White House calls Trump-Putin meeting a 'listening exercise'
Published August 12, 2025last updated August 12, 2025
What you need to know
The White House said that the meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin would be "a listening exercise."
Trump will meet one-on-one with Putin during the talks, which will take place in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday.
Earlier, EU leaders have appealed to the US leader to defend European security interests and to give Ukraine a say in any agreement.
The appeal, signed by all EU leaders, bar Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, comes after Trump said on Monday that both sides would be forced to cede land to end the ongoing conflict.
Ukraine and its allies fear that Trump might make territorial concessions to Putin that are tantamount to rewarding the Russian leader for launching his illegal and unprovoked full-scale invasion in February 2022.
This blog is now closed. Below you can read a roundup of events from Russia's war in Ukraine from Tuesday, August 12:
White House says Trump-Putin meeting is a 'listening exercise'
The White House said that the meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin would be "a listening exercise."
The two presidents are set to meet on Friday in Alaska amid concern from Ukraine and its allies that no Kyiv presence would mean concessions to Russia as part of any peace deal.
"Only one party that's involved in this war is going to be present, and so this is for the president to go and to get, again, a more firm and better understanding of how we can hopefully bring this war to an end," said White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt.
Trump will meet one-on-one with Putin during the talks, which will take place in Anchorage, Alaska, the White House said and the US president may "in the future... travel to Russia."
Though no Ukrainian representation will be present at the meeting between Trump and Putin after not being invited, the White House tried to dampen any suspicion of bias.
"The president has deep respect for all parties that are involved in this conflict and are trying to bring this conflict to an end," Leavitt said.
Zelenskyy says Putin wants Ukraine to pull out of Donetsk entirely
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Kyiv to withdraw from the remaining 30% of the Donetsk region that Ukraine controls as part of any potential ceasefire agreement.
Zelenskyy said the Kremlin's position had been conveyed to him by Washington officials ahead of a summit between Putin and US President Donald Trump, set to take place in Alaska on Friday.
"We will not withdraw from the Donbas," Zelenskyy said, adding that any withdrawal would create a springboard for future Russian offensives.
"Putin will have an open way to both Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro regions. Also for Kharkiv," Zelenskyy said. "The territorial issue cannot be separated from security guarantees."
Ukrainian lawmaker says there is 'fear' ahead of Trump-Putin summit
A Ukrainian lawmaker from the Servant of the People Party said she has "no hope," only "fear," regarding the upcoming meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Servant of the People Party is associated with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, although he is not a member.
"Any conversations, possible deals or disinformation regarding any possible peace without Ukrainians... That's that's very dangerous and I can tell you that many Ukrainians are really scared of what will happen," Lisa Yasko told DW.
When asked whether Ukrainians would be happy with ceding land if it meant peace, Yasko said: "I think Ukrainian people will never agree" to this, though she did recognize "people are also very tired" of the ongoing war.
Hungary's Orban criticizes EU declaration on Ukraine
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the only EU leader not to have backed a declaration calling for Ukrainian and European involvement in talks aimed at bringing peace to Ukraine, has tried to justify his decision.
He argued in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that the declaration was an attempt to "set conditions for a meeting to which leaders of the EU were not invited."
Orban said that "[t]he fact that the EU was left on the sidelines is sad enough as it is," adding: "The only thing that could make things worse is if we started providing instructions from the bench."
He said the "only sensible" thing for EU leaders to do was "to initiate an EU-Russia summit, based on the example of the US-Russia meeting."
The Hungarian leader is seen as a Putin ally who has consistently opposed EU measures to punish Russia over its ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine, launched in February 2022.
The EU declaration came ahead of the planned talks between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska on Friday.
Trump said on Monday that his aim at the summit would be to find out whether Putin was serious about ending the conflict, saying that he would probably know in "the first two minutes" whether a deal could be reached.
Representatives from Ukraine and Europe are not expected to attend the talks.
WATCH: EU leaders know threat might affect their countries, expert tells DW
European leaders are showing unity in their support for Ukraine despite criticism to the contrary, Almut Möller, the director for European and global affairs at the European Policy Centre think tank, has told DW in an interview.
"You can clearly feel this is nothing ornamental. This is going to the very core of European security," she said.
"Despite all the criticism that Europeans are getting for at times being weak or being disunited, ... in the end Europeans have come together and are making a meaningful contribution. Because ultimately it is about each and every leader sitting in the room coming from Europe knowing that there is a threat out there that might affect their country," she added.
Möller also talked about how European leaders were coping with Donald Trump's unpredictable style of politics.
You can watch the entire interview with Almut Möller here:
WATCH: Moscow not preparing to end the war, says Zelenskyy
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia is not seeking peace in Ukraine and is instead preparing new attacks, despite an upcoming meeting between the US and Russian leaders to discuss ways to end the conflict.
DW has this video of his social media statement:
In case you missed it
Here is a selection of some of DW's backgrounders, analysis and videos from the past few days that you may have missed:
Report: Child labor used to build Russian drones
Russia has become increasingly reliant on drones in its attacks on Ukrainian cities. Mass production of the Iranian-designed weapons began a year ago in Tatarstan, in central Russia.
Independent Russian reporters say that children are involved in drone production and development.
Watch the full report by Juri Rescheto.
In Ukraine's occupied Luhansk, many 'struggling to get by'
Electricity and water are in short supply, and food prices are rising.
As Moscow pressures people in occupied eastern Ukraine to take on Russian citizenship, people in the Luhansk region spoke with DW about daily life.
Read the full story about life in a Ukrainian city under Russian occupation, by Hanna Sokolova-Stekh in Luhansk.
As Putin and Trump talk Ukraine, what will be on the agenda?
The presidents of Russia and the US plan to meet next Friday in Alaska to discuss a possible end to the war in Ukraine.
