TRANSCRIPT
(Sound of gunfire)
The sound of Ukrainian air defence units fighting an increased wave of drones, as Russia intensifies its assault ahead of a meeting with the Unites States.
The meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin is set to take place in Anchorage, Alaska later this week.
The Kremlin has confirmed Mr Putin will attend the meeting. Mr Putin's aide, Yuri Ushakov, says the two leaders will "focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis".
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to meet President Trump for an online meeting ahead of the Russia-US summit, but says any lasting peace deal cannot be secured without Ukraine's presence at the negotiating table.
"As for the negotiations, in any case, they are important at the leadership level, but it is impossible to talk about Ukraine without Ukraine, and no one will accept that. So the conversation between (Vladimir) Putin and (Donald) Trump may be important for their bilateral track. But they cannot agree on anything about Ukraine without us."
He also told reporters Russia has proposed to halt its advances in other Ukrainian regions, in exchange for Ukraine pulling back its forces from the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
It's a proposal Mr Zelenskyy has firmly rejected, reiterating Ukraine will not agree to a deal which involves ceding territory to Russia.
Mr Zelenskyy said Ukraine still controls about 30 per cent of the Donetsk region, and that any retreat of Ukrainian forces in the Donbas would create a launchpad for new Russian offensives.
Mr Trump, on the other hand, has previously suggested an exchange of territory might be part of negotiations, and said details of a potential deal would become clear at the summit.
Donald Trump: "Well, we’re going to have a meeting with Vladimir Putin, and at the end of that meeting, probably in the first two minutes, I’ll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made."
Reporter: "How will you know that?"
Donald Trump: "Because that’s what I do. I make deals."
But his administration has since tempered expectations, with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt calling the meeting a "listening exercise" for President Trump.
"The president is agreeing to this meeting at the request of President Putin. And the goal of this meeting, for the president, is to walk away with a better understanding of how we can end this war. Look, only one party that's involved in this war is going to be present, and so this is for the President to go and to get, again, a more firm and better understanding of how we can hopefully bring this war to an end."
Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, says President Trump's comments suggest he may still see territorial exchanges as key to reaching a deal.
"So it seems from at least some of Trump's remarks, that he, Trump, believes that the key to ending the war is agreeing territorial issues and specifically that this would involve Ukraine ceding sovereign territory, in return for Russian forces occupying, withdrawing from very small areas of Ukraine that it occupies beyond the areas that Russia now claims for itself."
He says any such agreement to end the war by accepting Russian sovereignty over the areas of Ukraine that it claims, would also be firmly rejected by Ukraine's European allies.
"This is a profoundly alarming moment for Europe. It's hard to see how that would avoid provoking a really serious split in the transatlantic alliance because those are not outcomes that Europe can possibly accept. It's clear that Ukraine cannot accept them, but it's also impossible to see how Europe could do so."
Meanwhile, Russia has stepped up its campaign to take control of Ukraine's Donetsk region, with Russian troops advancing near the coal-mining town of Dobropillia.
Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, has focused the bulk of its military efforts in the Donetsk region.
Analysts say losses around Dobropillia toward the city of Pokrovk would hand Russia an important victory ahead of the leaders' summit, and would complicate Ukrainian supply lines to the region.
President Zelenskyy says he's taking all possible steps to prevent such a loss.
"Today, we received reports from our military. The frontline, especially Dobropillia and the Pokrovsk direction - steps have been taken there to remedy the situation, and I am grateful to every unit, every one of our soldiers who are now destroying the occupiers. Positions in the Kharkiv region, positions in the Zaporizhzhia region, positions in the Sumy region – everywhere we are trying to provide Ukraine with exactly the protection it needs."
