A firefighter works at a compound of a port on the Danube river, which was hit during overnight Russian drone strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in the Odesa region, Ukraine, April 17, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

An Ukrainian overnight drone ‍attack sparked a fire at ​an industrial facility in ‌Russia’s southern Stavropol ​region. File
| Photo Credit: AP

U.S. President Donald Trump’s chief interlocutor with the Russian government last month advised a senior aide to Vladimir Putin on how the Russian leader should go about pitching the U.S. president on a peace plan aimed at bringing an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to a transcript of the call published by Bloomberg News on Tuesday (November 25, 2025).

Mr. Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, according to a transcript of the Oct. 14 call published by the news service, advised Mr. Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov that Mr. Putin should call Mr. Trump to congratulate him for the Gaza peace deal, say Russia had supported it and that he respects the President as a man of peace.

“From that, it’s going to be a really good call,” Mr. Witkoff said according to the transcript.

The Bloomberg report came as Mr. Trump on Tuesday said a proposal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine has been “fine-tuned” and announced he’s sending Witkoff to meet with Mr. Putin.

The White House did not dispute the veracity of the transcript, and Mr. Trump described Mr. Witkoff’s reported approach to the Russians in the call as “standard” negotiating procedure.

“He’s got to sell this to Ukraine. He’s got to sell Ukraine to Russia,” Mr. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew to his home in Florida on Tuesday night. “That’s what a dealmaker does.”

But U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who has been critical of Mr. Trump’s approach to Ukraine, said the transcript showed Mr. Witkoff favours the Russians. “He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a Russian paid agent do less than he? He should be fired,” Mr. Bacon said on social media.

Bloomberg said it reviewed a recording of the call, but did not say how it obtained access to the recording. The Associated Press has not independently verified the transcript.

The Witkoff-Ushakov call happened a day after Mr. Trump made a triumphant visit to Israel and Egypt to celebrate sealing the Gaza ceasefire.

“Here’s what I think would be amazing,” Mr. Witkoff said to his counterpart during the call, according to Bloomberg. “Maybe he says to President Trump: you know, Steve and Yuri discussed a very similar 20-point plan to peace, and that could be something that we think might move the needle a little bit, we’re open to those sorts of things.”

Mr. Witkoff also suggested setting up a Trump-Putin call before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s White House visit later that week and suggested that Putin congratulate Trump on the Gaza agreement as an entry point into the call. Ushakov agreed that Putin “will congratulate” and will say “Mr. Trump is a real peace man.”

Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin ended up speaking to each other a day before the U.S. president held White House talks with Mr. Zelenskyy. Shortly after that meeting with Mr. Zelenskyy on Oct. 17, Mr. Trump said that Ukraine and Russia should “stop where they are” on the battlefield — meaning Ukraine should concede territory Russia had seized from its neighbor.

On Oct. 29, Ushakov spoke by phone with Kirill Dmitriev — a close adviser to Putin on Ukraine — and debated how strongly Moscow should push for its demands in a prospective peace proposal, according to another recording reviewed by Bloomberg.

“I’ll informally pass it along, making it clear that it’s all informal. And let them do like their own,” Mr. Dmitriev told Ushakov in the back and forth. “But, I don’t think they’ll take exactly our version, but at least it’ll be as close to it as possible.

The exchange happened soon after Dmitriev had travelled to Florida for talks with Mr. Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and informal adviser, that centered on creating the framework for a 28-point peace plan.

The original plan, which became public last week, appeared heavily skewed toward Russian demands and included calls for Ukraine to cede the entire Donbas region to Russia and dramatically reduce the size of its military. It also included an agreement from Europe that Ukraine will never be allowed to join the NATO military alliance.

“This story proves one thing: Special Envoy Witkoff talks to officials in both Russia and Ukraine nearly every day to achieve peace, which is exactly what President Trump appointed him to do,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

Mr. Dmitriev said in a social media post that the transcript was “Fake” and said in a second post: “The closer we get to peace, the more desperate warmongers become.” The Russian Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted the proposal was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians, in response to bipartisan pushback in Washington that the leaked plan amounted to a Russian wish list. The State Department declined to comment on the Bloomberg report.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he was sending Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to meet with Ukrainian officials as Mr. Witkoff meets with Mr. Putin. Mr. Trump also suggested he could eventually meet with Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelenskyy, but not until further progress has been made in negotiations.

