The Kremlin repeated ​Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assertion that the war in Ukraine was almost ‌over on Tuesday (May 12, 2026), after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ​said Moscow had no intention of ending ⁠it.

“I think that the matter is coming to an end,” Mr. Putin told reporters on Saturday (May 9, 2026) of the war, now in ‌its fifth year.

Asked to comment on Putin’s remarks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a certain amount ‌of trilateral work with Ukraine and the United ‌States ⁠had been done towards finding a peace deal.

“This ⁠accumulated groundwork in terms of the peace process allows us to say that the completion is indeed approaching,” Mr. Peskov told reporters, though he ​added that it was ‌difficult to provide specific details at the current time.

On Monday, Mr. Zelenskyy said, “Russia has no intention of ending this war. And we are, unfortunately, preparing for new attacks.”

U.S. President ‌Donald Trump has convened multiple rounds of talks ​with the warring sides to try to end the conflict, but no peace deal has ⁠emerged. Russia, which now occupies around a fifth of Ukraine, wants Kyiv to cede additional territory. Kyiv wants Russian troops ‌to withdraw.

Mr. Peskov said Russia would welcome further “U.S. mediation efforts” and Putin was prepared to meet Mr. Zelenskyy in person once the “peace process” was finalised.

“And for that finalisation, in order to put a full stop to it, a great deal of preparatory work still needs ‌to be done,” he said, adding that the conflict could end ​as soon as Kyiv and Mr. Zelenskyy “take the necessary decision”.

The warring sides agreed to a short, U.S.-mediated ceasefire ⁠from May 9-11, coinciding with the anniversary of the Soviet ⁠victory over the Nazis in World War Two.

Although neither side reported large-scale airstrikes during the ceasefire, ‌both said fighting continued along the front line and accused each other of drone and artillery attacks.

Russia’s army recorded almost no territorial gains on the front line in Ukraine in March for the first time in two and a half years, AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed.

The Russian army has been slowing in its advances since late 2025 — because of Kyiv’s localised breakthroughs in the southeast of the country — and lost ground in February and March on the southern section of the front line between the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Across the entire front line, the Russian army seized only 23 sq. km in March, losing territory in some areas, according to the analysis.

This figure excludes infiltration operations conducted by Russian forces beyond the front line, as well as advances claimed by the Russian side but neither confirmed nor denied by the ISW.

The ISW worked with the Critical Threats Project (part of the American Enterprise Institute, or AEI), another U.S. think tank specialising in conflict.

The Russian army made 319 square kilometres of gains in January and 123 sq. km in February, which was then the smallest advance since April 2024.

Its advance in March was the smallest since September 2023.

The ISW attributed the slowdown to Ukrainian counter-offensives, but also to “Russia’s ban on using Starlink terminals in Ukraine” and “the Kremlin’s efforts to restrict access to Telegram”.

The messaging app, very popular among Russians, including those fighting on the front, has been barely usable in recent months due to blocks imposed by the authorities.

As in February, Russia lost ground on the southern section of the front line, between the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, where it occupied more than 400 sq. km at the end of January.

This area shrank to 200 sq. km in February and to 144 sq. km in March.

The situation was, however, unfavourable for Kyiv further north in the Donetsk region, towards the two major regional cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

In 2025, the Russian army made more progress in Ukraine than in the preceding 24 months.

But in the first three months of 2026, Russian territorial gains were half those of the same period in 2025.

Four years after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow occupies just over 19% of the country, the majority of which was seized during the first weeks of the conflict.

Approximately 7%, including Crimea and areas in the Donbas region, was already under Russian or pro-Russian separatist control before the invasion.

The next round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations will take place on Wednesday (February 4, 2026) and Thursday (February 5, 2026), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Sunday (February 1, 2026).

Envoys from Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. had been expected to meet that day in Abu Dhabi to continue negotiations aimed at ending Moscow’s all-out invasion of its neighbour.

