US President Donald Trump has written that it's going to be "a big day in the White House" as his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and European leaders were due to arrive for talks on ending the fighting in Ukraine.
"We have never had so many European Leaders here at one time. A great honor for America!!" he wrote.
The August 18 talks in Washington are set to include Trump, Zelenskyy, NATO chief Mark Rutte, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
They follow Trump's summit in Alaska with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15. Neither leader revealed much about the contents of those talks during a brief news conference, at which they took no questions from journalists.
But Western media have reported that Putin floated a peace deal that would involve Ukraine withdrawing from a large area of territory in the Donbas region.
This has raised alarm bells in Kyiv and European capitals, which fear a withdrawal from heavily fortified areas would leave Ukraine dangerously exposed to further Russian attacks.
It also appears that some security guarantees for Ukraine were discussed in Alaska, but no clear details have emerged about them.
"President Trump invited Ukraine and other European countries to Washington today -- this is the first meeting in such a format, and it is very serious," Zelenskyy wrote on social media ahead of the White House meeting, after talks in Washington with Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg.
"Russia can only be forced into peace through strength, and President Trump has that strength," Zelenskyy wrote.
Russian Attacks On Ukraine Kill Civilians
Meanwhile, Russia has continued to pound targets including a deadly strike on a residential building in Kharkiv that killed seven people, including two children, and injured at least 20 others.
"I opened my eyes and heard these explosions and everything fell on me," a resident of the building, Anna, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service. "The windows [fell] on my child."
The city of Zaporizhzhya was also hit by Russian strikes, with at least three reported dead.
"My poor wife, it was her late shift. She was shaking all over," a resident told RFE/RL. "I can imagine the kind of stress that is. It's just terrible," he added.
Ukraine said it had carried out a drone attack on an oil pumping station in Russia's Tambov region, disrupting flows in the Druzhba pipeline.
Putin has also been moving to shore up diplomatic support, holding calls with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Lula da Silva on August 18.
"The leaders discussed the prospects for a long-term settlement of the crisis in Ukraine and agreed to continue the dialogue on this issue, as well as on other topical international issues," the Kremlin said in a statement.
"Ukraine requires clarity about what was discussed [in Alaska] and what potentially was quietly agreed to, because that zone of uncertainty is very dangerous for Ukraine's morale," Ilan Berman, senior vice president at the American Foreign Policy Council, told RFE/RL's Current Time.
"It's very dangerous for Ukrainian security, and quite frankly, it's a source of concern for allies and partners of Ukraine that are still supporting Kyiv's fight," added Berman, who is also a member of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's board of directors.
Ahead of the August 18 talks, Trump wrote that NATO membership for Ukraine had been ruled out. But Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, said security guarantees could be provided that would be similar to NATO's mutual defense clause, Article 5.
"NATO membership faces many obstacles, but this is such a serious issue that it could potentially be linked to territorial questions," Sergei Sanovich, a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, told Current Time.
"If this (peace deal) results in simply shifting the Russian border westward without serious security guarantees for Ukraine, it will just be a launching pad for the next invasion, and that invasion could very well happen while Trump is still president," he added.
