🇺🇸 U.S. President Donald Trump has interrupted his talks in Washington with European leaders to call 🇷🇺 Russian President Vladimir Putin, an EU diplomat told Reuters on Monday.
The talks are due to resume after the call, which Trump had initially said would take place after he consulted with European leaders, added the diplomat. Germany's Bild newspaper first reported the call.
The leaders of Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Finland and the European Union are accompanying Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky on his Washington trip, as well as the secretary-general of NATO.
The negotiations in the Oval Office resumed shortly after the reported phone call, according to Zelensky's spokesperson Serhiy Nykyforov, cited by CNN.
US Chair of the Joint Chiefs General Dan Caine, and his staff, have been working on potential security guarantees for Ukraine according to a source familiar with the planning, cited by CNN.
🇷🇺 🇺🇸 A lip reader has revealed what exactly Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump whispered to each other on the airport tarmac as they met for a high-stakes meeting about ending the war in Ukraine.
The two leaders shook hands for the first time in six years Friday in a charged moment at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, before they climbed into the same motorcade to begin the historic talks.
In a moment watched around the world, Trump, 79, dutifully waited on the red carpet for his 72-year-old Russian counterpart to descend the stairs of his aircraft in the Last Frontier State.
The US leader seemed somewhat impatient, with a lip reader telling the Daily Mail the very first word of their encounter was Trump saying: 'Finally.'
As they shook hands, Trump said: 'You made it, fantastic to see you and appreciated.'
The lip reader told the Daily Mail that the two presidents both promised to 'help' each other during the cordial greeting.
'Thank you, and you. I am here to help you,' Putin replied.
Trump jovially responded: 'I’ll help you.'
Putin then reportedly told Trump he 'will bring it to a rest' if asked.
'All they need is to ask,' he said.
'I hope it does,' Trump replied, before turning towards their waiting vehicle and saying: 'Come on, let’s get straight into the vehicle. We need to move forward, both giving it attention. I know this is serious, it’s quite long. What a journey it is.'
Trump then asked the Russian leader if he wanted the 'scoop,' to which Putin replied: 'Give me the scoop.'
'It's cargo fuel,' he replied. It's unclear what exactly they were discussing.
After stepping up to the podium, Trump asks Putin to shake his hand because it 'gives a good impression'.
Putin nodded and stuck out his hand. 'Thank you,' he replied.
During the brief moment on the podium, the Russian leader ignored journalists' questions about Ukraine and the killing of civilians.
The two leaders got into a waiting vehicle together and were seen smiling inside as they drove to a separate building for the meeting.
Moments before Trump's plane touched down, the White House announced the planned one-on-one meeting between the world leaders was off the table.
Putin and Trump are instead holding talks with two of their top aides.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US Ambassador Steve Witkoff are joining Trump during his formal discussions with Putin.
On his way to Anchorage, Trump told reporters his goal was to 'stop the killing,' but that he didn't know how long it would take to get a ceasefire deal over the line.
'I don't know if it's going to be today,' Trump admitted on Air Force One. 'But I'm not going to be happy if it's not today. Everyone said it can't be today - but I want the killing to stop.'
🇷🇺 🇺🇸 Before his departure from Alaska, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a cemetery and laid flowers at the graves of Soviet pilots who lost their lives during World War II.
The head of the Russian state also spoke with a hierarch of the Orthodox Church in America, Archbishop of Sitka and Alaska Alexei.
The President of Russia presented the hierarch with an icon of St. Herman of Alaska, the patron saint of America, and an icon of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos.
“I would like to convey to you the very best wishes from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow. We met with him before my trip here. He himself told me about how the Orthodox Church began here.
He told me that he too had visited, and had served here. He spoke of you with great warmth,” said Putin.
Archbishop Alexei thanked the President of Russia and also presented him with an icon of St. Herman of Alaska, which had been written on Mount Athos.
“This is an icon that was given to me as a gift when I was consecrated a bishop on Mount Athos.
For four years it has been in my prayer corner, and I would like to give it to you in order to express the gratitude of the native people of Alaska to the leader of the country that once sent missionaries here.
Because Russia gave us what we value most, what is most precious — the Orthodox faith,” said the hierarch.
🇷🇺 🇺🇦 For the past 18 months, Pavlo has barely left his house. His reclusiveness has nothing to do with the Russian bombs and drones pounding Kyiv. It is not the air strikes he fears, but his own Ukrainian countrymen.
It is draft officers, seeking to press-gang able-bodied men like him into units bound for the front that he dreads.
Pavlo is no conscientious objector. He regards himself as a patriot and never questions the righteousness of Ukraine’s cause. Yet he – and millions like him – will not fight for their country.
Reluctance to serve – or to keep serving, in the case of the ever-swelling number of deserters – has long troubled Ukraine.
In the past 48 hours, Russian troops breached Ukrainian defences near the coal-mining town of Dobropillia, pushing nine miles into territory around the city of Pokrovsk, a long-time Russian target.
The shock advance, the most significant Russian gain this year, cast Ukraine’s manpower problems in stark relief.[/b]
Ukraine has since deployed some of its best reserves to slow the incursion, but DeepState, a monitoring group close to the defence ministry, called the situation “chaotic”.
