Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump’s special envoy Witkoff in Moscow today as ceasefire deadline looms – UK Times

Volodymyr Zelensky said he had a “productive” conversation with his US counterpart Donald Trump on ending the war, sanctions on Russia and the finalisation of a US-Ukraine drone deal.

“President Trump is fully informed about Russian strikes on Kyiv and other cities and communities,” Mr Zelensky wrote on X, referring to intensifying drone and missile attacks.

Mr Trump, who has signalled frustration with Vladimir Putin in recent weeks, has given the Russian president until 8 August to make peace in Ukraine or face tougher sanctions.

Speaking in his nightly video address, Mr Zelensky said Mr Trump “knows the situation along the front line,” which extends for 1,000km (620 miles) through eastern and southern Ukraine.

Ukraine, he said, had long supported US proposals for an immediate ceasefire and had proposed a number of formats to implement a halt to the fighting.

“We have spoken with and proposed to Russia quiet in the skies, no missile and drone attacks and specifically no attacks on civilian infrastructure or on the energy sector,” he said.

“All of this has been violated by the Russians and in a very cynical fashion.”

Russian forces pressing their slow advance through eastern Ukraine have captured the village of Sichneve in east-central Dnipropetrovsk region, the Russian defence ministry said in its evening update.

Russian forces have for months been pushing westward along sections of the 1,000-km (620-mile) front line, capturing new villages nearly on a daily basis, mainly in Donetsk region.

Ukraine’s military says its forces are holding their frontline positions and on Monday issued a pointed denial that its troops were surrounded in Pokrovsk, a logistics hub in Donetsk region under heavy attack for months.

Russian forces now hold about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory since invading their smaller neighbour in February 2022 and have formally annexed four regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Moscow says it has full control of Luhansk region and holds parts of the others, plus Crimea, a peninsula it seized in 2014.

Authorities in Kyiv made no mention of Moscow’s latest announcement of a captured village in Dnipropetrovsk region and for weeks have denied that Russian forces have entered the region.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s military said Ukrainian forces continued action to contain Russian forces that have been trying to move closer to Pokrovsk, once a city of 60,000 residents and site of Ukraine’s only colliery producing coking coal.

“At the same time, some sources are disseminating information suggesting that our units are surrounded in Pokrovsk,” it said in an evening report. “This is absolutely not true.”

President Donald Trump’s administration is considering additional sanctions on Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ of oil tankers if Russian president Vladimir Putin does not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine by Friday, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

It would mark the first time the US has imposed sanctions on Moscow since Trump returned to the White House in January.

Russia has used a shadow fleet of ageing oil tankers to ship oil around the world as a method of evading western restrictions imposed in the wake of its full-scale invasion on Ukraine.

The ownership of the fleet is hidden and it avoids using services from western companies.

Russia has declared that it no longer considers itself bound by a self-imposed moratorium on the deployment of nuclear-capable intermediate range missiles, a warning that potentially sets the stage for a new arms race as tensions between Moscow and Washington rise again over Ukraine.

In a statement on Monday, the Russian foreign ministry linked the decision to efforts by the US and its allies to develop intermediate range weapons and preparations for their deployment in Europe and other parts of the world. It specifically cited US plans to deploy Typhoon and Dark Eagle missiles in Germany starting next year.

Improving relations between Russia and the United States will take time, Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the Russian TASS state news agency in remarks published this morning.

“There is, of course, inertia in this process,” Mr Peskov told Tass, referring to the prolonged absence of a meeting between president Vladimir Putin and US president Donald Trump.

“It takes time for efforts to bring bilateral relations back onto a normal track,” he said.

Vladimir Putin is unlikely to bow to a sanctions ultimatum expiring this Friday from Donald Trump, sources close to the Kremlin have said.

The US president has threatened to hit Russia with new sanctions and impose 100 per cent tariffs on countries that buy its oil, of which the biggest are China and India, unless Putin agrees to a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Mr Putin’s goal is to fully capture the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which Russia has claimed as its own, and then to talk about a peace agreement, a source told news agency Reuters.

The Russian leader does not want to anger Trump, and he realises that he may be spurning a chance to improve relations with Washington and the West, but his war goals take precedence, the sources said.

Moscow’s stated demands include a full Ukrainian withdrawal from the four regions and acceptance by Kyiv of neutral status and limits on the size of its military – demands rejected by Ukraine.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to visit Moscow on Wednesday in an attempt to convince Mr Putin to sign a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff will be in Moscow today to meet with Russian leadership, a source familiar with the plan said yesterday.

Officials in Washington provided few details of Mr Witkoff’s schedule.

“The president has noted, of course, that Special Envoy Witkoff will be traveling to Russia this week, so we can confirm that from this podium,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters.

“What that will entail, I have no details for you.”

Russia’s state-run TASS news agency, quoting aviation sources, said an aircraft believed to have Mr Witkoff on board, had already left the United States.

US president Donald Trump, who has signalled frustration with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin in recent weeks, has given him until this Friday to make progress toward peace in Ukraine or face tougher sanctions.