Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected what he says is Vladimir Putin’s proposal to hand Russia the Donbas in exchange for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, the White House has distanced Donald Trump from expectations he could make a deal with Putin. Listen to the latest episode of Trump 100 below.
Tuesday 12 August 2025 23:57, UK
Michael Clarke, our military analyst, is back tomorrow to answer your Ukraine war questions.
It could be a hugely significant week for the future of the conflict and peace in Europe, with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meeting in Alaska on Friday.
With Volodymyr Zelenskyy sidelined from the talks, can we expect a peace deal?
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. He’ll answer them live tomorrow at 2pm.
Thanks for following our live coverage of the war in Ukraine today.
While anticipation is building ahead of Donald Trump’s talks with Vladimir Putin on Friday, open source data showed that Russia seized 10km of land in a shock eastern offensive.
A sudden thrust near the mining town of Dobropillia, near Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, has taken Ukraine by surprise, Ukraine’s DeepState war map showed.
However, Ukraine denied that Russian forces broke through its frontlines.
“As is known, the Russians use the tactic of infiltration by small groups past the first line of defence, losing a lot of personnel, which happened near Dobropillya,” Ukraine’s armed forces said.
It added that “a small enemy group” bypassed Ukrainian positions and “tried to hide in our rear, but the Defense Forces are repelling such attempts”.
Watch our security and defence analyst Michael Clarke break down the situation here.
Zelenskyy rejects Putin’s ‘proposal’
Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Putin wants the rest of Donetsk – and in effect the entire Donbas – as part of a ceasefire plan.
Kyiv controls around 30%, or 9,000 sq km, of Donetsk, which is located in Ukraine’s east, Zelenskyy said.
It borders Russia and makes up the region known as the Donbas along with the neighbouring Luhansk region, of which Moscow controls 99%.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine would reject the proposal.
He explained that such a move would deprive Kyiv of defensive lines and open the way for Moscow to conduct further offensives.
EU leaders appeal to Trump not to sideline Ukraine
Elsewhere, 26 EU leaders have issued a joint statement warning that Ukraine must have a role in deciding its future, after Trump said Zelenskyy wouldn’t be a part of his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.
The EU leaders repeated calls for Zelenskyy to be invited, welcoming Trump’s efforts “towards ending Russia’s war of aggression”, but warning: “The people of Ukraine must have the freedom to decide their future.”
The statement was signed by every EU member state except Hungary, which has an often antagonistic relationship with Ukraine and the European Union, and is Putin’s closest ally in Europe.
On Friday’s summit, the White House announced it will be held in Anchorage – Alaska’s largest city.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the talks will be a “listening exercise” for Trump.
It comes as our US correspondent James Matthews said Trump is lowering expectations ahead of the summit.
Watch the latest Trump 100 episode in the video below.
By David Blevins, US correspondent
It’s beginning to feel like “Midnight Sun” diplomacy.
In parts of Alaska, the sun doesn’t set in summer, casting light through the night but leaving you disorientated.
The Trump-Putin summit is pitched as “transparent” but it’s difficult to find any path to peace right now.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has reduced it to a “listening exercise” where Donald Trump will seek a “better understanding” of the situation.
There isn’t much to understand – Russia wants territory, Ukraine isn’t ceding it – but Leavitt rejects talk of them “tempering expectations”.
It’s possible to be both hopeful and measured, she says, because Trump wants peace but is only meeting one side on Friday.
It’s the fact that he’s only meeting Vladimir Putin that concerns European leaders, who fear Ukraine could be side-lined by any Trump-Putin pact.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy claims Putin wants the rest of Donetsk and, in effect, the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
He’s ruled out surrendering that because it would rob him of key defence lines and leave Kyiv vulnerable to future offensives.
European leaders will hold online talks with Zelenskyy twice on Wednesday, on either side of a virtual call with Trump and JD Vance.
Their concerns may be getting through, hence the White House now framing the summit as a cautious fact-finding exercise and nothing more.
The only thing we really learned from the latest press conference is that the first Trump-Putin meeting in six years will be in Anchorage.
Alaska itself, with its history and geography, is a layered metaphor: a place the Russians sold to the United States in the 1800s.
A remote but strategic frontier where the lines of ownership and the rules of negotiation are once again being sketched out.
On a clear day, you can see Russia from Alaska, but without Zelensky in the room, it’s difficult to see them conquering any summit.
In the place where the sun never sets, the deal might never start.