“We have just had a report from our negotiating team. The dates for the next trilateral meetings have been set: Feb. 4 and 5 in Abu Dhabi. Ukraine is ready for substantive talks, and we are interested in an outcome that will bring us closer to a real and dignified end to the war,” Mr. Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post.

There was no immediate comment from U.S. or Russian officials.

On Saturday (January 31, 2026) afternoon, top Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev said he had held a “constructive meeting with the U.S. peacemaking delegation” in Florida.

Officials have so far revealed few details of the talks in Abu Dhabi, which are part of a yearlong effort by the Trump administration to steer the sides toward a peace deal and end almost four years of all-out war.

While Ukrainian and Russian officials have agreed in principle with Washington’s calls for a compromise, Moscow and Kyiv differ deeply over what an agreement should look like.

A central issue is whether Russia should keep or withdraw from areas of Ukraine its forces have occupied, especially Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland called the Donbas, and whether it should get land there that it hasn’t yet captured.

Drones strike a Ukrainian maternity hospital

Elsewhere, Russian attack drones struck a maternity hospital in southern Ukraine on Sunday (February 1, 2026) morning, the Ukrainian emergency service reported. In a Telegram post, it said the strike wounded three women in the hospital in the city of Zaporizhzhia, and also sparked a fire in the gynaecology reception area that was later extinguished.

Days earlier, U.S. President Donald Trump said Mr. Putin had agreed to temporarily halt the targeting of the Ukrainian capital and other cities, as the region suffers under freezing temperatures that have brought widespread hardship to Ukrainians.

The Kremlin confirmed on Friday (January 30, 2026) it agreed to hold off striking Kyiv until Sunday (February 1, 2026), but refused to reveal any details, making it difficult for an independent assessment of whether the conciliatory step had indeed taken place.

In the past week, Russia has struck energy assets in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa and in Kharkiv in the northeast. It also hit the Kyiv region on Wednesday, killing two people and injuring four.

Overnight into Sunday (February 1, 2026), Russia launched 90 attack drones, with 14 striking nine locations, Ukraine’s air force said in a Telegram post. A woman and a man were killed in an overnight drone strike in Dnipro, a city in eastern Ukraine, according to local administration head Oleksandr Hanzha.

Russian shelling also hit central Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine, soon after 7 a.m. local time, seriously wounding a 59-year-old woman, according to a Facebook post by the municipal military administration. 

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin shook hands and smiled at an air base in Alaska on Friday as they opened a high-risk summit that will test the US president’s promise to end the bloody war in Ukraine.

In choreographed drama, Trump and Putin each arrived in their presidential jets and walked under gray skies to greet each other on the tarmac, before walking a red carpet together to an honor guard salute. As fighter jets circled overhead, a reporter shouted audibly to Putin, “Will you stop killing civilians?”

Trump-Putin Alaska Summit LIVE

Neither leader answered as they posed at a podium that said “Alaska 2025” before Putin — in a highly unusual move — followed Trump into the US presidential limousine. For the Russian president, the summit marks his first foray onto Western soil since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering a relentless conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Talks underway

Both leaders have voiced hopes of a productive meeting. But while Trump warned he could judge it a failure after just a few minutes if Putin does not budge, the Kremlin said the two would speak for at least six or seven hours. In recent days Russia has made battlefield gains that could strengthen Putin’s hand in any ceasefire negotiations, although Ukraine announced as Putin was flying that it had retaken some villages.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Anchorage, Trump sounded a positive note. “There’s a good respect level on both sides and I think something’s going to come out of it,” he said. Trump has insisted he will be firm with Putin, after coming under some of the most heated criticism of his presidency for appearing cowed during a 2018 summit in Helsinki.

The White House on Friday abruptly announced that Trump was scrapping a plan to see Putin alone and instead would be joined by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his roving envoy Steve Witkoff before a working lunch. Every word and gesture will be closely watched by European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not included and has refused pressure from Trump to surrender territory seized by Russia.

