Trump says Putin may not want to make a deal on Ukraine

RUSSIA LAUNCHES LARGEST ATTACK THIS MONTH

While the Washington talks allowed for a temporary sense of relief in Kyiv, fighting raged on. Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles in an overnight attack on Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said, the largest this month.

The energy ministry said Russia had targeted energy facilities in the central Poltava region, home to Ukraine’s only oil refinery, sparking large fires.

Ukrainian officials said Russia also returned the bodies of 1,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers on Tuesday, while Moscow received 19 bodies of its own troops in return, according to state-run news agency TASS.

REACTIONS FROM ALLIES

“The good news (from Monday’s summit) is that there was no blow-up. Trump didn’t demand Ukrainian capitulation nor cut off support. The mood music was positive and the trans-Atlantic alliance lives on,” John Foreman, a former British defence attache to Kyiv and Moscow, told Reuters.

“On the downside, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the nature of security guarantees and what exactly the US has in mind.”

Ukraine’s allies held talks in the “Coalition of the Willing” format on Tuesday, discussing additional sanctions to increase pressure on Russia. Planning teams will meet US counterparts in the coming days to advance security guarantee plans.

NATO military leaders were expected to meet on Wednesday to discuss Ukraine, with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, due to attend virtually, officials said.

“We are now actively working at all levels on the specifics, on what the architecture of the guarantees will look like, with all members of the Coalition of the Willing, and very concretely with the United States,” Zelenskiy said on social media platform X.