Hungary was the only EU nation to not sign the bloc’s statement in support of Ukraine earlier today – see our 8.08 post for more details.
The country has an often antagonistic relationship with Ukraine and the European Union, and is Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Europe.
In his nightly address, Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked the leaders of the 26 EU countries who signed the statement on Ukraine.
“It is clear who the 27th is,” he wrote in a post on X, referring to Hungary.
“Always against everything, just to be uniquely against.”
Vladimir Putin has held a phone call with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ahead of the summit with Donald Trump on Friday.
The Kremlin said that Putin updated Kim Jong Un on the planned talks, which are due to be held in Anchorage – Alaska’s largest city.
The leaders’ call comes a month after the North Korean leader offered his “unconditional support” to Moscow.
Those comments came when Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visited North Korea, with Kim telling him Pyongyang stood by “all the measures taken by the Russian leadership” to tackle the “root cause of the Ukrainian crisis”.
Western officials estimate North Korea has sent around 11,000 troops to Russia to fight in its war against Ukraine.
Donald Trump “goes in the other direction” when it comes to arranging negotiations, a former US deputy national security adviser has said.
“In my experience, every time President Trump has had a negotiation, he doesn’t want to do what most political leaders do,” KT McFarland told our chief presenter Mark Austin.
She explained that staff typically “iron out all the details, and by the time the two presidents get together, everything’s already been decided”.
“Trump goes in the other direction,” she said.
“He wants to meet with the principal, see what’s possible, get a sense of things and then he’ll figure out what the negotiating position should be.”
Drawing on her experiences with Trump in the White House Situation Room, McFarland said Trump “wants the deal done”.
“Ukraine isn’t going to win this war, it’s slow and grinding, it’s a war of attrition,” she added.
“The quicker they can get to an agreed peace, Ukraine can win the peace.
“In fact, Ukraine is likely to win the peace because… five years after a deal, Ukraine is a powerful, strong country, Russia not so much, nobody’s going to rush into investing in Russia.”
Watch the full interview below.
Donald Trump is lowering expectations ahead of his meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday, our US correspondent James Matthews has said.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Trump 100 podcast, Matthews said the US president seems to be “freestyling his way through it” ahead of the meeting.
Trump described the talks as a “feel-out meeting”, and our US correspondent Martha Kelner said there are still a lot of unknowns.
She explained Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be “feeling a slide back” to Trump’s old ways, adding that Ukraine’s president “won’t like the mood music” ahead of the talks.
Watch the latest episode in the video below.
Russia’s government will convene an emergency meeting with top oil companies on Thursday to address soaring fuel prices, Russian news agency Interfax reports.
It comes as gasoline prices have jumped nearly 50% in the country since the start of the year.
Officials are weighing up measures to keep retail gasoline prices from outpacing inflation, with Russia’s deputy prime minister to lead the talks.
The surge in prices comes as Ukraine continues its long-range drone strikes on Russian oil refineries, as the Kyiv Independent reports.
According to Reuters, Ukrainian drones have caused the Ryazan refinery to halve production and shut down the Novokuibyshevsk facility entirely.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has spoken to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and warned that an unjust peace “will not hold for long”.
Ukraine’s president said Erdogan stated that any negotiations without Ukraine “will not bring sustainable peace”.
“We equally understand all the risks and threats,” he wrote in a post on social media.
“An imitated rather than genuine peace will not hold for long and will only encourage Russia to seize even more territory.
“I noted that we are ready for any format of meeting aimed at stopping the killings and ending the war.”
Donald Trump has said he and Vladimir Putin will discuss “land swapping” when they meet on Friday.
But what could such a swap between Russia and Ukraine look like?
Our security and defence analyst Michael Clarke breaks it down in the video below.
Friday’s meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is being organised in a “great rush”, a former UK ambassador to the US has said.
“Normally a summit like this would be prepared for weeks, if not months, by officials,” Lord Darroch told our chief presenter Mark Austin.
He explained that officials would typically agree an agenda and look for points of agreement while also trying to isolate points of disagreement.
“I suspect there are frantic preparations in both Moscow and Washington,” he added.
Turning to the contents of the talks, Lord Darroch explained that Putin’s main objective will be “to get him back to a position where all the pressure is on Zelenskyy and Ukraine”.
“I think Putin will see his opportunity to try to drag Donald Trump back to where he was at the beginning of his presidency, which was basically thinking that ending this conflict was a matter of persuading Ukraine to make a lot of concessions,” he said.
Watch the full interview below.
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