Ukraine war: Trump offers to help Putin find deal

US President Donald Trump, speaking to Russian leader Vladimir Putin by telephone for nearly 90 minutes, offered to help find a solution to the Ukraine war, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said in comments made public early yesterday.

Ushakov said Trump made the offer during the call on Saturday, US Independence Day, in the context of his participation next week at the Nato summit in Turkey.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he also spoke to Trump, reports Reuters.

“The American president once again confirmed his readiness to work towards a rapid end to the fighting and find solutions to overcome the crisis,” Ushakov said of Trump’s call with the Russian president.

Ushakov, who described the conversation as “business-like and quite constructive,” said Russia sought “a political-diplomatic resolution of the conflict, with due account of Russia’s fundamental approach.”

Ushakov accused Kyiv and its European allies of “counting on extending and even escalating the conflict, and on terrorism against civilians.”

He was referring to Ukraine’s long-range strikes on Russian targets, mainly linked to the oil industry, which have triggered fuel shortages in several Russian regions.

Ushakov said Putin “depicted the real situation on the battlefield where the Russian armed forces are confidently advancing, liberating one locality after another.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine denied Moscow’s announcement that Russian forces had captured the strategic Ukrainian city of Kostyantynivka, a stronghold for Kyiv’s troops in the eastern Donetsk region and a key target for the Kremlin.

A Ukrainian army spokesman told AFP the city remained under its control, while Zelensky dismissed Moscow’s announcement as “a lie”, with the duelling claims coming after Russia also said Ukrainian drones had struck its second city, St Petersburg.

“The situation remains difficult,” Ukrainian army spokesman Andriy Kovalyov told AFP, but Kostyantynivka “is under the control of the Ukrainian Defence Forces”.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, wearing a military uniform, had thanked troops for seizing Kostyantynivka, a town with a pre-war population of 78,000 that Moscow has been trying to take control over for months.

The army has been sending in small groups of soldiers to infiltrate and secure positions, a method previously used to capture the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in late 2025.

Kostyantynivka is one of the final obstacles on the route to the major Ukrainian-held cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk; capturing them is the Kremlin’s ultimate goal in the Donbas.

Kovalyov said Saturday that “Ukrainian defenders continue to hold their positions along the designated defensive lines.”

He admitted that small groups of Russian troops have been infiltrating the town but insisted that fighting was ongoing.

Moscow’s defence ministry, however, said: “Russian troops are in all parts of the town — from the southern to northern outskirts.”

Zelensky called the claim “just another Russian lie.”

“If Kostyantynivka were under Russian control, then perhaps Putin would have no problem meeting me there to find a diplomatic way to finally end this war,” the Ukrainian leader said on social media.