{"id":160441,"date":"2025-08-12T20:51:52","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T20:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-white-house-distances-trump-from-making-deal-with-putin-at-summit-russian-troops-launch-surprise-offensive-sky-news\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T20:51:52","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T20:51:52","slug":"ukraine-war-latest-white-house-distances-trump-from-making-deal-with-putin-at-summit-russian-troops-launch-surprise-offensive-sky-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-latest-white-house-distances-trump-from-making-deal-with-putin-at-summit-russian-troops-launch-surprise-offensive-sky-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war latest: White House distances Trump from 'making deal' with Putin at summit; Russian troops launch surprise offensive – Sky News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 21:42, UK
Michael Clarke<\/a>, 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.
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<\/a>.
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.<\/b>
Donald Trump is lowering expectations ahead of his meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday, our US correspondent James Matthews<\/a> has said.
Speaking on the latest episode of the Trump 100<\/a> 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<\/a> 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.<\/b>
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<\/a> 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<\/a>.
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.<\/b>
Ukraine’s president has said Vladimir 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%.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has 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.
Ukraine’s so-called fortress belt runs along the frontline it holds in Donetsk, which experts at the Institute for the Study of War have said would take Russia years of bloody fighting to penetrate. 
The western borders between Donetsk and the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions are more vulnerable, however, including much open terrain.
Zelenskyy also told reporters that territorial issues should be discussed after Russia agrees to a ceasefire, and that security guarantees for Ukraine should form an integral part of that discussion.
Speaking on Russia’s push in the east of Ukraine (see our 15.10 post), Zelenskyy said the move has been timed to coincide with Putin’s talks with Donald Trump.
Karoline Leavitt has now left the podium in the White House briefing room after being asked a range of questions on Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin.
Let’s take a look at the key things we learned:
Karoline Leavitt has now been asked about whether the return of abducted Ukrainian children is a red line for Donald Trump in ending the war.
“The president did encourage Ukraine and Russia to speak directly to one another in terms of humanitarian issues, and we have seen progress,” she says.
“We have seen prisoners of war swapped between these two countries as a result of these direct talks.
She adds that the topic of abducted children is one “Russia and Ukraine need to iron out together which is why they need to speak.”
With Donald Trump describing his upcoming talks with Vladimir Putin as a “feel-out meeting” yesterday, Karoline Leavitt has been asked whether there has been a shift in expectations.
“The president wants a peace deal, he wants to see this war come to an end,” she says.
“But this bilateral meeting is a bilateral meeting between one party in a two party war, you need both countries to agree to a deal.”
Be the first to get Breaking News<\/span>
Install the Sky News app for free<\/p>\n

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