Trump-Putin: First details of Ukraine-Russia peace deal emerge

Diplomatic sources have unveiled some of the terms of the potential peace deal between Ukraine and Russia after Donald Trump suggested a short-term ceasefire would not work. The US has reportedly suggested a deal under which Ukraine would not join NATO, but would instead receive protections similar to the alliance's Article 5.

Article 5 commits NATO members to collective defence, meaning an attack on one member is treated as an attack on all. Mr Trump is said to have raised the idea with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders during a call following his meeting with Putin. A source told reporters: "As one of the security guarantees for Ukraine, the American side proposed a non-NATO Article 5-type guarantee, supposedly agreed with Putin."

Another source familiar with the discussions confirmed that NATO-style guarantees were on the table, the Sun reports.

That source added: "No one knows how this would actually work, or why Putin would accept it, given his clear opposition to NATO and to any strong guarantees for Ukraine's sovereignty."

It remains unclear what Ukraine would need to offer in return to secure such an arrangement.

The "path to peace in Ukraine" cannot be decided without Volodymyr Zelensky, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said, as he commended Donald Trump's "pursuit of an end to the killing".

Sir Keir said the US president's actions had "brought us closer than ever before" to an end to the war in Ukraine.

However, he insisted insisted Ukraine's leader must take part in future peace talks after speaking with Mr Trump and Nato allies in the wake of the US president's negotiations with Vladimir Putin.

The American leader had hoped to secure a peace deal from the talks in Alaska, but both he and his Russian counterpart walked away without agreement on how to end the war in Ukraine.

Mr Trump, however, insisted "some great progress" was made, with "many points" agreed and "very few" remaining.

Sceptics have nevertheless claimed the summit's main effect has been to lend legitimacy to Mr Putin, who has been considered a pariah by many world leaders since the invasion began in 2022.

Orysia Lutsevych, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia programme and head of the Ukraine forum at the Chatham House think tank, warned: "After six bilateral Trump-Putin phone calls, five trips of Trump's envoy (Steve) Witkoff to Moscow, the Alaska summit, watched globally with so much anticipation and anxiety, failed to produce any tangible outcome to stop Russian aggression against Ukraine.

"Russia has received a reward for its invasion. Trump called Russia a 'great country' and said there is strong mutual understanding between the two parties.

"This represents a further fissure in the already shaky Transatlantic alliance, the rupture of which is a primary Russian aim."