What do they want to achieve, and what are the most contentious issues?
Read the full story on what we can expect from the Putin-Trump talks in Alaska on Friday, by Carla Bleiker.
Trump-Putin Alaska meeting draws doubt, anger in Ukraine
As Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin prepare to meet in Alaska on August 15, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has insisted that any negotiations on the future of his country must include Ukrainian representatives.
Watch the full report by Melissa Kent.
Ukrainian war correspondent Roshchyna buried in Kyiv
Viktoriia Roshchyna, a young journalist who reported from occupied Ukraine and died in Russian captivity, has been buried in Kyiv.
Experts point to signs she was tortured, and her colleagues say "she was killed by Russia."
Read the full story on the Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian captivity, by Lilia Rzheutska and Anja Sokolow.
Russian-Belarusian military drills to be held in Belarus — ministry
Troops from Russia and Belarus are to hold drills in Belarus from September 12-16, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
The aim of the drills is to test the capabilities of Russia and Belarus and ensure "their readiness to repel possible aggression," the ministry cited Major General Valery Revenko as saying.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko last week told the US Time magazine that fears on the part of the Baltic nations and Poland of the exercises being used to attack them were "complete nonsense."
He said, however, a decision was reached to move the location of the joint military drills away from Belarus' western borders with European Union countries in response to the concerns.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned earlier this year that Russia was "preparing something" in Belarus this summer under the guise of routine military exercises, but he gave no details or evidence for his claim.
Ties between Belarus, Russia's closest ally, and its Western neighbors and Ukraine are at a low ebb after Moscow used Belarusian territory to launch an assault on Kyiv in February 2022.
Ukraine denies Pokrovsk breakthrough reports
The Ukrainian military has rejected reports that Russian forces achieved a breakthrough near the cities of Pokrovsk and Dobropillia in the eastern Donetsk region.
"An infiltration by [Russian] groups ... does not yet mean 'taking control of territory,'" according to a Telegram statement by the ground forces group Dnipro, which is responsible for the sector.
"Of course, the situation is and remains difficult, and the fighting in this region is the most intense compared to other sections of the front line," it continued.
This comes after reports by military observers that Russian troops had advanced more than 10 kilometers (6 miles) northeast of Pokrovsk, while official military reports said small groups of Russian soldiers had even entered the city.
Kyiv's forces are fighting to prevent the urban agglomeration of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad from being completely encircled by Moscow's forces, which are already present on three sides, leaving a corridor just some 15 kilometers wide to serve as a supply line to Ukrainian troops.
Pokrovsk, once home to 60,000 people, has been under assault for several months.
Hungary refuses to sign EU leaders' appeal
Hungary is continuing to pursue its Moscow-friendly policies with regard to the Ukraine conflict, declining to back Tuesday's joint statement by its 26 EU partners calling for international law to be upheld in any peace deal struck with Russia.
"Hungary does not associate itself with this statement," the appeal concluded.
The right-wing government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has consistently voiced opposition to the European Union providing military aid to Ukraine, which it says is prolonging the conflict.
It has also criticized sanctions imposed on Russia over its invasion of its neighbor as being ineffective and deleterious to the European economy.
Orban sparked outrage in Brussels when he visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in the second half of 2024 on a "peace trip" while Hungary helmed the European Council presidency. The EU was quick to deny that the Hungarian leader represented the 27-member bloc in any way.
Tuesday's declaration said, among other things, that international borders must not be changed by force, and that any "just and lasting peace" must uphold international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Ukraine retakes two Sumy villages — military
Ukraine's forces have recaptured the settlements of Stepne and Novokostiantynivka along the front line in the eastern region of Sumy, the Ukrainian General Staff has said.
The reported gains follow news on Sunday that Kyiv's military had retaken the village of Bezsalivka.
"It's tough. But we are holding back the enemy," Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, wrote on Facebook.
"In the Sumy direction, we are conducting active operations and have some success advancing forward, liberating Ukrainian land," he wrote.
Sumy is where Russia launched a new offensive this year with the aim of fulfilling Russian President Vladimir Putin's order to create a "buffer zone" in the region.
Ukraine's Deep State online map project, which is widely considered reliable, shows
that Russian forces control about 200 square kilometers (77 square miles) in Sumy and a total of about 114,000 square kilometers in Ukraine.
Ukraine has right to decide on peace conditions — EU leaders
Leaders from 26 of the EU's 27 member states have issued an appeal to US President Donald Trump to allow Ukraine to have a say on any peace deal as the US leader prepares to meet his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, for talks on ending the conflict in Ukraine.
In a statement, which Putin ally Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declined to sign, the leaders stressed "the inherent right of Ukraine to choose its own destiny."
"We, the Leaders of the European Union, welcome the efforts of President Trump towards ending Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and achieving a just and lasting peace and security for Ukraine," a statement said.
"A just and lasting peace that brings stability and security must respect international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and that international borders must not be changed by force," it added.
But "the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine," the leaders said.
European leaders have voiced dismay at being sidelined from Friday's US-Russia summit, with many fearing that European security as a whole is at stake amid Moscow's territorial aggression and growing military buildup.
It remains unclear whether or to what extent Ukraine will take part in the meeting.
Trump has said that both sides would be forced to cede land under any peace deal, raising fears that he might make territorial concessions to Putin that are unacceptable to Kyiv.
Welcome to our coverage
DW reports on events in and connected with Ukraine as Kyiv and its allies await an in-person meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin in the US state of Alaska on Friday.
European leaders have expressed disappointment that they are not being involved in US efforts to end Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which is widely seen on the continent as a possible precursor to further territorial aggression by Moscow.
You can read here for up-to-date information on one of the bloodiest conflicts on European soil since World War II.