Last month was the deadliest since Putin launched his full-scale war on Ukraine three and a half years ago. In July alone, 286 civilians were killed and another 1,388, according to official data.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and President Donald Trump expressed hope that Monday’s critical talks with Ukrainian and European leaders at the White House could lead to trilateral talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to bring an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

One European leader told NBC News after the White House meeting that a bilateral summit could take place "within the next two weeks."

Donald Trump has signalled his support for a package of security guarantees for Ukraine, including foreign boots on Ukrainian soil from around 10 European countries, in a new push to pressure Russian president Vladimir Putin into ending the conflict.

Reports of the Russian president's demands have emerged following the summit in Alaska - as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepares to fly to Washington DC to see Donald Trump for the next stage of talks.

As he heads to Alaska for talks with President Trump, the Russian leader projects confidence that his edge on the battlefield will secure a peace deal on his terms. It’s the result of a yearslong re-engineering of his country’s military and economy.

Donald Trump continued browbeating Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy into making concessions that he believes could end Europe’s most-deadly war in eight decades. Speaking today in an interview on Fox,