Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to move toward a peace settlement for Ukraine but Moscow's main objective is to achieve its goals, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state television in a clip published on Sunday.

Peskov said that the world was now accustomed to U.S. President Donald Trump's sometimes "harsh" rhetoric but pointed out that Trump had also underscored in comments on Russia that he would continue to search for a peace deal.

"President Putin has repeatedly spoken of his desire to bring the Ukrainian settlement to a peaceful conclusion as soon as possible. This is a long process, it requires effort, and it is not easy," Peskov said told state television reporter Pavel Zarubin.

"The main thing for us is to achieve our goals. Our goals are clear," Peskov said.

On Monday, Trump announced a tougher stance on Russia, pledging a new wave of military aid to Ukraine, including Patriot missile defence systems. He also gave Russia a 50-day deadline to agree to a ceasefire or face additional sanctions.

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Trump is not responding forcefully enough against Russia

President Donald Trump is getting serious about the Russian threat. After pledging new arms shipments to Ukraine and threatening crippling secondary tariffs if Russia does not sue for peace in fifty days, Trump blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s peace entreaties as “all talk and no action.” Despite these castigations, Trump maintained hope that Putin might make moves towards peace in Ukraine before the fifty-day mark.

This optimism does not reflect the current mood in the Kremlin. Trump’s major announcement was greeted with relief rather than alarm in Moscow. The Moscow Stock Exchange increased by 2.7 per cent and the Russian rouble rose 0.8 per cent against the Chinese yuan. Russian officials feared sweeping new sanctions and were pleased to see that Trump was only willing to impose largely unenforceable tariffs against the BRICS countries.

The rhetoric emanating from Putin’s coterie of hardliners was as confrontational as ever. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev threatened to strike Western countries if they escalated the Ukraine War. Rossiya-1 defence commentator Igor Korotchenko implored Russia to intensify its strikes on Ukrainian critical infrastructure and expressed hope that these attacks would force Ukraine’s capitulation within fifty days.

The Russian military is converting this bellicose rhetoric into aggressive actions. On July 16, Russia fired over 400 missiles and drones on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Russia has amassed 160,000 forces around Kupiansk in Kharkiv and the Donetsk battlegrounds of Pokrovsk and Kostiatynivka. A large-scale Russian summer offensive in eastern Ukraine is expected to commence within days.

These warning signals indicate that Trump is not responding forcefully enough against Russia. A genuine maximum pressure approach is needed to compel Putin to accept a peace agreement in Ukraine. This maximum pressure strategy should consist of three interrelated components.

The first is the removal of loopholes in the sanctions regime that provide Russia with the resources it needs to prosecute further aggression. Although Rosatom is involved in the occupation of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and has assisted Iran’s civilian nuclear energy programme, the US has refrained from sanctioning it. This exemption has helped Rosatom leverage its labyrinthine corporate structure and allegedly finance Russia’s defence industry.

Instead of imposing secondary tariffs on importers from Russia, the US should impose targeted sanctions on refineries that produce Russian oil. Vaibhav Raghunanda, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, estimates that these sanctions would deprive the Kremlin of $750 million in annual tax revenues.

Shadow fleet sanctions also need to intensify until the estimated 600 tankers that Russia uses are designated. The US needs to coordinate with the EU on curbing Russian sanctions evasion loopholes in their formative stages. The sanctions regime is fundamentally reactive in nature, and this allows Russia to hone its circumvention tactics before Western powers can respond.

The second is the broadening of the array of weapons that reach Ukraine. Trump’s Nato ally-funded arms package will most likely include a Patriot Air Defence battery and ATACM long-range missiles. While $10 billion in arms supplies sounds like a lot, it is important to emphasise that Patriot batteries cost $1 billion to build, their interceptor missiles cost $3.7 million each and ATACMs cost $1 million per missile.

Given these structural costs, the current scale of Trump’s arms package is unlikely to deter Russia. As Ukraine expends 2 million artillery shells a year and is facing a Russian military armed with vast quantities of North Korean artillery shells, the US needs to step up its artillery exports to Ukraine. While Trump ultimately refrained from exporting Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine that can strike Moscow, the transfer of these weapons should be reconsidered if Putin chooses to escalate over the fifty-day window.

