{"id":2311,"date":"2025-08-19T16:35:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T16:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/08\/19\/ukraine-hit-by-multiple-russian-strikes-amid-us-led-push-for-end-to-war\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T16:35:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T16:35:14","slug":"ukraine-hit-by-multiple-russian-strikes-amid-us-led-push-for-end-to-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/08\/19\/ukraine-hit-by-multiple-russian-strikes-amid-us-led-push-for-end-to-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine hit by multiple Russian strikes amid US-led push for end to war"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

As diplomatic efforts<\/a> to end the grinding war in Ukraine accelerate in Washington, there has been no let-up in the fighting as Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles in an overnight attack on the country, the Ukrainian air force said.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s Energy Ministry said Russia had targeted energy facilities in the central Poltava region, home to Ukraine\u2019s only oil refinery, causing large fires on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The attack was the largest this month, and came a day after United States President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders at the White House for talks on his peace efforts.<\/p>\n

Russia and Ukraine also said they swapped more bodies of their fallen soldiers on Tuesday as part of deals reached during peace talks in Istanbul, Turkiye earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, we handed over 1,000 bodies of Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers to the Ukrainian side. They gave us 19,\u201d Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led Russia\u2019s delegation during the three rounds of talks facilitated by Turkiye, said on Telegram.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War confirmed receiving the bodies of 1,000 of its servicemen, expressing gratitude to the International Committee of the Red Cross for assisting in the swap.<\/p>\n

Moscow and Kyiv conducted three rounds of renewed peace talks in Istanbul \u2013 on May 16, June 2, and July 23 \u2013 which produced major prisoner swaps, but little else besides draft memorandums outlining the positions of both sides, which the other wouldn\u2019t accept, for a potential peace deal.<\/p>\n

Peace efforts reached an advanced stage after last week\u2019s summit<\/a> between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and then a follow-up meeting between Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders in Washington on Monday.<\/p>\n

Major sticking points of the peace talks are said to be potential land swaps and security guarantees for Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Ukraine and its European supporters have repeatedly called for a ceasefire while peace talks are held.<\/p>\n

Putin has balked at that prospect. With his forces inching forward in Ukraine, he has little incentive to freeze their movement.<\/p>\n

Ahead of his meeting with the Russian leader last week, Trump threatened Russia with \u201csevere consequences\u201d if it did not accept a ceasefire. Afterward, he dropped that demand and said it was best to focus on a comprehensive peace deal \u2013 as Putin has pushed for.<\/p>\n

Security guarantees?<\/h2>\n

To agree to a peace deal with Russia, Ukraine wants assurances<\/a> that it can deter any future attacks by the Kremlin\u2019s forces. That means, Zelenskyy says, a strong Ukrainian army that is provided with weapons and training by Western partners.<\/p>\n

It could potentially also mean offering Ukraine a guarantee resembling NATO\u2019s collective defence mandate Article 5, which stipulates that an attack on one member of the alliance is considered an attack on all. How that would work is not clear.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Kyiv\u2019s European allies are looking to set up a force that could backstop any peace agreement in Ukraine. A\u00a0 \u201cCoalition of the Willing\u201d \u2013 30 countries, including European nations, Japan and Australia \u2013 have signed up to support the initiative, although the role that the US might play in such a force is still to be determined.<\/p>\n

European leaders, fearing Moscow\u2019s territorial ambitions won\u2019t stop in Ukraine, are keen to lock US military might into the plan.<\/p>\n

Trump said he will help provide protection, but he stopped short of committing American boots on the ground to the effort, instead promising US \u201ccoordination\u201d.<\/p>\n

Russia has repeatedly rejected the idea of such a force, saying that it will not accept NATO troops in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron co-chaired an online meeting of the coalition countries on Tuesday. Once officials have discussed proposals in more detail, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said, a virtual meeting will take place with Trump and European leaders.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy and European leaders said that Putin has demanded that Ukraine give up the Donbas,<\/a> an industrial region in eastern Ukraine comprising Donetsk and Luhansk, that has seen some of the most intense fighting but that Russian forces have failed to capture completely.<\/p>\n

Moscow\u2019s forces also occupy Crimea as well as parts of six other regions it annexed<\/a>\u2013 all adding up to about one-fifth of Ukraine. The international community broadly rejects Russian presence in these areas.<\/p>\n

Anna Matveeva, a visiting research fellow at King\u2019s College London, says a breakthrough in offering security guarantees to Ukraine is essential to pave the way for territorial swaps.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecurity guarantees were a way to give something to the Europeans \u2026 so that they have some kind of meat to chew while Trump is making some real progress with Zelenskyy and Putin on a separate track,\u201d Matveeva told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin, apparently, has agreed on some Western security guarantees, and I think that is a breakthrough,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Trump said on Tuesday that he hoped Putin would move forward on ending the war in Ukraine, but conceded that the Kremlin leader may not want to make a deal at all, adding this would create a \u201crough situation\u201d for Putin.<\/p>\n

In an interview on the Fox News programme Fox & Friends, Trump said of Putin\u2019s course of action: \u201cWe\u2019re going to find out about President Putin in the next couple of weeks \u2026 It\u2019s possible that he doesn\u2019t want to make a deal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia has made no explicit commitment to a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy, something Trump projected at the talks on Monday. Russia\u2019s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow did not reject any formats for discussing the peace process in Ukraine, but any meeting of national leaders \u201cmust be prepared with utmost thoroughness\u201d.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Moscow, also said that Russia has not ruled out the possibility of a \u201cbilateral or trilateral meeting\u201d, something that was discussed with European leaders and Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n

Moscow said the White House is \u201csincere in its efforts\u201d, Bin Javaid noted, adding, \u201cIt appears \u2026 everybody does not want to anger the Trump White House. They all want to play along.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As diplomatic efforts to end the grinding war in Ukraine accelerate in Washington, there has been no let-up in the fighting as Russia launched 270 drones and 10 missiles in an overnight attack on the country, the Ukrainian air force said. Ukraine\u2019s Energy Ministry said Russia had targeted energy facilities in the central Poltava region, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2311\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}