On Wednesday, Russia launched a widespread assault across Ukraine, hitting power plants, a kindergarten, and other locations, resulting in six fatalities. This intense barrage occurred just hours after President Trump announced he was postponing a scheduled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, aiming to prevent a ‘wasted’ attempt at fostering peace.
Earlier last week, Trump had expressed intentions to meet with Putin in Hungary to further peace discussions. However, following Tuesday’s talks between American and Russian delegates, the White House confirmed that no immediate summit was on the horizon.
The Trump administration’s decision to delay came after Russian officials firmly refused to back down from their aggressive demands for halting the invasion of Ukraine. They once again dismissed a proposed ceasefire that would maintain the current front lines.
Heartbreaking video footage released by Ukrainian officials on Wednesday depicted emergency responders rescuing young children from a blazing kindergarten in Kharkiv, a city in northeastern Ukraine. The attack on the facility tragically killed one person and injured several more.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that these attacks unequivocally demonstrate Russia’s lack of motivation to end the war, indicating insufficient international pressure.
The extensive Russian shelling led to widespread power rationing for industries and emergency blackouts affecting civilians across multiple regions, including Kyiv, the capital. These strikes align with a recurring pattern where Russia intensifies attacks on Ukraine following key diplomatic junctures with the Trump administration. Simultaneously, Russia conducted nuclear weapon drills within its own borders on Wednesday, including test launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles, according to the Kremlin.
Zelensky reiterated on Tuesday that Ukraine desperately needs more long-range weaponry to gain sufficient leverage and compel Moscow to cease its invasion. Despite meeting with Trump at the White House last Friday, the Ukrainian leader left the challenging discussions without securing the American long-range missiles he sought.
Even while publicly endorsing Trump’s peace initiatives, Ukrainian officials have consistently maintained that Moscow will only cease its aggression if Kyiv possesses the means to effectively retaliate.
Ukrainian analysts expressed hope that Trump might be starting to see through Putin’s tactic of engaging in high-profile meetings that ultimately yield no concrete progress. Russian officials had readily embraced the idea of a Budapest summit after Trump’s call with Putin on Thursday, just a day before his meeting with Zelensky.
Mykhailo Samus, director of Kyiv’s independent New Geopolitics Research Network, commented, “Trump realized that this meeting would be a disaster, bringing him nothing but embarrassment. The real question now is, what comes next? Will Putin manage to lure him into another such meeting?”
Samus further emphasized, “It’s crucial for President Trump to grasp that a Nobel Peace Prize can only be achieved by exerting pressure on Putin, not by criticizing Zelensky.”
Trump has consistently demonstrated a notable deference to Putin. The American president has not acted on his threats to penalize Russia for its refusal to end the war. Furthermore, despite warnings from the Kremlin, he has withheld the provision of American Tomahawk missiles to Kyiv.
Yet, seemingly invigorated by his success in brokering a Gaza ceasefire and driven by his declared ambition for a Nobel Prize, Trump has actively sought to revive Ukraine’s peace process, which had stalled following his Alaskan summit with Putin earlier this summer.
Although Zelensky concluded last week’s discussions with Trump without acquiring new weapons, he did secure ongoing U.S. support for Kyiv’s territorial stance. Moscow, however, has indicated its demand for Ukraine to surrender parts of the eastern Donetsk region still under its control—a position Kyiv firmly rejects.
Zelensky is scheduled to meet with European leaders in Denmark on Thursday, aiming to garner further support from European nations. These countries have become Kyiv’s main allies in the war since Trump halted direct American assistance. European leaders, alongside Ukraine, advocate for an immediate ceasefire along the current battle lines.
Coincidentally, Trump was also set to meet with Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary general, in Washington on Wednesday, with Ukraine expected to be a primary topic of their conversation.
According to analyst Samus, since spring, Russia’s consistent objective in all peace talks has been clear: to postpone any ceasefire and prevent the United States from supplying Ukraine with long-range weapons.
Although Putin has mostly achieved this goal thus far, the delayed Budapest meeting suggests that the Russian president’s repetitive diplomatic stalling tactic might be losing its effectiveness, Samus noted.
Zelensky, too, explicitly denounced Russia’s diplomatic maneuvers.
On Tuesday, he stated, “Russia continues to exhaust all efforts to evade genuine diplomacy. As soon as the prospect of long-range capabilities for Ukraine became less pressing, Russia’s interest in negotiations diminished almost instantly.”