“It is time to end the war, and the necessary steps must be taken by Russia. We are counting on America,” Zelensky said in a social media post. Trump has called the summit a “feel-out meeting” to test Putin, whom he last saw in 2019, and said Friday he was not going to Alaska to negotiate.

“I’m here to get them at the table,” he said of the Russian and Ukrainian leaders. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow would not forecast the outcome of the meeting.

“We never make any predictions ahead of time,” Lavrov told Russian state TV after he reached Alaska, wearing what appeared to be a shirt with “USSR” written across it in Cyrillic script. Trump has promised to consult with European leaders and Zelensky, saying that any final agreement would come in a three-way meeting with Putin and the Ukrainian president to “divvy up” territory.

‘Severe’ consequences’

Trump has boasted of his relationship with Putin, blamed predecessor Joe Biden for the war, and had vowed before his return to the White House in January that he would be able to bring peace within 24 hours. But despite repeated calls to Putin, and a February 28 White House meeting in which Trump publicly berated Zelensky, the Russian leader has shown no signs of compromise.

Saying he “would walk” from the table if the meeting didn’t go well, Trump told reporters he “wouldn’t be happy” if a ceasefire could not be secured immediately. The talks were taking place at Elmendorf Air Force Base, the largest US military installation in Alaska and a Cold War facility for surveillance of the former Soviet Union.

Adding to the historical significance, the United States bought Alaska in 1867 from Russia — a deal Moscow has cited to show the legitimacy of land swaps. Neither leader is expected to step off the base into Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, where protesters have put up signs of solidarity with Ukraine.

The summit marks a sharp change in approach from Western European leaders and Biden, who vowed not to hold discussions with Russia on Ukraine unless Kyiv was also involved.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday (August 14, 2025) he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin will make a deal about his war on Ukraine, and that the threat of sanctions against Russia likely played a role in Moscow’s decision to seek a meeting. Mr. Trump is scheduled to meet with Mr. Putin in Alaska on Friday (August 15, 2025). The U.S. President said he is unsure whether an immediate ceasefire can be achieved, but expressed interest in brokering a peace agreement.

“I believe now, he’s convinced that he’s going to make a deal. He’s going to make a deal. I think he’s going to, and we’re going to find out,” Mr. Trump said in an interview on Fox News Radio’s “The Brian Kilmeade Show.”

Putin praises U.S. for ‘sincere efforts’

Earlier in the day, Mr. Putin said the United States was making “sincere efforts” to end the war in Ukraine and suggested Moscow and Washington could agree on a nuclear arms deal as part of a broader push to strengthen peace.

Mr. Trump also mentioned during the Fox interview that he has three locations in mind for a follow-up meeting with Mr. Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, though he noted that a second meeting is not guaranteed.

He said staying in Alaska for a three-way summit would be the easiest scenario.

A line of vehicles waits to enter Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska on August 14, 2025, ahead of a meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
| Photo Credit:
AP

“Depending on what happens with my meeting, I’m going to be calling up President Zelenskyy, and let’s get him over to wherever we’re going to meet,” Mr. Trump said.

He said a second meeting, featuring Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin, and Mr. Zelenskyy, would likely dig deeper into boundary issues. Mr. Zelenskyy has been adamant about not ceding territory that Russian forces occupy.

“The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that’s going to be a meeting where they make a deal. And I don’t want to use the word ‘divvy things up,’ but you know, to a certain extent, it’s not a bad term, OK?” he said.

“But there will be a give and take as to boundaries, lands, etc, etc. The second meeting is going to be very, very very important. This meeting sets up like a chess game. This (first) meeting sets up a second meeting, but there is a 25% chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting,” he said.

He said it would be up to Mr. Putin and Mr. Zelenskyy to strike an agreement.

“I’m not going to negotiate their deal. I’m going to let them negotiate their deal,” he said.