Russia has yet again ignored Donald Trump’s bid to hold a summit between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky and said attempts to resolve security issues for Kyiv without Moscow’s participation was a “road to nowhere”.

Last month was the deadliest since Putin launched his full-scale war on Ukraine three and a half years ago. In July alone, 286 civilians were killed and another 1,388, according to official data.

President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet Friday at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, to discuss the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Reports of the Russian president's demands have emerged following the summit in Alaska - as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepares to fly to Washington DC to see Donald Trump for the next stage of talks.

As he heads to Alaska for talks with President Trump, the Russian leader projects confidence that his edge on the battlefield will secure a peace deal on his terms. It’s the result of a yearslong re-engineering of his country’s military and economy.