Ukraine has denied that Russian troops have taken full control of the small eastern city of Pokrovsk – a defence hub in Donetsk region during nearly four years of all-out war – and accused Moscow of misrepresenting the battlefield situation to pressurise Kyiv during an urgent US push for a peace deal.

Witkoff, the man whom Washington has sent to negotiate with Putin this week, is viewed with suspicion by Kyiv and its allies after a leaked phone call suggested he was advising Moscow on how to deal with Trump, according to a transcript published by Bloomberg News.

Ukrainian troops fighting in eastern Ukraine are expressing doubts that a peace proposal currently being negotiated will prevent Russia from attacking their country again.

Volodymyr Zelensky has revealed that the US and Ukraine have agreed on a new 20-point peace deal, hours before talks between Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Vladimir Putin were held in the Kremlin.

Russia has escalated its attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks, while the US is seeking to finalise a peace plan with Moscow and Kiev's approval.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to bring a peace plan to end the nearly four-year war with Ukraine.

Capturing Pokrovsk, dubbed "the gateway to Donetsk" by Russian media, and Kostiantynivka to its northeast which Russian forces are also trying to envelop, would give Moscow its most important single territorial gain inside Ukraine since it took the ruined city of Avdiivka in early 2024.

Russia says Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014, the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk - together known as Donbas - plus the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions are now legally part of Russia. The United Nations has said the annexations are illegal under international law, and they are not recognised by most of the international community.

"Nobody will make concessions on the territories, because it’s our land and we stand here," one soldier told NBC News about the proposal's call for Ukraine to cede land to Russia.

BRUSSELS - However Donald Trump’s latest push to end the war in Ukraine pans out, Europe fears the prospect of a deal – sooner or later – that will not punish or weaken Russia as its leaders had hoped,