Ukraine Russia war live: Trump and Putin agree to meet to discuss ceasefire ‘in coming days’

Sweeping new global tariffs imposed by Donald Trump have come into force today.

This includes a 50 per cent tariff for goods from Brazil, 39 per cent from Switzerland, 35 per cent from Canada and 25 per cent from India.

A separate 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods on Wednesday will be imposed in 21 days over the country’s purchases of Russian oil.

Russia and the United States have agreed on a meeting between Putin and Trump in the coming days, the Russian news agency IFAX reports, citing Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov.

All parties have begun working on the details, the official reportedly said.

The venue for the meeting has also been agreed and is due to be announced later.

“At the suggestion of the American side, an agreement was agreed in principle to hold a bilateral summit in the coming days, that is, a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump,” Ushakov said.

Steve Witkoff – the president’s international diplomatic Mr Fixit – has failed to bring peace to the Middle East or deliver on Trump’s boast that he would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he planned contacts with Germany, France and Italy to discuss progress toward peace.

Zelensky said he planned to discuss a ceasefire, a leaders’ summit and long-term security, following a the meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US special envoy Steve Witkoff on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump could meet in person with Russian president Vladimir Putin as soon as next week in his bid to continue to negotiate for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, a White House official has said.

The official added that a meeting has not been scheduled yet and no location has been determined.

The White House said Trump was also open to a meeting with both Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump, appearing before reporters later at the White House, didn’t answer questions about a potential location for a meeting but when asked about a summit with Putin and Zelensky, said “there’s a very good prospect that they will” meet.

However, the president declined to predict how close he was to reaching a deal to end the fighting, saying, “I’ve been disappointed before with this one.”

Ukrainians are increasingly eager for a settlement that ends the fight against Russia’s invasion, according to a new Gallup poll published today.

In the survey conducted in early July, about seven in 10 Ukrainians say their country should seek to negotiate a settlement as soon as possible.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky last month renewed his offer to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, but his overture was rebuffed as Russia sticks to its demands, and the sides remain far apart.

Most Ukrainians do not expect a lasting peace anytime soon, the poll found. Only about one-quarter say it’s “very” or “somewhat” likely that active fighting will end within the next 12 months, while about seven in 10 think it’s “somewhat” or “very” unlikely that active fighting will be over in the next year.

The enthusiasm for a negotiated deal is a sharp reversal from 2022 — the year the war began — when Gallup found that about three-quarters of Ukrainians wanted to keep fighting until victory.

Now only about one-quarter hold that view, with support for continuing the war declining steadily across all regions and demographic groups.

The findings were based on samples of 1,000 or more respondents ages 15 and older living in Ukraine. Some territories under entrenched Russian control, representing about 10 per cent of the population, were excluded from surveys conducted after 2022 due to lack of access.

A face-to-face meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin would be the first between a sitting US and Russian president since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021.

This came eight months before Russia launched the biggest attack on a European nation since the Second World War.

Trump himself last met Putin in Helsinki in 2018 where the two men held nearly two hours of closed-door talks in the capital city.

In March this year, Putin gifted Trump a portrait of the US president commissioned by him and sent via Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff when he was in Moscow for a meeting.

Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky have not met since December 2019 and make no secret of their contempt for each other.

However, Zelensky has issued open invitations to his Russian counterpart for a face-to-face meeting to negotiate an end to the war.

A fire has broken out at the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region due to falling drone debris, local emergency services said this morning.

The fire was extinguished soon after it started, the local emergency services added.

The Russian defence ministry said that air defence systems had shot down nine Ukrainian drones over the region overnight.

At least two people were killed and 12, including two children, were injured in Russian attacks from Tuesday overnight into Wednesday, officials said.

Russian forces hit a recreational centre in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region yesterday, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said.

Russian forces launched at least four strikes on the area and initially attacked with powerful glide bombs.

“There is zero military sense in this strike. Only cruelty to intimidate,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on Telegram.

Russia also struck the Ukrainian power grid and facilities for heating and cooking gas, Mr Zelensky said, as Ukraine makes preparations for winter.

Western analysts and Ukrainian officials say Russian president Vladimir Putin is stalling for time and avoiding serious negotiations while Russian forces push to capture more Ukraine land.

A Russian offensive that started in the spring and is expected to continue through the fall is advancing faster than last year’s push but is making only slow and costly gains and has been unable to take any major cities.

The situation on the frontline is critical for Ukrainian forces but defences are not about to collapse, analysts say.