Published – November 26, 2025 07:00 am IST

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he could meet with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, but only after his allies agree on security guarantees for Ukraine to deter future Russian attacks once the fighting stops.

In comments released Thursday, he also warned that both sides were preparing for further fighting. Russia was building up troops on the southern front line and Ukraine was test-launching a new long-range cruise missile, he said.

Russia said Thursday that Ukraine did not appear to be interested in “long-term” peace, accusing Kyiv of seeking security guarantees completely incompatible with Moscow’s demands.

U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to end Russia’s three-and-a-half-year invasion of Ukraine through talks with Mr. Zelenskyy and Mr. Putin.

While he has upended a years-long Western policy of isolating the Russian leader, he has made little tangible progress towards a peace deal.

“We want to have an understanding of the security guarantees architecture within seven to 10 days,” Zelensky said, in comments to reporters released for publication Thursday.

“We need to understand which country will be ready to do what at each specific moment,” he added.

A group of allies led by Britain and France are putting together a military coalition to support the guarantees.

Fresh Russian barrage

Once an outline of the security guarantees is agreed upon, Mr. Trump would like to see a bilateral meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian leader said.

But any meeting with the Russian leader should he held in a “neutral” European country, he added, ruling out any summit in Moscow.

He also rejected the idea of China playing a role in guaranteeing Ukraine’s security, citing Beijing’s alleged support for Moscow.

Mr. Zelenskyy’s comments came as Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles against Ukraine overnight — the biggest barrage since mid-July — killing one person in the western city of Lviv and wounding many others.

Russian missiles also targeted an American-owned factory complex in town of Mukachevo in the west of Ukraine, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on social media. That attack wounded 19 people, she added.

President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine Andy Hunder said that the factory was “one of the largest American investments in Ukraine.

“Russia continues to destroy and humiliate U.S. businesses in Ukraine, targeting companies that invest and trade on the US stock markets,” Hunder said on Facebook.

France on Thursday condemned the overnight strikes as showing Moscow’s “lack of will to seriously engage in peace talks”, describing them as the “most massive attack in a month”.

A later shelling of the city of Kherson killed one person and wounded more than a dozen, a local official said.

Russia claims advances

On the front lines, Russia said it had captured the village of Oleksandro-Shultyne in the eastern Donetsk region, the latest in a long string of territorial gains.

The village lies less than eight kilometres (five miles) from Kostiantynivka, a fortified town in the Donetsk region that Russia has been pressing towards on both sides.

In comments to journalists Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Ukraine of making unrealistic security demands.

Any deployment of European troops to the country would be “absolutely unacceptable”, he said.

Rhetorics of the Ukrainian officials “was directly showing that they are not interested in a sustainable, fair, long-term settlement,” Lavrov added.

Mr. Zelenskyy also announced that Ukraine had tested a long-range cruise missile, known as Flamingo, that can strike targets as far as 3,000 kilometres (1,864 miles) away.

“The missile has undergone successful tests. It is currently our most successful missile,” he told reporters.

Mass production could begin by February, he added.

Since Mr. Trump returned to the White House in January and began pushing for an end to the fighting, Russian forces have continued to slowly but steadily gain ground across the front line.

Zelensky said Russian forces were building up troops along the front in the Zaporizhzhia region, which Moscow claims as its own — along with four other Ukrainian regions.

Trump met Putin in Alaska last Friday, before bringing Zelensky and European leaders to Washington for separate talks on Monday.

Mr. Zelenskyy has said the only way to end the war is a meeting with Mr. Putin, and has said Mr. Trump should be present too.

But Moscow has played down the prospect of a summit between Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelenskyy any time soon, saying it wants to be included in discussions on future security guarantees for Ukraine.

Published – August 21, 2025 09:59 pm IST