The third is supporting Ukraine’s highly innovative domestic defence sector. In recent months, the Ukrainian military has devised low-cost interceptor drones to counter Russia’s UAV swarms and has unveiled 1,000km radius Neptune anti-ship missiles. Due to the scale of indigenous innovation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered Trump a “breakthrough deal” that involves providing the US with Ukrainian drone technologies in exchange for American weapons. Trump should seriously consider this deal as it would guarantee Ukraine’s long-term staying power and bolster the security of the entire Nato alliance.

In his quest to defang Iran’s nuclear program, Trump has effectively synthesised pressure tactics with calculated risks. Trump must replicate elements of that formula to coerce Putin to peace.

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In rare public remarks, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that she believes “this last week was a turning point” in the U.S. and European stance toward Ukraine and Russia, and potentially in the war in Ukraine, “because the president is angry with Putin because he has, in effect, made the president look bad.”

Speaking on a panel moderated by NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell at the annual Aspen Security Forum, Rice addressed the ultimatum that President Donald Trump gave Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday, to accept a peace deal with Ukraine within 50 days or face new secondary sanctions, which would penalize entities that do business with Russia.

“I think the best news that we could possibly give to the Ukrainian people is that the United States and Europe have finally aligned around the idea that Vladimir Putin will not be stopped with words. He will only be stopped if he believes that he can go no further, he can win no further,” Rice said.

The promise of additional weapons for Ukraine and the ultimatum for Russia haven’t slowed Putin’s aggression, however. Late Wednesday night, Russia launched hundreds more drones and missiles into Ukraine, killing two people, injuring dozens more and knocking out power for 80,000 families.

While acknowledging that secondary sanctions can be hard to enforce, Rice pointed to ways they could still be painful for Russia. “If you’re China,” she said, “with an economy that’s not in great shape,” or “India, which really doesn’t want to be on the wrong side of this, maybe you start thinking about whether that discounted Russian oil is really worth it.”

Given Rice’s experience as secretary of state and before that as national security adviser, both in the George W. Bush administration, Mitchell also asked her about Marco Rubio currently holding both titles, making him the only person other than Henry Kissinger to have held both roles at once.

“You know what?” she said, “I don’t mind it.” Rice explained that proximity is everything: “To have Marco Rubio in the White House next to the Oval Office, which is where the national security adviser is, as opposed to down in Foggy Bottom, where the secretary of state is, I don’t think it’s a bad thing right now.”

Rice also criticized the Biden administration for, in her view, having taken its time to get desperately needed weapons to Ukraine from the outset. “If you had given them everything at the beginning of the war,” she said, when “the Russians were on their back foot, [Ukraine] could’ve won this war outright.”

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Germany's Merz says Ukraine's EU membership is a long way off

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has once again dashed Ukraine's hopes for a swift entry into the European Union, warning that the process could take years.

"Our top priority right now is to do everything we can to end this war," he said at a meeting with Romanian President Nicușor Dan in Berlin on Friday.

After that, Merz said, talks would begin on rebuilding Ukraine. This would be a process that could ultimately lead to Ukraine becoming an EU member, but, he said, "that will take several years."

Ukraine has been a candidate for EU membership since 2022 and wants to be admitted to the EU quickly.

Merz said that as long as Ukraine is under attack and in a state of war, "accession to the European Union will of course be virtually impossible."

However, the aim is to bring the country as close as possible to the EU and bind Ukraine to the community, the chancellor added.

Ukraine has been defending itself against a full-scale Russian invasion for more than three years.

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Sleepless in Kyiv: how Ukraine's capital copes with Russia's nighttime attacks

Several nights a week, Daria Slavytska packs a yoga mat, blankets and food into a stroller and descends with her two-year-old Emil into the Kyiv subway. While air raid sirens wail above, the 27-year-old tries to snatch a few hours' sleep safely below ground.

For the past two months, Russia has unleashed nighttime drone and missile assaults on Kyiv in a summer offensive that is straining the city's air defences, and has its 3.7 million residents exhausted and on edge.

