Putin, facing Trump deadline, signals no change in Russia’s stance on Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow hoped for more peace talks with Ukraine but that the momentum of the war was in its favour, signalling no shift in his stance despite a looming sanctions deadline from Washington.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will impose new sanctions on Moscow and countries that buy its energy exports – of which the biggest are China and India – unless Russia moves by 8 August to end the 3-1/2 year war.

He has expressed mounting frustration with Putin, accusing him of “bullshit” and describing Russia’s latest attacks on Ukraine as “disgusting”.

Putin, without referring to the Trump deadline, said three sessions of peace talks with Ukraine had yielded some positive results, and Russia was expecting negotiations to continue.

“As for any disappointments on the part of anyone, all disappointments arise from inflated expectations. This is a well-known general rule,” he said.

“But in order to approach the issue peacefully, it is necessary to conduct detailed conversations. And not in public, but this must be done calmly, in the quiet of the negotiation process.”

He said Russian troops were attacking Ukraine along the entire front line and that the momentum was in their favour, citing the announcement by his Defence Ministry on Thursday that Moscow’s forces had captured the Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar after a 16-month battle.

Ukraine denied Chasiv Yar is under full Russian control.

Ukraine for months has been urging an immediate ceasefire but Russia says it wants a final and durable settlement, not a pause. Since the peace talks began in Istanbul in May, it has conducted some of its heaviest air strikes of the war, especially on the capital Kyiv.

Ukrainians mourn 31 killed in Russian strike on Kyiv

Ukrainian rescuers recovered more than a dozen more bodies from the rubble of a collapsed apartment block in Kyiv in the night to Friday, bringing the death toll from Russia’s worst air strike of the year on Ukraine’s capital to 31.

A two-year-old was among the five children found dead after Thursday’s sweeping Russian drone and missile attack, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday, announcing the end of a more than 24-hour-long rescue operation.

A total of 159 people were wounded in the multi-wave strike, in which Russia launched more than 300 drones and eight missiles early on Thursday, the latest in a campaign of fierce strikes on Ukrainian towns and cities.

The worst damage was to an apartment building that partially collapsed in the Sviatoshyn district in western Kyiv. Damage was also reported in at least three other districts of the capital.

Kyiv’s air force said on Friday that Ukrainian air defences had destroyed more than 6,000 drones and missiles across the country in July alone.

“The world possesses every instrument required to ensure Russia is brought to justice,” Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko wrote on X on Friday. “What is lacking is not power — but will.”

Ukraine and its European allies have frequently said they do not believe Putin is really interested in peace and have accused him of stalling, which the Kremlin denies.

“I will repeat once again, we need a long and lasting peace on good foundations that would satisfy both Russia and Ukraine, and ensure the security of both countries,” Putin said, adding that this was also a question of European security.

Putin was speaking alongside his ally Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, at talks on an island in Lake Ladoga that is the site of a famous Russian monastery.

Russian TV earlier showed the two men greeting monks at the Valaam Monastery, where they have met several times before, and holding candles during the chanting of prayers.

With Reuters, edited by g.g.

Caption: A fire burns at the site of a Russian strike to a five-storied residential building in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, 31 July 2025, amid the ongoing Russian invasion. At least one person was killed and 11 more were injured according to the State Emergency Service. EPA/YEVHEN TITOV