The Kremlin announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed by phone to his American counterpart, Donald Trump, that Russia does not harbor any aggressive intentions towards Europe.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart, Donald Trump, held a “constructive and frank” phone call that lasted an hour, during which Trump stressed his desire to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible.
Ushakov told reporters that the two leaders discussed the findings of the most recent visit by American peace negotiators to Moscow and Kiev, and that Putin briefed Trump on what the United States could do to help end the conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that a meeting between Russian, Ukrainian and American negotiators may be held this September, after two American envoys held separate talks in Moscow and Kiev over the weekend.
“If all parties agree, we also want to hold the meeting in the fall,” Zelensky told reporters. If it can be held in September, that would be great. “The earlier the better.” Zelensky said that the two American peace envoys presented several “good ideas” to be discussed during the talks on ways to end the war. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Russia and Ukraine last Saturday and Sunday.
Zelensky told reporters via WhatsApp that several countries, including Türkiye and Switzerland, may host a tripartite meeting. He expected that grain shipments, energy infrastructure there, and other issues would be discussed.
Zelensky revealed - in statements to the American website "Axios" - that Russia informed Donald Trump's envoys of its readiness to begin negotiations regarding the war in Ukraine. Pointing out the possibility of a “de-escalation” during the winter. This de-escalation may lead to both sides suspending strikes on strategic sectors.
Zelensky said in his statements to the website: “There are ideas related to energy, grains, and electricity, as well as oil and gas.” Zelensky stated in this interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin “needs Trump” and does not want to “anger him,” especially before the midterm elections scheduled for early November.
Therefore, the Kremlin showed “a readiness for dialogue,” according to Zelensky, citing what was confirmed to him by the American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who visited Moscow and Kiev, respectively, over the weekend, to meet with the two presidents.
Axios pointed out that among the paths proposed by Washington to start a peace process is the possibility of a “de-escalation” before or during the winter.
On Monday, the Kremlin, for its part, said that it “does not rule out” resuming the tripartite formula. “But it is still too early to talk about a specific place and dates,” according to Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Witkov and Kushner met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, on Saturday, before heading to Kiev on Sunday. They held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
On Monday, Witkoff considered that this visit allowed for “substantial progress, including progress toward setting a date for additional tripartite talks,” referring to American-Russian-Ukrainian negotiations, with the aim of discussing ways to end the conflict.
Witkoff confirmed in a post on “X” that “President Trump is working hard to stop the fighting and seek to establish a lasting peace.”
Zelensky said that he hopes to meet his American counterpart, Donald Trump, later this month. To discuss providing Kyiv with anti-missile defenses, after a new night of Russian strikes on the capital. Zelensky explained - in a media briefing - that he looked forward to “raising this issue” during a “meeting” with Trump after September 20, in order to help his country confront Russian ballistic missiles.
On Tuesday, the United Kingdom announced its commitment to provide one hundred million pounds ($135.2 million) to strengthen Ukrainian air defense capabilities during the winter months, in a package that includes military equipment and Patriot missiles. The British news agency (PA Media) said that Britain will provide Ukraine with defensive interceptor missiles, large-caliber artillery ammunition, and drones, through the British contribution to Ukraine’s list of priority needs identified by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
The Moscow and Kiev meetings aimed to relaunch diplomatic efforts, with American mediation, to end the conflict that erupted more than 4 years ago. The mediation efforts launched by Washington since Trump's return to power led to holding several negotiating sessions between Moscow and Kiev in 2025, but they did not achieve results, while the process has stopped since the United States and Israel started the war on Iran in February.
European representatives from France, Britain and Germany participated in the rounds of talks held on Sunday in Kiev.
During the previous negotiating rounds, Moscow and Kiev largely stuck to their positions, and the talks stalled, especially when it came to the issue of lands in eastern Ukraine that Russia demands to annex.
Russia resumed its intensive strikes on the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, following a short ceasefire - according to Ukrainian officials - early Tuesday morning. The Russians and Ukrainians had agreed to stop strikes on their capitals for 3 days, to allow American negotiators to visit the two sides.
The Ukrainian Air Force said on Tuesday that Russia launched dozens of missiles and 166 drones at Ukraine in an attack overnight, mainly targeting the area surrounding the capital, Kiev, and the Odessa region in the south of the country. The Air Force reported via Telegram that it shot down 142 drones, 31 out of 32 cruise missiles, and two ballistic missiles.
For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced - in a statement - that its air defense crews intercepted and destroyed 384 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory, during the night and until Tuesday morning. However, it is impossible to confirm the allegations of both parties from independent sources.
Agence France-Presse reporters heard strong explosions in the Ukrainian capital in the early hours of Tuesday morning, and saw columns of smoke rising into the sky and flames of fire.
The weather warning that was issued at night was lifted, with residents being instructed to go to shelters early in the morning. Neighboring Poland had also put its army on alert.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister denounced the “horrific attack” launched by Russia on Kiev at night, shortly after the end of the visit of the American envoys there. Andrei Sepiga wrote in a post on “X”: “Immediately after the US President’s peace envoys left, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin launched a new, large-scale and horrific attack on Kiev, damaging residential neighborhoods and claiming the lives of at least two people,” adding that “his ballistic missiles are more eloquent than his speeches about diplomacy.”
On the other hand, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko resigned on Monday against the backdrop of corruption accusations, after members of the Anti-Corruption Bureau searched his offices over the weekend, as part of investigations related to illegal communication centers. Kiev has been working for years to eliminate corruption that continued during the Russian invasion, and sometimes affected the circle close to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
On Saturday, the National Anti-Corruption Office and the Public Prosecutor’s Office specializing in combating corruption announced the discovery of a money laundering scheme “led by an official in the Public Prosecutor’s Office” and the implementation of raids at the site.
