The Trump administration has trumpeted a breakthrough in talks with Russia this month, claiming that Mr. Putin had accepted a proposal for the West to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as strong as Article 5 of the NATO charter, which stipulates that an attack on one alliance member is considered an attack on all.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said any Western security guarantees for Ukraine in an eventual peace deal could only be enacted with Moscow’s cooperation—essentially rendering them useless against another Russian invasion.

Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that “really secure” guarantees for Ukraine would have to involve Russia and its biggest ally China alongside the US, UK and France. However, Ukraine has previously said it would not accept Russia being given the right to thwart other countries coming to its defence.

Putin’s delegation gifted Mark Warren, a retired fire inspector for the Municipality of Anchorage, a Ural Gear Up motorcycle with a sidecar, one week after a television crew’s interview with Warren went viral in Russia.

Russia is turning the parts of Ukraine it occupies into a giant military base — and a potential launch pad for future aggression. Moscow's forces in the occupied territories, particularly in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts,