President Donald Trump started the week declaring a diplomatic breakthrough in his bid to get Russia and Ukraine closer to making peace, announcing he had begun arranging for direct talks between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

President Donald Trump said Friday he will give Russian President Vladimir Putin “a couple of weeks,” further extending a deadline for potential consequences against Moscow after urging the Russian leader and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to meet.

As Trump pushes for peace, Ukraine accuses Russia of a deadly drone and missile strike, "as if there were no efforts by the world to stop this war."

Moscow continues to throw cold water on the prospect of Putin-Zelenskyy meeting, and is insisting Russia have a role in security guarantees for Ukraine.

Political messages don’t get much blunter than the Russian missiles that slammed into an American-owned manufacturing firm overnight Wednesday in western Ukraine, hundreds of miles away from the frontline trenches of a war with no end in sight.

For more than a decade, the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine has been the focal point of intense battles and diplomatic disputes between Kyiv and the Kremlin. Now it could be on the table in peace talks with the United States.

President Donald Trump was caught on a hot mic telling French President Emmanuel Macron that Vladimir Putin “wants to make a deal for me.”

US President Donald Trump has ditched his call for a ceasefire in Ukraine, backing instead Russian President Vladimir Putin’s push for a permanent peace agreement. That has not stopped some European leaders from pushing for a temporary truce first, even though the US president has seemingly decided one is not necessary.

Russia's top military and political officials joined Putin in the closed city of Sarov, which houses the Russian Federal Nuclear Center, on Aug. 22.