1/8/2025–|Last update: 09:07 (Mecca time)
US President Donald Trump again attacked Russia after he gave it days to reach a ceasefire agreement with Ukraine, but he nevertheless decided to send his special envoy to Moscow, at a time when Kiev denied the fall of an important city in the Donetsk region.
In comments he made at the White House late Thursday evening, Trump strongly condemned what he called Russia’s disgusting behavior towards Ukraine, hours after Russian attacks that killed dozens of dead and wounded in Kiev.
The US president reaffirmed that he intends to impose sanctions on Moscow in the event of an agreement, but he said that he is not sure that the sanctions would deter Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump also announced that his special envoy Steve Witkev will go to the Russian capital after the end of his current visit to Israel, which he arrived yesterday.
Wittakov had visited Moscow repeatedly and met the Russian President in the framework of Trump’s attempts to reach a peace agreement between Moscow and Kiev.
However, Trump’s endeavors were not achieved as a result of expressing his disappointment from Putin, then waving penalties.
Trump gave Putin until August 8 to reach an agreement, otherwise he will respond to the imposition of sanctions that include customs duties on Russia and the countries from which oil buys.
Donetsk battles
In field developments, Ukrainian President Folodimir Zellinski denied yesterday evening the fall of the city of Chasif Yar, an important military center northwest of the Donetsk region (eastern Ukraine).
Zelinski considered the Russian Ministry of Defense to announce the control of Chasif Yar (West Bakhmout), which was controlled by Russian forces in 2023, as misleading. A Ukrainian army spokesman also described this announcement as propaganda.
In a video on the Internet, Zellinski said that the Ukrainian forces are still defending their sites around Chasif Yar, and confronting all Russian progress attempts in this region and also in the two border provinces of Sumi and Carkif (northeast of the country), noting that the fiercest battles in Donetsk are taking place around the city of Boukrovsk.
However, a video clip – Reuters said it had been fulfilled – shows members of the Russian army raising the flag amid the ruins of destroyed buildings in this city that witnessed continuous fighting for 16 months.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said yesterday that its forces took control of the city northwest of Donetsk province, after what it described as the collapse of the Ukrainian defenses in the Costanteneva axis.
A Russian military source also said that the army forces managed to eliminate the largest military group of the Ukrainian army since the beginning of the “special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022.
Reuters quoted military analyst Emile Castles (one of the founders of a research group in Finland) as saying that the battles are still ongoing – in the vicinity of the city of Chasif Yar.
In other field developments, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced today that “our defenses have destroyed 60 Ukrainian careers in several areas during the night.”
For its part, the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior announced today that the outcome of the Russian attacks on Kiev yesterday morning increased to 26 dead and 156 injured.
Recently, mutual strikes with enlightenings and missiles between Russia and Ukraine, and each party announced that strategic targets on the other side, including military sites or factories, and in parallel with that the front expanded to include new areas in the east, southern and northeastern Ukraine.