The funeral of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic sparked controversy, amid European condemnation of thousands attending his funeral ceremony, after he died last week while serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. He was known as the “Butcher of Bosnia.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that the photos that showed the large attendance at Mladic's funeral were "shocking," adding that they might undermine Serbia's plans to join the European Union. “The pictures of Ratko Mladic’s funeral in Belgrade were shocking,” von der Leyen wrote on the “X” platform, a position also expressed by European Council President Antonio Costa.
Von der Leyen added: “The official displays of support and the presence of some senior Serb officials at the funeral are regrettable. “It demonstrates a failure to confront a dark chapter in Europe’s modern history, and contradicts the values on which Serbia’s path towards the European Union is based.”
Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein described Mladic as "the complete embodiment of evil" following his conviction. But his legacy continues to divide within Serbia and the Serb-majority entity in Bosnia. Some Serbs still view him as a hero.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic rejected the accusations directed at his country of “glorifying” the former general, stressing that the ceremony would be limited to fulfilling the family’s wishes.
Denis Pečerović, a Bosnian member of the country's tripartite presidency, condemned what he described as "the identification of Serbian leaders with one of the worst killers in European history." “This will have unpredictable consequences for the future of the entire region,” Bečirovic wrote on Facebook on Friday.
Yesterday, crowds gathered carrying Serbian flags and pictures of Mladic wearing a traditional Serbian military hat, outside the church in a suburb of Belgrade, where the head of the Orthodox Church in the country, Patriarch Porfiri, began mass. His coffin was received in Belgrade with military honors, after it was transported on a government plane, wrapped in flags, and then transported in a motorcade into the capital, according to what Agence France-Presse reported.
Darko Mladic, Ratko Mladic's son, said during a press conference alongside the Serbian Minister of Justice, on Friday: “I say in front of the whole world that I am proud of the role my father played.”
Mladic's coffin, surrounded by armed soldiers wearing military uniforms and accompanied by a brass band, toured streets crowded with mourners chanting his name. He was buried in a nearby cemetery next to his daughter, who died in 1994.
Mladic spent his final years serving a life sentence in The Hague, on the grounds of his conviction for war crimes in Bosnia, which the International Criminal Court said were “among the most heinous crimes known to mankind.” The crimes for which he was convicted included one of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II, the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in which some 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed, and which the court concluded was genocide orchestrated by military leader Mladic and his political ally Radovan Karadžić.
Mladic embodied the military face of a famous trio that included him with former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević and former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić, during the former Yugoslavia's descent into a bloodbath following the fall of communism. He was also convicted of persecuting and displacing Muslims and Bosnian Croats, terrorizing civilians during the Siege of Sarajevo, and holding members of the United Nations peacekeeping force hostage during NATO air strikes in 1995.
Mladic has long promoted himself as a "simple man" chosen to protect his people, presenting himself as the protector of the Serbs. “Fate put me in the position of defending my country, which you, the Western powers, destroyed with the help of the Vatican and the Western mafia,” he said during an appeal hearing in 2020. For more than three years, he supervised the siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, where his sniper bullets and artillery shells killed thousands of men, women, and children in the streets and inside their homes.
In the past, video footage from Srebrenica showed Mladic reassuring a 12-year-old Muslim boy, shortly before his forces killed thousands of civilians. Around the same period, he appeared in another recording returning to the empty Srebrenica, saying to the camera: “We are giving this city to the Serbian people as a gift.”
Mladic, along with Karadžić and former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, formed a Serbian nationalist trio that launched a wave of killings on ethnic grounds in an attempt to redraw the map of the region. While Karadžić was the ideological mind and Milošević the skilled politician, Mladic was the military man who mastered waging wars and made them his main field.
Conflicts have characterized Mladic's life since his childhood. He was born during World War II in the town of Kalinovic in eastern Bosnia. Most accounts indicate that this was in 1942, but Mladić told the court that he was in fact born in 1943. His father was killed in the last days of the war while fighting in the ranks of Marshal Josip Broz Tito, the leader who later succeeded in unifying the multinational state of Yugoslavia and curbing the underlying hostilities among its components.
By most accounts, Mladic always aspired to become a soldier. He left for Belgrade in the early 1960s to receive military training, and became an officer at the age of twenty-two, before later rising to command the Bosnian Serb forces during the war. Although his soldiers viewed him with great admiration, former Yugoslav army spokesman Ljubodrag Stojadinović once described him as “narcissistic, conceited, self-obsessed and arrogant.”
During the war, he baffled international negotiators with long, rambling, emotional speeches about Serbian history. In the last days of the war, those close to him began to doubt the soundness of his mental abilities. The late former Montenegrin president Momir Bulatović said in a documentary prepared by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the 1990s: “I respected General Mladic, a soldier and a human being, but after three years of war, he had lost touch with reality.”
Mladic was removed from office after charges were brought against him in 1995, but he managed to evade arrest for another 16 years. At first, he lived a luxurious life under the care of the Serbian army, but the pressures on him increased after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. He was finally arrested in May 2011 in a country house owned by his cousin in northern Serbia. His daughter, Anna, committed suicide in 1994 at the age of 23. Some accounts say that she could not bear the shame resulting from the crimes committed by her father, but Mladic's family denies this. The last request he made before being transferred to court was to visit her grave.
During those years, his reputation with his supporters grew, and his wartime role was immortalized through murals spread throughout Republika Srpska, the Serb entity within Bosnia. In its capital, Banja Luka, shortly after the news of the death spread, thousands of people participated in vigils in honor of the man convicted of war crimes, during which they walked behind a banner that read: “Commander... Thank you for everything.”
