President Trump’s Republican allies are putting pressure on him not to entangle the U.S. militarily in Ukraine after he signaled an openness to helping craft security guarantees for the embattled nation in its war against Russian aggression.

Stephen A. Smith argued that Democratic presidents Biden, Obama and Clinton are responsible for the Russia-Ukraine war breaking out, not Trump, during his podcast on Monday.

Major questions remain over what both sides might accept after Trump held successive talks with Putin and Zelensky.

Meetings in Alaska and Washington were high on pomp and low on breakthroughs, but there were two potentially significant developments.

President Trump canceled his August vacation to his Bedminster resort to work on talks to end the Ukraine-Russia war, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday. Leavitt said Trump considered continuing peace talks while at his New Jersey golf resort but decided to stay at the White House instead.

The second Oval Office meeting in six months between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went off smoothly, in sharp contrast to their disastrous encounter in February.

Russia has occupied a fifth of Ukrainian territory - and a big map showing the area shaded in red was put up in the Oval Office as if to emphasise that point for President Donald Trump's talks with Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday.

The fast-moving developments in Trump's near-back-to-back summits with the heads of Russia, Ukraine and European powers have highlighted a pair of repeated sticking points.

Get the latest news on President Donald Trump’s meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders at the White House.