Summary
Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
At the Alaska summit, Putin demanded Ukraine withdraw from Donetsk and Luhansk as a condition for ending the war, but offered Trump a freeze along the remaining frontline, two sources with direct knowledge of the talks told the Guardian. Although Luhansk is almost entirely under Russian control, Ukraine still holds key parts of Donetsk, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and heavily fortified positions whose defence has cost tens of thousands of lives.
Eight pages of US government planning documents for the summit meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were left in a hotel printer in Anchorage before the meeting on Friday, NPR reports. The documents, which were posted online by NPR, appear to have been produced by Trump administration officials in charge of summit planning and included the precise locations and times for the scheduled meetings, as well the phone numbers of US government employees.
The Ukrainian military said it had pushed Russian forces back by about 2km (1.2 miles) on part of the Sumy front in northern Ukraine. There was no immediate comment from Russia, which controls a little over 200 sq km in the region, according to Ukraine’s battlefield mapping project DeepState.
Canadian prime minister Mark Carney welcomed what he said was US openness to providing security guarantees to Ukraine under a peace deal to end Russia’s war against Kyiv. “Robust and credible security guarantees are essential to any just and lasting peace. I welcome the openness of the United States to providing security guarantees as part of Coalition of the Willing’s efforts,” Carney said in a statement.
Donald Trump hand-delivered a personal letter from first lady Melania Trump to Russian leader Vladimir Putin raising the plight of Ukrainian and Russian children caught in the middle of the ongoing war between the two European countries, it was reported on Saturday. The contents of the letter were unknown – but two Trump administration officials told Reuters that it mentioned the abductions of children resulting from the war that broke out after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Following his meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday, Donald Trump told European leaders that he supported a plan to end the Ukraine-Russia war by ceding unconquered land to Russia, the New York Times reported, citing two senior European officials. The officials said Trump will discuss the plan with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday when the Ukrainian president visits the White House, adding that European leaders have been invited to join.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has said that his visit to Alaska was “useful and timely”, the Russian news agency TASS reported on Saturday. Putin also added that his conversation with Trump was “sincere and substantive”, adding that Russia respects the position of the US and also wants to settle the Ukrainian conflict peacefully.
Updated
Following Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin on Friday, Ukrainian officials are voicing concern over the US president’s apparent shift in tone after Putin demanded full control of Donetsk and Luhansk as a condition for ending the war.
On Truth Social, Trump said he wanted to “go directly to a peace agreement, which would end the war and not a mere ceasefire agreement, which often times do not hold up”.
Speaking to the Financial Times about Putin’s demands, a senior Ukrainian official said: “This is a stab in the back.”
Another senior Ukrainian official said: “He just wants a quick deal.”
Meanwhile, Oleksandr Merezhko, the chair of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told the outlet that the outcome of the summit was “awful”.
“It looks like Trump has aligned with Putin and they both might be starting to force us to accept a peace treaty, which means in reality capitulation of Ukraine,” he said, adding: “The whole idea of the summit, as we were explained by Trump and Rubio, was to present Putin with a demand for an immediate ceasefire. And if he rejects this proposal there would be severe consequences for him.”
Updated
