Melania Trump took the unique step of crafting a letter calling for peace in Ukraine, having her husband Donald Trump deliver it to Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine’s Donbas region, consisting of Donetsk and Luhansk, is at the heart of Moscow’s goals. An industrial powerhouse in the Soviet era, it also has rich farmland, important rivers and a coastline on the Sea of Azov.

Donald Trump is reportedly planning to urge Ukraine to surrender the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as part of negotiations over an end to the war.

Special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff says Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed to allow the U.S. and Europe to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO's collective defense mandate.

Speaking after Friday’s summit, President Putin again implied that the war is all about Russia’s diminished status since the fall of the Soviet Union.

At the top of Vladimir Putin’s shopping-list is the western part of Donetsk province, which is still firmly in Ukrainian hands. But it is not just the symbolism that is important to him. The real prize is to force Ukraine to abandon its strategically critical “fortress belt”,

The Fake News has been saying for 3 days that I suffered a ‘major defeat’ by allowing President Vladimir Putin of Russia to have a major Summit in the United States,” Trump wrote Sunday evening in a Truth Social post that did not mention the outcome of the summit.

Despite international calls for Trump to take a harder stance on Russia, the US president retains his 'affinity' for Putin says Bill Browder, CEO and Co-Founder of Hermitage Capital Management. This has emboldened Putin to keep pursuing his 'main objective',