Putin is ‘laughing’ after Trump’s peace efforts, says EU’s top diplomat
How did your country report this? Share your view in the comments.
Diverging Reports Breakdown
Trump’s peace bid flops as Kremlin says no plans for Putin-Zelenskyy summit
Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda is ready for a summit, Lavrov says. European diplomats and leaders have voiced skepticism that Moscow is really interested in ending the war. The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas says Russia has not made one single concession.
“Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all,” Lavrov told U.S. channel NBC.
“Zelenskyy said no to everything. … How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?” he added.
While U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week the Russian ruler had agreed to a face-to-face meeting, touting his supposed openness to talks as a breakthrough, European diplomats and leaders have voiced skepticism that Moscow is really interested in ending the war and willing to negotiate in good faith.
“We are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession, and they are the ones who are the aggressor here,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Friday.
Zelenskyy accused Moscow on Friday of dragging out peace talks in a bid to hold off punishing American sanctions, which Trump has threatened to impose on Russia and its trading partners if the Kremlin does not participate.
Russia’s chief diplomat says no Putin-Zelenskyy meeting is planned, despite Trump’s efforts
Russia’s top diplomat says there are no plans for a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy. U.S. President Donald Trump said he had begun arrangements for them to sit down together. The Russian leader is demanding Ukrainian concessions in return for halting his invasion. But granting him those demands would amount to rewarding the country that started the fighting, an EU official says.“Russia is just dragging feet,” EU foreign policy chief warns of Putin ‘trap’ of land ceded to Russia. “President Trump has been repeatedly saying that the killing has to stop and Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing,’” she says of the Russian leader.‘This is another attack on the energy security of our country, a short-term attempt to drag us into war,’ Hungary’s foreign minister says. ‘This has been corrected to show that Putin has been to Moscow to meet with Orbán last year,’ he adds, referring to a trip by a European leader.
“There is no meeting planned” between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a taped interview for NBC’s Sunday show “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.”
Trump said in a social media post Monday that he had spoken to Putin and set in motion arrangements for a summit at a location to be decided. Trump added he would join them for a trilateral meeting afterward.
Uncertainty has grown in recent days about Moscow’s commitment to U.S.-led peace efforts, as Russian officials have raised objections about cornerstones of the nascent proposals.
Lavrov said Thursday that Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy to discuss peace terms, but only after key issues have first been worked out by senior officials. That could involve a protracted negotiating process because the two sides remain far apart.
Ukraine wants Western security guarantees to deter any postwar Russian attack, and U.S. and European officials are scrambling to come up with detailed proposals of how that might work. But Lavrov said earlier this week that making security arrangements for Ukraine without Moscow’s involvement was pointless.
On Thursday, a major Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine struck an American-owned electronics plant, despite Trump’s criticism of Putin for continuing to bomb Ukrainian targets while talking peace.
Europe’s chief diplomat warns of Putin ‘trap’
The European Union’s foreign policy chief said Friday that the possibility of Ukraine ceding land to Russia as part of a peace deal to end their three-year war is “a trap” set by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Russian leader is demanding Ukrainian concessions in return for halting his army’s invasion but granting him those demands would amount to rewarding the country that started the fighting, Kaja Kallas said.
The recent talk about handing Putin concessions is “exactly the trap that Russia wants us to walk into,” Kallas said in an interview with the BBC.
“I mean, the discussion all about what Ukraine should give up, what the concessions that Ukraine is willing to (make), whereas we are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here, they are the ones who are brutally attacking another country and killing people,” she said.
“Russia is just dragging feet. It’s clear that Russia does not want peace,” Kallas said. “President Trump has been repeatedly saying that the killing has to stop and Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing, but increasing the killing.”
Ukraine strikes a Russian oil pipeline
Ukraine, meanwhile, has hit back at Russia with long-range weapons that are targeting infrastructure supporting Moscow’s war effort. It has hit oil refineries, among other targets, and Russian wholesale gasoline prices have reached record highs in recent days.
Ukrainian forces on Friday targeted the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia, hitting the Unecha oil pumping station in the Bryansk region, according to the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdy, also known as Magyar.
The Druzhba pipeline starts in Russia and takes oil through Belarus and Ukraine to Slovakia and Hungary. In Russia, a section of it goes through the Bryansk region and the Unecha district.
Ukraine fired HIMARS rockets and drones at the region in a combined attack, Bryansk regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said in a Telegram post.
The pipeline supplies Hungary with more than half of its crude oil. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó wrote on Facebook on Friday that the Druzhba pipeline had been attacked “for the third time in a short time.”
“This is another attack on the energy security of our country. Another attempt to drag us into war,” the minister wrote.
Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has taken a combative stance toward both Kyiv and its EU backers while most EU countries have offered political, financial, and military support to Kyiv.
Orbán visited Moscow to meet with Putin last year in a rare trip to Russia by a European leader.
Slovakia and Hungary are the only remaining EU member states still receiving oil from Russia. The other 25 stopped buying it as part of EU sanctions following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
___
This story has been corrected to show Orbán visited Moscow to meet with Putin last year, not last month.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Putin is ‘laughing’ after Trump’s peace efforts, says EU’s top diplomat
Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing but increasing the killing, says Kallas. Trump’s whirlwind diplomacy in the last two weeks, including the summits in Alaska and Washington, has yet to extract any concessions from Moscow. Moscow has not backed down from its maximalist demands.