Russian troops had found gaps in the lines, advanced and were “consolidating positions and gathering forces for new advances”.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, cast the push as an attempt to shape the narrative at the Trump-Putin summit, showing that “Russia is advancing while Ukraine is losing ground” in the hope Mr Trump will back Putin’s terms.
That may be true, but it does not change the reality on the ground.
“The entire defence line is like a sieve,” wrote Stansislav Bunyatov, a Ukrainian serviceman and blogger, a sentiment echoed by Borden Krotevhych, former chief of the Azov Brigade.
Krotevhych wrote: “This chaos has been growing for a long time, worsening with each passing day. A stable line of combat, as such, effectively doesn’t exist.”
Ukraine is “visibly losing the war”, says Konrad Muzkya, a Polish military analyst, largely because of the manpower crisis. So why won’t men like Pavlo, 35 and a new father, enlist?
“Probably because I am afraid,” he says, with disarming honesty.
“Afraid to die or, worse, lose my mind and become a burden to my family. Afraid to leave my family in poverty. Afraid that my daughter will grow up an orphan. Afraid of being captured and tortured for months.
“I feel ashamed of this. People look for excuses not to join the army. People tell themselves that it is the government which is wrong, or that Europe is to blame, or that someone else should be sent. But for most, it’s simply fear.”
Fear is part of it. But not the whole story.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine had 260,000 troops. By summer that had swelled to 700,000 as volunteers flooded in.
Outnumbering the invading Russians, Ukraine recaptured 5,800 square miles of territory by the end of the year.
Those days are gone. Mobilising reservists, recruiting prisoners and offering financial inducements to men in the country’s left-behind villages, Russia – with a far larger population – regained numerical supremacy by late 2023.
Until recently however, Ukraine compensated with superior drone power. But Russia has caught up, deploying more drones and better counter-measures, as well as becoming better at neutralising Ukraine’s.
“Ukraine has an infantry shortage while its drones, the very thing its defences hinged on, are being suppressed,” says Mr Muzyka. “The result is that over the past couple of months we have seen the Russians make significant pushes on several axes.”
Worse, Ukraine’s infantry is shrinking, with desertions and casualties exceeding the 200,000 mobilised last year.
Around 650,000 men of fighting age are thought to have fled Ukraine. Others hide, like Pavlo, or bribe draft officers and army psychiatrists for health exemptions.
Fearing a public backlash, Mr Zelensky has resisted Western pressure to lower the draft age from 25 to 18, which would add 800,000 potential recruits.
The desertion crisis is even starker. Unofficial estimates suggest more than 400 soldiers are abandoning the battlefield daily – exhausted by years of war, frustrated by rigid, top-down command, and disheartened by those avoiding service. Mr Trump’s perceived tilt towards Moscow has deepened defeatism.
The collapse in morale is feeding a vicious cycle.
As ranks thin, generals strip other units to fill the front line. Air force mechanics and radar operators are sent to fight as infantry –where life expectancy is far shorter. That, in turn, makes evaders even more determined to stay away.
[b]“I’m not ashamed to say that I’m scared of joining the infantry,” says Oleksandr, a 36-year-old programmer in hiding.
“My contacts in the military say that practically every recruit from the small amount of draftees the military now gets is sent to replenish the infantry, whose ranks suffer the highest number of casualties.”
In the ruins of front-line towns, and on the battlefield, there is no escape. Despite the reversals, many soldiers fight on regardless.
“I don’t plan on stopping any time soon,” says Oleg, serving near Pokrovsk, speaking shortly after losing a close friend in combat.
“If I quit now, I wouldn’t feel like a man – I wouldn’t feel right. I would feel like I’m letting my team and my family down.”
Mr Muzkya points out: “When you are losing and there is a manpower shortage then obviously, if you are a Ukrainian male, your willingness to join up is far smaller than in 2022 when Ukraine was pushing the Russians back and looked like it was winning.”
LordReed: Russia is scavenging mothballed tanks that have no stabilisers from Siberia. You guys should stop being such propaganda hogs. A war is costly for all involved especially if your territory is invaded so there are many reasons not go to war but it is not because Russia has some mythical military might. The biggest deterance is their nuclear arsenal. If Ukraine still had theirs Russia would not have invaded them.
Show us the ones Ukraine is using. Let's see if they're any different. What does stabilizers have to do with armored tanks.
Let's assume you're right. Isn't it shameful that Russia is using "mothballed tanks" to defeat Ukraine and demilitarize NATO?
These "mothballed tanks" are outclassing so called "sophisticated" US/NATO tanks in Ukraine. Isn't that shameful?
You're living in a bubble. You think Hollywood is the same as reality right? You'll learn a bitter lesson.
Israel has nukes but Iran without nukes decimated them left and right and destroyed their cities.
Only one country have ever used Nukes to win a war. The United States. They nuked Japan and without that Japan wouldn't have surrendered.
Did Russia use Nukes to defeat Nazi Germany?
Before Nukes were invented, was the West afraid of Russia? Yes or No?
Foreign Affairs › Re: Trump Interrupts Meeting With EU Leaders To Call Putin (Photos) by Kaliningrad(op): 10:57pm On Aug 18, 2025*. Modified: 6:28am On Aug 19, 2025
