Donald Trump has said Ukraine has no chance of winning the war because of mistakes by Joe Biden. Meanwhile, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has criticised Ukraine’s European allies. Follow the latest.
Thursday 21 August 2025 16:29, UK
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Former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko tells Sky News that Russia’s strike that hit a US business is the “best evidence” of what Vladimir Putin’s peace would look like.
We brought you the news earlier – see our 16.00 post – of the US business reaction in Ukraine to the attack.
Poroshenko tells presenter Kamali Melbourne that Russia’s words cannot be trusted, and that Ukrainians continue to pay “a very high price” for the war.
Watch the interview in full here…
A US business chief in Ukraine has asked Donald Trump to stand up to Vladimir Putin, warning: “Russia continues to destroy and humiliate US businesses.”
Andy Hunder, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine, said a US business, Flex, was hit in Russia’s overnight attack.
He has asked the US president to act, saying: “Russia is not only destroying Ukraine – it is undermining US leadership, values, and US business.
“Russia is not seeking peace; it is attacking American interests and values.
“We are calling on President Donald Trump to stand with American business in Ukraine.”
Hunder added that no Flex employees were killed in the overnight missile strike, but “around a dozen people were injured”.
We have approached Flex for comment.
We brought you news of the attack earlier – see our 7.54 post.
For context: Trump has claimed a security guarantee for Ukraine, to prevent Russian aggression, could be the presence of US businesses under the minerals deal.
Donald Trump has criticised his predecessor Joe Biden for not letting Ukraine “FIGHT BACK”.
The US president frequently takes aim at his former rival, who beat him in the 2020 election.
In his latest post on social media, Trump has compared Ukraine to “a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense”.
“There is no chance of winning!” Trump added.
Earlier, we brought you the wide-ranging remarks Volodymyr Zelenskyy made to reporters yesterday.
As part of that, the Ukrainian leader said Trump had also criticised Barack Obama.
The comments were made in the White House on Monday, when Zelenskyy and Trump were discussing Crimea, he said.
Zelenskyy said Trump had “argued that Crimea was key to the full-scale war, stating that if Obama hadn’t allowed Putin to occupy Crimea and parts of Donbas, Putin wouldn’t have launched the full-scale invasion”.
By Dominic Waghorn, international affairs editor
Americans can be relied on to do the right thing once they have tried everything else.
If Winston Churchill did ever say that, he probably did not have an American president in mind who was in thrall to a Russian dictator.
But that is now the basis behind the diplomacy being pursued by Ukraine and its European allies with Donald Trump.
They are waging a war of attrition with Trump’s weird subservience to Vladimir Putin.
They hope Trump will eventually run out of free passes to give the Russian leader and end up doing the right thing – apply overwhelming pressure to force Putin to stop this war.
They also hope they are boxing both Trump and Putin into a corner.
The US president is pinning his hopes for peace, and a Nobel peace prize, on a meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin, then another including him.
That is looking increasingly unlikely.
Putin would ‘rather be seen dead’
Russia made it clear it was not serious when it proposed Moscow as a venue.
Clearly, Putin has retained a sense of humour.
His foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has one too, suggesting Russia must be part of any security guarantees against renewed Russian aggression in Ukraine in future.
The fox wants to help repair the hen house.
Lavrov is back to calling Zelenskyy the “so called leader of Ukraine” and mooting sending senior officials for meetings instead, kicking the chances of a presidential encounter firmly, he hopes, into the long grass.
The consensus among Kremlinologists is Putin would rather be seen dead than sit with a man he considers an illegitimate leader of a country that has no right to exist, unless they were discussing Ukraine’s capitulation.
The question is: is Trump noticing or has he banked the diplomatic extravaganza at the White House this week as a PR win and moved on?
Ukrainian hopes
Allies and Ukrainians can claim the following as progress: America remains committed to sending weapons, even if Europe has to pay for them, and the threat of military intelligence being withdrawn has receded.
But Trump has stopped calling for a ceasefire or entertaining the idea of kicking Putin where it hurts, Russia’s oil trade.
It is all about painting the other side as the problem in the mind of the US president.
There is cautious confidence among western diplomats that Putin is losing that battle, but this is a president whose default position is inexplicably to return to sympathising with Moscow.
Don’t hold your breath.
As Kremlin watcher Sam Greene observed, “here we go round the mulberry bush, vol 238”.
Belarus is exploring how to equip its rocket launcher systems with nuclear warheads, a senior Belarusian security official said.
Minsk, a close ally of Russia, does not possess its own nuclear weapons but hosts Russian tactical ones which remain under Moscow’s control.
Alexander Lukashenko, who has led Belarus since 1994, told officials at a meeting on weapons manufacturing today that Minsk needs to modernise and develop its missile production.
“The dynamics of military threats and the significant increase in military spending by our western neighbours force us to constantly pay close attention to the issue of the defence capabilities of Belarus, Russia, and our union,” Lukashenko was quoted as saying by state media.
Earlier today, the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation said Moscow’s nuclear shield should be strengthened in coming years due to the “colossal threats” facing the country.
Here are the scenes from Kyiv’s underground network last night as air raid sirens forced civilians out of their homes again.
As we’ve mentioned, last night’s aerial attack on Ukraine by Russia was the third-largest of the war so far (see 8.55am post).
Two German Eurofighter jets have been scrambled as part of NATO’s air policing mission, the military alliance’s air command says.
This marks the first deployment for the German detachment, which was launched from the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in Romania.
NATO’s air command did not give any more detail on the mission today.
Polish jets were scrambled early this morning to protect its airspace due to Russian strikes on Ukraine.
Lithuania has also today established a no-fly zone near its border with Belarus until 1 October in response to drones entering from there.
The arrest of a Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines is an “absolutely stunning development,” Europe correspondent Siobhan Robbins says.
“For so long there has been mystery around who was responsible,” she says.
“US intelligence agencies allegedly told the New York Times last year that it was potentially linked to Ukrainian nationals. Ukraine has always denied any involvement.
“Others pointed fingers at Russia – they’ve always denied any involvement.
“So today we have this development that a Ukrainian national has been arrested. What we don’t know is the makeup of the rest of the group and whether this was lone rangers or part of a bigger plot.”
Sky News understands the suspect was on holiday with his family on the Adriatic coast when he was arrested.
Sergei Lavrov’s hardline remarks today have cast serious doubt on the prospect of peace talks, Moscow correspondent Ivor Bennett says.
Speaking to presenter Gareth Barlow, he says it’ll be very interesting to see how US President Donald Trump reacts to Lavrov’s comments.
“For a second day in a row now, Russia’s foreign minister has poured some pretty cold water on the American president’s diplomatic push to find a peace deal.”
Lavrov said the “so-called coalition of the willing” was trying to undermine the “progress” made between Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska last week.
He also said Ukraine’s allies were “trying to shift the focus away from resolving the root causes” of the war.
“Clearly, I think he is trying to drive a wedge there between Donald Trump and the European leaders,” Bennett adds.
He says last night’s huge Russian aerial attack on Ukraine – the biggest in over a month – shows Moscow’s intentions.
“This is not the kind of activity you would associate with a country that claims to want peace,” Bennett says.
Russian forces have captured the village of Oleksandro-Shultyne in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Moscow’s defence ministry said.
The ministry also said its troops carried out strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, military-industrial facilities and airfield infrastructure overnight.
Sky News could not independently verify the battlefield reports.
Russia has slowly been taking more land in Ukraine’s east as part of a renewed summer offensive.
Analysts believe Moscow’s forces are seeking to gain as much territory as possible ahead of peace talks, which could see land swaps take place.
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