But while they put the onus back on Putin, European leaders said the road to any settlement seems long. They cheered Trump’s openness to security guarantees, even as officials conceded that securing postwar Ukraine would be no simple task, and that they had yet to pin down the exact U.S. role.
Trump on Tuesday said he would not send American troops to Ukraine but suggested the United States would offer support to European nations that do.
The conversation about security guarantees sets up a potential collision course with the Kremlin and appears to be triggering unease in Moscow. Russia’s Foreign Ministry repeated its rejections of any role for forces from NATO countries in Ukraine and warned Monday against “uncontrolled escalation.”
A U.S. and European plan to give Ukraine security guarantees, if it pans out, could put Putin in a precarious position: Any role of NATO countries in bolstering Kyiv counters what the Kremlin has fought during more than three years of war in Ukraine….
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Kyiv’s European partners, wary of an emboldened Russia next door, say any settlement will have to provide a bulwark against future attacks. European officials say this would also give Zelensky a means to gain domestic acceptance for a deal with Russia — especially if it involves any de facto land concessions.
Since early this year, a coalition led by France and Britain — the Europeans’ two nuclear powers — has explored ways to support Kyiv in a future deal. They are the only big countries that have publicly announced readiness to deploy troops — away from the front as a “reassurance force” for Ukraine….
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Zelensky’s top aspiration — NATO membership — has long been out of reach without buy-in from all members, particularly the United States.
While U.S. officials said Putin had agreed to security guarantees in Alaska, Russian analysts said any such agreement would probably involve Moscow insisting on a veto — a stance it took during peace talks in Istanbul in 2022 — making an arrangement worthless…..
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Pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov said Russia has “no reason to stop” the war if Ukraine does not accept a radical reduction to its army and an enforced change to its government.
“They are trying to get Russia’s agreement for a Ukrainian NATO to be created. … This is definitely not going to suit Russia,” he said. “The most probable outcome is that Trump will say Russia and Ukraine don’t want peace, so I will leave.”….
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The Russian leadership continued to obfuscate on Wednesday, after European leaders and Donald Trump said Vladimir Putin had agreed to a one-on-one meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy to kickstart peace talks. Sergei Lavrov said Moscow did not reject any format for Ukraine peace talks but the Russian foreign minister appeared to apply the brakes, saying any leaders’ meeting “must be prepared with utmost thoroughness”. On Tuesday, a Kremlin aide said only that Putin was open to the “idea” of “raising the level of representatives of the Ukrainian and Russian sides” at a future meeting.
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The White House also announced that Viktor Orbán, the pro-Putin Hungarian prime minister, and Trump had discussed the possibility of talks being held in Budapest. As with the Kremlin, there was no apparent confirmation of this conversation from the Hungarian side. A war crimes warrant could oblige Hungarian authorities to arrest a visiting Putin, but Hungary is withdrawing from the international criminal court. Orbán explicitly committing to play host could place further unwanted pressure on the Russian ruler from one of his few allies to accept the meeting as an inevitability.
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Austria and Switzerland also said they would be ready to host the meeting. Switzerland said that during Putin’s visit it could set aside its international criminal court obligations. “This has to do with our diplomatic role, with international Geneva as [the European] headquarters of the United Nations,” said Ignazio Cassis, the Swiss foreign minister. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Geneva was a potential location for the talks. The Austrian chancellor, Christian Stocker, said his country supported any initiative leading to a just and lasting peace protecting Ukrainian and European security.
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Donald Trump has ruled out sending US troops to Ukraine to enforce a potential peace deal, tempering a promise to provide Kyiv with security guarantees in conjunction with European allies, write Andrew Roth and Pjotr Sauer. In a phone interview with Fox News, Trump did however say that Washington may be willing to provide air support to Ukraine in order to backstop a deal, in what would still be a remarkable shift in his administration’s policy on the conflict.
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Putin opposes Ukraine joining Nato – Trump told Fox that “there’ll be some form of security. It can’t be Nato. They’re willing to put people on the ground. We’re willing to help them with things, especially, probably, if you could talk about by air.” Trump conceded that Putin might not want to make a deal after all, saying: “We’re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks.”
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Nato military leaders are expected to meet on Wednesday to discuss Ukraine and the way forward, a US official and Nato official have told the Reuters news agency. The US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Gen Dan Caine, chair of the US joint chiefs of staff, was expected to teleconference in, but plans could still change. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Another Nato official said the alliance’s top military commander, Alexus Grynkewich, would brief the leaders on the results of the Alaska meeting between Trump and Putin last week.
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Following Monday’s meeting in Washington, Russia launched its biggest air assault in more than a month on Ukraine, with 270 drones and 10 missiles fired, the Ukrainian air force said. The energy ministry said the strikes caused big fires at energy facilities in the central Poltava region, home to Ukraine’s only oil refinery. The governor of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lysak, said Russian shelling killed a resident of Nikopol, a frequent target of Moscow’s attacks.
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A Ukrainian drone attack late on Tuesday knocked out power to Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, said the Moscow-installed governor, Yevgeny Balitsky. Kyiv maintains control of the region’s main administrative centre and its attacks have periodically knocked out electricity in Russian-held areas. The illegally occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station was unaffected, the plant’s director told Russia’s RIA news agency. The plant produces no electricity but needs power for cooling and monitoring systems to maintain safety.
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Russia and Ukraine exchanged more bodies of their war dead, the Moscow-run Tass news agency reported on Tuesday, citing a source. Moscow handed over the bodies of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers and had received 19 bodies of its own fallen soldiers in return, it was reported. Ukraine appeared to confirm the exchange…..
ISW…Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, August 19, 2025
- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accurately stated that the Kremlin’s objective in Ukraine is to politically control all of Ukraine rather than to seize select Ukrainian territories such as Donetsk Oblast.
- Russia launched the full-scale invasion in 2022 after failing to secure control over Ukraine by other means.
- Russia similarly seeks to exert influence over the internal governance of other former Soviet countries, including NATO states, effectively denying their sovereignty and setting conditions to threaten their independent governance.
- Lavrov implicitly rejected suggestions that Russia might accept Western security guarantees for Ukraine.
- Russian forces appear to be attempting to counterattack Ukrainian forces clearing the Russian infiltration near Dobropillya as Ukrainian forces increasingly threaten the base of the penetration.
- Russian infiltration tactics and a low manpower density along the frontline in the Pokrovsk direction have seemingly allowed Russian forces to restore limited, tactical maneuver east and southeast of Dobropillya —at least temporarily.
- Ukraine and Russia conducted another exchange of the bodies of soldiers killed in action (KIA) on August 19.
- Ukrainian authorities implicated a soldier of the Russian 82nd Motorized Rifle Regiment in the executions of two Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) in Vovchansk, Kharkiv Oblast in Summer 2024.
- Ukrainian forces advanced near Pokrovsk and Velykomykhailivka. Russian forces advanced near Chasiv Yar and Toretsk
Daily Kos grunt report for the day,,,,
The Russian Dobropillia breakout Op last week has become encircled by Ukraine forces….