U.S. President Donald Trump says he has called Russian President Vladimir Putin and begun to arrange a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a critical step toward bringing a possible end to Russia's war on Ukraine.

Under the proposed Russian deal, Kyiv would fully withdraw from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions in return for a Russian pledge to freeze the front lines in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the sources said.

In a day of diplomatic maneuvers, Europeans argued that Kyiv should not yield key cities, and Trump designated Rubio to draft security guarantees.

Melania Trump took the unique step of crafting a letter calling for peace in Ukraine, having her husband Donald Trump deliver it to Vladimir Putin.

Trump didn’t end the fighting in Ukraine, but he picked up some praise from Putin about the Republican’s own domestic political fights.

At what was billed as an “historic” presidential summit, hastily put together in Alaska on Friday afternoon, the optics were as clear and overshadowing as the vast Chugach mountains glistening over Anchorage in the summer sun.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed at his summit with President Donald Trump that the United States and its European allies could offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO's collective defense mandate as part of an eventual deal to end the war,