise.

Three and a half years later, Ukraine and Europe are facing a decisive moment — convincing the US president that an entire decades-long history of war and conflict in several places goes to show Putin will inevitably do the same, and he will do it again given the opportunity. 

In the run-up to the meeting with Trump in Alaska on Friday, it is those European allies together with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who are appealing to Trump to see it for what it is: peace is not how Russia’s wars end.

Russia has significantly intensified its assaults at the frontlines as well as its drone and missile attacks against Ukraine over the past few months.

Moscow is now targeting Ukrainian cities and civilians daily, launching as many as 728 drones in its largest overnight attack on 9 July.

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine reached another three-year high in July.

“With 286 civilians killed and 1,388 injured, the July casualty number was the highest since May 2022, topping also those for June 2025”, HRMMU said in a statement.

“For the second month in a row, the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine hits a new three-year high,” said Danielle Bell, Head of HRMMU. “Only the first three months after the Russian Federation launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine saw more killed and injured than in this past month.” 

The use of long-range weapons such as missiles and loitering munitions accounted for nearly 40 per cent of the casualties – 89 killed and 572 injured.

On 31 July, a missile and loitering munitions attack on Kyiv caused the highest verified number of civilian casualties in the capital since the start of the full-scale invasion, with 31 people killed and 171 injured. The majority of those killed, including five children, were in a residential building that was struck by a missile.  

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, HRMMU has documented the deaths of at least 13,883 civilians, including 726 children, and 35,548 injuries, including 2,234 children. 

Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine kill at least six

Moscow launches strikes at multiple Ukrainian cities overnight on Wednesday, just days before Vladimir Putin is set to meet Donald Trump in Alaska for……

Neither Washington nor Moscow has commented on what precisely the sides are set to discuss when the two presidents meet in Alaska on Friday.

Trump refused to comment on the proposals his special envoy Steve Witkoff received from the Kremlin during his visit to Moscow last week. It was after Witkoff negotiated with Vladimir Putin that the Trump-Putin meeting was announced.

The US president only confirmed Moscow’s demands regarding some of the territories it currently occupies in Ukraine.

Trump said a peace deal would involve the swapping of Ukrainian territories by both sides “to the betterment of both”.

“There’ll be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody. To the good, for the good of Ukraine. Good stuff, not bad stuff. Also, some bad stuff for both,” Trump said Monday.

The US president did not provide more details about the territories in question.

Commenting on whether Ukraine would consider the territorial concession for a ceasefire deal, Ukraine's Zelenskyy repeated that Kyiv will not give up on its territories, no matter whether this is the land Russia occupied in the first invasion of 2014 or since its all-out war in early 2022.

“We will not leave Donbas,” Zelenskyy said, adding, “For Russians, Donbas is a springboard for a future new offensive.” The region demanded by Russia was too strategically important to give up, he said, because it was a heavily fortified area that protected Ukraine’s central cities.

Trump’s statement caused criticism among the Ukrainians, who point out that Ukraine does not occupy any Russian territory; therefore, what the US president called a "swap" means territorial concessions only for Ukraine and not for Russia.

Russia would not give any of its territory to Ukraine and is only demanding that Ukraine withdraw its forces from its own territories, which Moscow illegally occupies. 

Zelenskyy warns Putin wants all of Ukraine’s Donbas region

The Ukrainian president reiterated Ukraine would not withdraw from its own land, saying that would be unconstitutional and would only serve as a springboard……

There are three virtual meetings taking place his afternoon. Euronews has obtained a list of participants.

The first one at 14:00 CET was attended by the leaders of Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, the UK, as well as the President of the European Commission, the President of the European Council, and the NATO Secretary-General;

The second one was scheduled for 15:00 CET and will see US President Donald Trump join the same European leaders.

The third gathering is of the so-called coalition of the willing and is scheduled to start at 16:00 CET. The list of countries that will be represented there is much longer.

It includes Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the UK, and Ukraine.

France's Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Friedrich Merz, and British Premier Keir Starmer are co-chairing the last meeting and will each deliver introductory remarks.

Although it is hard to speculate what will happen in Alaska, experience by and large shows that Vladimir Putin will likely set out to make maximalist demands to reach peace in his war on Ukraine yet again.

Despite originally denying interest in waging war against Ukraine, Putin has long set out to take control of the neighbouring country by any means available, as he likens himself to the 21st-century reincarnation of Czar Peter the Great.

His wish partially became true after Moscow illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea and started a conflict in the eastern Ukrainian region of the Donbas in 2014.

But that was nowhere near enough in what Putin believes would be a crown jewel and the final piece of his “Greater Russia” dream.

In his February 2022 speech on the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin made a series of ahistorical and otherwise unfounded claims, all meant to provide justification for his all-out war.

He claimed that Ukraine, an independent state of 44 million people and Europe’s largest country, was an artificial invention created by the Bolsheviks after the 1917 Russian revolution.

