Flanked by European leaders, Zelenskyy prepares for virtual meeting with Trump

TOP HEADLINES

• Zelenskyy is in Berlin for a German-hosted virtual meeting with Donald Trump and European leaders. READ MORE BELOW

• The White House announces that Trump's meeting with Putin will take place in the Alaskan city of Anchorage.

• Zelenskyy says it will be impossible for Kyiv to agree to a deal that would require it to withdraw its troops from the eastern Donbas region. READ MORE BELOW

• U.S. administration tempers expectations for major progress toward a ceasefire, calling them a "listening exercise". READ MORE BELOW

• Small bands of Russian soldiers thrust deeper into eastern Ukraine. 

• Russia's air defense units destroy 46 Ukrainian drones overnight, according to the defense ministry.

• A small fire ignited by debris from a destroyed drone hits the Slavyansk oil refinery in Russia's region of Krasnodar but is promptly doused.

• Putin holds a phone call with DPRK leader Kim Jong Un to update him on planned talks with Trump. READ MORE BELOW

• U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov ahead of the leaders talks. READ MORE BELOW

IN DETAIL

Zelenskyy in Berlin for virtual meeting with Trump

Ukrainian President Volodymyr has travelled to Berlin for a German-hosted virtual meeting with Donald Trump and European leaders, two days before the U.S. president meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska.

Europe's leaders are trying to drive home what they see as the perils of selling out Kyiv's interests at the first U.S.-Russia summit since 2021.

Zelenskyy will meet German Chancellor Friedrich Merz before a video conference with the leaders of Germany, Finland, France, Britain, Italy, Poland and the European Union at 2 p.m. (1200 GMT), the hosts said. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte will also attend.

Trump and Vice President JD Vance will join the call at 3 p.m. (1300 GMT).

The unpredictability of the summit in Alaska has fuelled Europeans' fears that the U.S. and Russia could take far-reaching decisions over their heads and even seek to coerce Ukraine into an unfavourable deal.

European leaders, wary of angering Trump, have repeatedly said they welcome his efforts while stressing that there should be no deal about Ukraine - almost a fifth of which Russia has occupied - without Ukraine's participation.

U.S. lowers expectations

Trump's administration tempered expectations on Tuesday for major progress toward a ceasefire, calling his meeting with Putin in Alaska a "listening exercise."

Trump's agreement last week to the summit with Putin was an abrupt shift after weeks of voicing frustration with Putin for resisting the U.S. peace initiative. Trump said his envoy had made "great progress" at talks in Moscow.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday the summit would be a "listening exercise" for Trump to hear what it would take to get to a deal.

She said Trump hoped to get a "better understanding" of "how we can hopefully bring this war to an end."

Zelenskyy reiterates red lines

Ahead of his call with Trump and European leaders, Zelenskyy said it would be impossible for Kyiv to agree to a deal that would require it to withdraw its troops from the eastern Donbas region, a large swathe of which is already occupied by Russia.

He told reporters on Tuesday that this would deprive Ukraine of a vast defensive network in the region, easing the way for a Russian push deeper into Ukraine in the future.

Zelenskyy said territorial issues could only be discussed once a ceasefire was in place and Ukraine had received security guarantees.

Moscow's troops have recently ramped up pressure on the battlefield, tightening their grip on the cities of Pokrovsk and Kostyantynivka in eastern Ukraine.

Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, suggested Russian advances could increase pressure on Ukraine to yield territory under any deal. "This breakthrough is like a gift to Putin and Trump during the negotiations," he said.

Despite a troop shortage, Ukraine's military said it had retaken two villages in the eastern region of Sumy on Monday, part of a small reversal in more than a year of slow, attritional Russian gains in the southeast.

Trump has said any peace deal would involve "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both" Russia and Ukraine, which has depended on the U.S. as its main arms supplier.

But because all the areas being contested lie within Ukraine, Zelenskyy and his European Union allies fear that he will face pressure to give up far more than Russia does.

Putin and Kim chat on phone, so do Rubio and Lavrov

Putin held a phone call with DPRK leader Kim Jong Un and updated him on his talks with Trump, the Kremlin said on Tuesday.

DPRK's state news agency KCNA later reported the two leaders' call.

Putin expressed appreciation for DPRK's help in "liberating" the Kursk region in western Russia in the conflict against Ukraine and "the bravery, heroism and self-sacrificing spirit displayed by service personnel of the Korean People's Army," it said.

Meanwhile U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke by telephone on Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to prepare for the Alaskan summit. 

"Both sides confirmed their commitment to a successful event," State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.