Ukrainian troops have little hope for peace as Trump deadline for Russia arrives

Ukrainian soldiers have expressed little hope for a diplomatic solution to the war with Russia, as Donald Trump’s deadline for the Kremlin to stop the killing arrived and he eyed a possible meeting with Vladimir Putin to discuss the conflict.

Mr Trump, exasperated that the Russian leader did not heed his calls to stop bombing Ukrainian cities, almost two weeks ago moved up his ultimatum to impose additional sanctions on Russia, as well as introduce secondary tariffs targeting countries that buy Russian oil, if no Kremlin moves towards a settlement were forthcoming.

It was unclear what steps Mr Trump intended to take on Friday.

The US president’s efforts to pressure Mr Putin have so far delivered no progress. Russia’s bigger army is slowly advancing deeper into Ukraine at great cost in troops and armour while it relentlessly bombards Ukrainian cities. Russia and Ukraine are far apart on their terms for peace.

Ukrainian forces are locked in intense battles along the 620-mile front line from north-east to south-east Ukraine.

The Pokrovsk city area of the eastern Donetsk region is taking the brunt of punishment as Russia looks to break out into the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine has significant manpower shortages.

Intense fighting is also taking place in Ukraine’s northern Sumy border region, where Ukrainian forces are engaging Russian soldiers to prevent reinforcements being sent from there to Donetsk.

In the Pokrovsk area, one commander said Moscow is not interested in peace.

“It is impossible to negotiate with them. The only option is to defeat them,” Buda, commander of a drone unit in the Spartan Brigade, told the Associated Press. He used only his call sign, in keeping with the rules of the Ukrainian military.

“I would like them to agree and for all this to stop, but Russia will not agree to that, it does not want to negotiate. So the only option is to defeat them,” he said.

In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, a howitzer commander using the call sign Warsaw, said troops are determined to thwart Russia’s invasion.

“We are on our land, we have no way out,” he said. “So we stand our ground, we have no choice.”

The Kremlin said on Friday that Mr Putin had a phone call with Xi Jinping, during which the Russian leader informed the Chinese leader about the results of his meeting earlier this week with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff. Kremlin officials said Mr Xi “expressed support for the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis on a long-term basis”.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he also had a call with Mr Putin to speak about the latest Ukraine developments. Mr Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to place an additional 25% tariff on India for its purchases of Russian oil, which the American president says is helping to finance Russia’s war.

Mr Putin’s calls followed phone conversations with the leaders of South Africa, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Belarus, the Kremlin said.

The calls suggested to at least one analyst that Mr Putin might want to brief Russia’s most important allies about a potential settlement that could be reached at any summit with Mr Trump.

“It means that some sort of real peace agreement has been reached for the first time,” said Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin Moscow-based analyst.

Mr Trump said on Thursday that he would meet Mr Putin even if the Russian president will not meet his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. That has stoked fears in Europe that Ukraine could be sidelined in efforts to stop the continent’s biggest conflict since the Second World War.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said: “Putin remains uninterested in ending his war and is attempting to extract bilateral concessions from the United States without meaningfully engaging in a peace process.

“Putin continues to believe that time is on Russia’s side and that Russia can outlast Ukraine and the West.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday that Europe should take the lead in efforts to end the conflict.

He said the leaders of Germany and France should go to Moscow “to negotiate on behalf of Europe”, or “we will be sidelined in managing the security issues of our own continent”.

Mr Orban, who is a harsh critic of the European Union to which his country belongs, said Europe’s concerns that a Trump-Putin summit might not address the continent’s interests meant it should seize the diplomatic initiative.

“This war cannot be ended on the front line, no solution can be concluded on the battlefield,” he said. “This war must be ended by diplomats, politicians, leaders at the negotiating table.”