The NATO-led “anti-Russia” state, Ukraine was run by Nazis, Putin said, playing up the Soviet antifascist legacy card, and it was the Kremlin’s duty to “denazify” it.

While neither Putin nor his government provided any evidence to back any of the claims since, the muddied waters enabled him to persist in making unrealistic and unreasonable claims as his army continued to bombard civilians across Ukraine for the last three and a half years now.

In Alaska on Friday, Trump and his team — whose expertise and background knowledge on the region remain questionable — will likely have to face the same repeated claims, followed by Putin’s wishlist.

Having blamed NATO and the EU for his war in Ukraine, Putin could be expected to request that the non-expansion of the two blocs be formalised in a signed agreement, as he did in 2022.

Furthermore, he will lay a claim on the four regions of Ukraine that Russia claims to have unilaterally and illegally annexed following an illegitimate referendum in parts it has under its control: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Ukraine’s disarmament and withdrawal of all western military aid might also be on the table, as well as new presidential elections, which, if Putin has his say, would be likely directly influenced, if not outright rigged by Moscow.

None of these demands would be even remotely acceptable to Ukraine and Ukrainians.

But as someone once said, “If you're not at the table, you're on the menu.”

The only offline meeting on Wednesday is the bilateral talks between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Friedrich Merz in Berlin, which is taking place on the German chancellor's 100th day in office.

Merz has focused a lot on Ukraine and has significantly changed Berlin’s previously rather indecisive stance on German support of Kyiv.

The German chancellor said the Wednesday virtual meetings “focus on options to exert pressure on Russia for potential peace negotiations, territorial claims, and securities.”

When Merz and Zelenskyy met in May, Berlin agreed to help Kyiv jointly develop new long-range weapons that can strike deeper inside Russia as Germany decided on a new €5 billion aid package.

Berlin also reiterated its commitment to supply Ukraine with more weapons and ammunition, including air defence and artillery, without providing more details.

Visiting Kyiv at the beginning of May, Merz said that all future arms supply talks with Ukraine would be kept confidential.

EU leaders outlined their position towards any resolution to the conflict in Ukraine in a joint statement they released on Tuesday.

They wrote that:

• a just and lasting peace "must respect international law" including the principle that "international borders must not be changed by force";
• "the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine";
• meaningful negotiations can only take place "in the context of a ceasefire or reduction of hostilities";
• the bloc will continue to provide assistance - political, financial, economic, humanitarian, military and diplomatic - to Kyiv;
• they stand ready to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine;
• they support the war-torn country on its path towards EU membership.

But Hungary's Viktor Orbán, as has become customary, refused to align himself with the statement. He said the EU has no right to attempt to provide "instructions from the bench" given that it was not invited to the talks, and instead called for the bloc to "initiate an EU-Russia summit".

Read more in the article below:

EU countries issued a statement in support of Ukraine without Hungary

Hungary’s PM Viktor Orbán said the EU attempts to set conditions for a meeting to which leaders of the EU were not invited. He also called for an EU-Russia……

Moscow called the Wednesday virtual meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the European leaders and Donald Trump “insignificant”.

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Alexey Fadeev even accused the EU of “sabotaging” what Moscow calls “diplomatic efforts of Russia and the US to resolve the crisis in Ukraine”.

Moscow is refusing to use the term “war” to describe its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and even banned the use of the terms “war” and “invasion” in March 2022. 

“We regard the consultations being solicited by the Europeans as politically and practically insignificant actions,” the foreign ministry spokesperson said.

Fadeev also confirmed that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will take part in the Alaska summit on Friday.

The Kremlin has repeatedly refused the possibility of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy, in line with Moscow's widespread false claims that Zelensky's presidency is illegitimate and Russia's overall efforts to discredit the Ukrainian government.

US President Donald Trump has confirmed his participation in the online meeting on Wednesday, posting on Truth Social “Will be speaking to european leaders in a short while. They are great people who want to see a deal done.”

This is how the afternoon meetings are scheduled to unfold: first, at 2 pm CEST, there is a call between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump and European leaders. One hour later, at 3 pm, there is a separate call with Trump, US Vice President JD Vance and European leaders.

Later in the afternoon, Zelenskyy and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are expected to give a joint statement, scheduled for 4 pm. 

Since Donald Trump confirmed his meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday in Alaska, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been trying to get support from Ukraine’s partners in an effort to convince the US president not to break one of Kyiv’s most essential principles, “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine”.

In the run-up to his Berlin visit, Zelenskyy said that there have been “more than thirty conversations and consultations with partners” from all around the world.

“This war must be ended. Pressure must be exerted on Russia for the sake of a just peace. Ukraine’s and our partners’ experience must be used to prevent deception by Russia.”

Read more in the article below:

Zelenskyy warns Trump not to trust Putin before Alaska meeting

It took Ukraine’s president time and effort to not only repair his diplomatic relations with the Trump administration, but also to prove that no one wants……