“Any promises that Putin has given so far, he hasn’t kept,” she said, adding that the Alaska summit had been a public relations jackpot for the Kremlin.
“This is what he [Putin] wanted,” Kallas said. “It was clear before the meeting that he wants the picture, but he got so much more. He got such a welcoming in America.”
Calling Trump’s efforts to broker a truce “welcome,” Kallas said the Russian ruler was nonetheless less inclined to come to the negotiating table after Alaska “because he has achieved what he wanted from this meeting.”
“Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing but increasing the killing,” she added.
Trump’s whirlwind diplomacy in the last two weeks, including the summits in Alaska and Washington, has yet to extract any concessions from Moscow, which has not backed down from its maximalist demands — namely that Ukraine give up vast swathes of territory in its eastern Donbas region, which Russian troops have partially occupied, and renounce joining NATO.
Lavrov: Putin not ready to meet Zelensky
Sergei Lavrov claimed the Ukrainian president had been presented with “several principles necessary for peace’ but had said “no to everything’. Mr Lavrov insisted Moscow had agreed to make compromises on a number of issues discussed with Donald Trump during his meeting with Putin in Alaska last week.
Sergei Lavrov claimed the Ukrainian president had been presented with “several principles necessary for peace” but had said “no to everything”.
“Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda is ready for a summit, and this agenda is not ready at all,” he told NBC News.
Mr Lavrov continued: “When President Trump brought … those issues to the meeting in Washington, it was very clear to everybody that there are several principles which Washington believes must be accepted, including no Nato membership, including the discussion of territorial issues, and Zelensky said no to everything.
“He even said no to, as I said, cancelling legislation prohibiting the Russian language. How can we meet with a person who is pretending to be a leader?”
Mr Lavrov insisted Moscow had agreed to make compromises on a number of issues discussed with Donald Trump during his meeting with Putin in Alaska last week.
Speaking afterwards, Mr Zelensky accused Russia of doing “everything” it could to try and prevent a meeting between him and Putin, and called on the West to apply fresh sanctions on Moscow if it refuses to end the war.
Vladimir Putin is ‘laughing’ at the West and laying a ‘trap,’ EU’s top diplomat warns
Putin has demanded Ukraine cede the Donbas region in exchange for halting his army’s brutal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine. EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, warned that caving in to those demands would only reward the country that started the bloodshed. “Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing but increasing the killing,” Kallas said in her warning about Vladimir Putin’s “trap.’ “It was clear before the meeting that he wants the picture, but he got so much more. He got such a welcoming in America,’” she said of the Putin-Trump summit last week, which Putin had hoped would open up the road to peace in Ukraine. ‘Any promises that Putin has given so far, he hasn’t kept,’ she added.
Putin has demanded, in part, that Ukraine cede the Donbas region in exchange for halting his army’s brutal, full-scale invasion.
But the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, warned that caving in to those demands would only reward the country that started the bloodshed.
Advertisement
3 “It was clear before the meeting that he wants the picture, but he got so much more. He got such a welcoming in America,” Kaja Kallas said in her warning about Vladimir Putin’s “trap.” REUTERS
Kallas, who is on the Kremlin’s “wanted list,” told BBC News that handing territory to Russia was a “trap that Putin wants us to walk into.”
“Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing but increasing the killing,” Kallas said.
“I mean, the discussion [is] all about what Ukraine should give up, what the concessions that Ukraine is willing to [make],” she continued.
Advertisement
“Whereas we are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here, they are the ones who are brutally attacking another country and killing people.”
Kallas stressed that President Trump’s efforts to broker a deal, including his high-profile meeting with Putin in Alaska last week, was a propaganda jackpot for the Kremlin because it’s “clear that Russia does not want peace.”
“Any promises that Putin has given so far, he hasn’t kept,” Kallas said.
Advertisement
3 Ukrainian firefighters work to extinguish a blaze in a residential building after Russian shelling hit the city of Kostiantynivka, Ukraine, on August 22, 2025. Anadolu via Getty Images
“This is what he [Putin] wanted,” she added, referring to the Alaska summit. “It was clear before the meeting that he wants the picture, but he got so much more. He got such a welcoming in America.”
In the wake of last week’s summit, Putin had said the meeting would hopefully open up the road to peace in Ukraine.
However, less than a week after the anticipated sit-down, Putin’s forces struck a US-owned electronics factory in Ukraine while some 800 civilians were working there.
Advertisement
3 President Trump’s efforts to broker a deal, including his meeting with Putin in Alaska, was a propaganda jackpot for Russia, as it’s “clear that Russia does not want peace,” Kallas stressed. VYACHESLAV PROKOFYEV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA/Shutterstock
In addition to giving up the Donbas region, three sources familiar with top-level Kremlin thinking told Reuters Thursday that Putin is also demanding Ukraine renounce ambitions to join NATO, remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the country.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, for his part, has repeatedly said the industrial Donbas region serves as a fortress holding back Russian advances deeper into Ukraine.
“If we’re talking about simply withdrawing from the east, we cannot do that,” he told reporters Thursday. “It is a matter of our country’s survival, involving the strongest defensive lines.”
With Post wires