Trump tells reporters he believes Putin wants to get the war “over with” and is asked whether Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be at the talks in Alaska. Follow the latest below.
Monday 11 August 2025 17:15, UK
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Michael Clarke, our military analyst, will be back this week to answer your Ukraine war questions.
It could be a massive week for the future of the conflict and peace in Europe, with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin planning to meet in Alaska on Friday.
Will Volodymyr Zelenskyy be there, too? That’s still uncertain – as are the terms of any potential deal between the US and Russia.
Use the form at the top of this page to get in touch with your question for Clarke before what could be a pivotal meeting. We’ll bring you the answers on Wednesday.
Donald Trump spent plenty of time in his wide-ranging news conference talking about Russia and his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin.
But he misspoke twice during the briefing that lasted over an hour, saying he would be meeting the Russian president in Russia, rather than Alaska.
He first said when discussing the “public safety emergency” in Washington DC: “This is a tragic emergency, and it’s embarrassing for me to be up here.
“You know, I’m going to see Putin. I’m going to Russia on Friday.
“I don’t like being up here talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once beautiful capital was, with graffiti all over the walls.”
Later in the news conference, Trump said: “We’re going to Russia. That’s going to be a big deal.”
But towards the end, he said: “I thought it was very respectful that the president of Russia is coming to our country, as opposed to us going to his country, or even a third, third party place.”
After former president Joe Biden accidentally introduced Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Vladimir Putin, before quickly correcting himself, Republicans described Trump’s predecessor as “totally unfit for the job”.
Donald Trump is still speaking on those upcoming talks with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.
The US president says he thinks the talks “will be good, but it might be bad”.
“I’m here for one reason, to get rid of a war that somebody else started,” he tells reporters.
He goes on to say “ultimately, I’m going to put the two of them [Putin and Zelenskyy] in a room, I’ll be there or I won’t be there, and I think it’ll get solved”.
Trump also confirms he will be speaking to European leaders before his meeting with Putin.
Donald Trump has now been asked whether Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be at the talks in Alaska on Friday.
“He wasn’t part of it,” Trump tells reporters.
“I would say he could go, but he’s gone to a lot of meetings, he’s been there for three and a half years and nothing happened.”
Trump says he will be able to tell if a deal can be made “probably in the first two minutes” of his meeting with Vladimir Putin.
Back to the White House now, where Donald Trump has been asked about his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin, which is due to take place in Alaska on Friday.
“This is a war that should never have happened,” Trump says.
“This is a war that wouldn’t have happened if I were president, it would never have happened.”
He describes the talks as a “feel-out meeting” and says “he [Putin] wants to get involved”.
Trump adds that he believes Putin wants to get the war “over with”.
“I’ve said that a few times and I’ve been disappointed because I’d have a great call with him and then missiles would be lobbed into Kyiv or some other place,” he says.
The US president explains that he will tell Putin “you’ve got to end this war, you’ve got to end it”.
He adds that he will call European leaders “who I get along with very well” after leaving the talks.
But Trump says he won’t be making a deal between Russia and Ukraine, adding “it’s not up to me”.
“I got a call to say they’d like to meet, and I’m going to see what they want to meet about,” he says.
“I’d like to see a ceasefire, I’d like to see the best deal that could be made for both parties, it takes two to tango.”
A little earlier, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine prove that Moscow is not willing to make peace.
He claimed that, in the past week, Russia launched more than 1,000 air bombs, nearly 1,400 drones and multiple missile strikes on Ukraine.
Moscow has ramped up the scale of its aerial attacks on Ukraine in the past few months, breaking its record for the most number of missiles and drones launched in one night several times.
In fact, all of Russia’s largest aerial attacks on Ukraine during over three years of war have come since the beginning of June.
Here they are in order:
Donald Trump is still speaking in the White House and we’ll bring you any comments he makes on the war in Ukraine.
In the meantime, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that he spoke with Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman today and thanked him for his “readiness to make efforts for peace”.
“Communication with leaders is ongoing practically around the clock – we are in constant touch,” he wrote on X.
“Now is the moment when there is a real chance to achieve peace.”
We’re expecting Donald Trump to give a news conference in the White House briefing room shortly.
The US president is scheduled to unveil his plans to tackle violent crime in Washington DC.
But, in true Trump fashion, there’s bound to be an array of topics that he’ll discuss – including the war in Ukraine and his upcoming meeting in Alaska with Vladimir Putin.
You can watch the news conference at the top of this page. We’ll also provide any breaking lines on Ukraine here in the blog.
Germany is convening a virtual meeting of European leaders on Wednesday to discuss how to pressure Russia to end the war in Ukraine, a government spokesperson said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and EU and NATO officials are set to join the meeting at 12pm UK time with the leaders of Germany, Finland, France, Britain, Italy and Poland, the spokesperson added.
The calls come ahead of a scheduled meeting between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the war in Ukraine in Alaska on Friday.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he brought up the issue of India’s continued purchase of Russian oil during a “lengthy conversation” with Narendra Modi.
The US recently announced it was placing sanctions on New Delhi – the world’s third-largest crude importer – for helping support the Russian economy by buying its energy resources.
“It is important that every leader who has significant leverage over Russia now sends appropriate signals to Moscow,” Zelenskyy said, adding he was “grateful” to Modi for his “warm words of support” for Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said the two leaders have agreed to plan a personal meeting next month at the UN General Assembly.
Russia’s defence ministry has said that its forces have taken control of the settlement of Lunacharske in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, which Ukraine renamed Fedorivka in 2016.
Sky News could not independently confirm the battlefield report.
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