Other towns and villages have seen far worse since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in early 2022 - especially those close to the frontline far to the east and south.

Many have been damaged or occupied as Russia advances, and thousands of people have fled to the capital, considered the best-defended city in the country.

But recent heavy attacks are beginning to change the mood. At night, residents rush to metro stations deep underground in scenes reminiscent of the German "Blitz" bombings of London during World War Two.

Slavytska has started nervously checking Telegram channels at home even before the city's alarms sound, after she found herself in early July running into the street to reach the metro with explosions already booming in the sky.

The number of people like Slavytska taking refuge in the cavernous Soviet-era ticket halls and drafty platforms of Kyiv's 46 underground stations soared after large-scale bombardments slammed the city five times in June.

Previously, the loud air raid alert on her phone sent Emil into bouts of shaking and he would cry "Corridor, corridor, mum. I'm scared. Corridor, mum," Slavytska said. Now, accustomed to the attacks, he says more calmly "Mum, we should go".

"We used to come here less often, about once a month," Slavytska said, sheltering in Akademmistechko station in western Kyiv. "That was six months ago. Now we come two or three times a week." She spent the night curled up on her pink mat with Emil by a column lining the subway tracks.

The subway system recorded 165,000 visits during June nights, more than double the 65,000 visits in May and nearly five times the number in June last year, its press service told Reuters.

More people were heading to the shelter because of "the scale and lethality" of attacks, the head of Kyiv's military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, told Reuters. He said strikes killed 78 Kyiv residents and injured more than 400 in the first half of the year.

U.S. President Donald Trump cited Russia's strikes on Ukrainian cities when announcing his decision on Monday to offer Kyiv more weapons, including Patriot missiles to boost its air defences.

"It's incredible that (people) stay, knowing that a missile could be hitting your apartment," Trump said.

Russia launched more than 30 missiles and 300 drones during an overnight assault on Saturday that affected 10 regions of Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, including a mass drone attack on the Black Sea port city of Odesa.

EXHAUSTION AND TERROR

In April, a strike in Kyiv destroyed a residential building a couple of kilometres from Slavytska's apartment block.

"It was so, so loud. Even my son woke up and I held him in my arms in the corridor," she said. "It was really scary."

With the threat of losing her home suddenly more tangible, she now takes her identity documents with her underground.

After seeing how stressed Emil became after the air alerts, Slavytska sought help from a paediatrician, who recommended she turn off her phone's loud notifications and prescribed a calming medication. Slavytska tells Emil the loud sound during attacks is thunder.

Scientists and psychologists say that the lack of sleep is taking its toll on a population worn down by more than three years of war.

Kateryna Holtsberh, a family psychologist who practices in Kyiv, said sleep deprivation caused by the attacks was causing mood swings, extreme stress and apathy, leading to declined cognitive functions in both kids and adults.

"Many people say that if you sleep poorly, your life will turn into hell and your health will suffer," said Kateryna Storozhuk, another Kyiv region resident. "I didn't understand this until it happened to me."

Anton Kurapov, post-doctoral scholar at the University of Salzburg's Laboratory for Sleep, Cognition and Consciousness Research, said it was hard to convey to outsiders what it felt like to be under attack.

"Imagine a situation where you go out into the street and a person is shot in front of you ... and what fear you experience, your heart sinks," he said. "People experience this every day, this feeling."

Kurapov warned that the impact of such stress could result in lifetime consequences, including chronic illnesses.

A study he led that was published in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology in August 2024 showed that 88% of Ukrainians surveyed reported bad or very bad sleep quality.

Lack of sleep can significantly impact economic performance and soldiers' ability to fight, said Wendy Troxel, senior behavioural scientist at RAND Corporation, a U.S. think-tank.

RAND research in 2016 which Troxel co-authored showed that lack of sleep among the U.S. working population was costing the economy up to $411 billion a year.

As she tries to squeeze out more hours of sleep in the subway, Slavytska is looking into buying a mattress to bring underground that would be more comfortable than her mat. Danish retailer JYSK says the air strikes prompted a 25% jump in sales of inflatable mattresses, camp beds and sleep mats in Kyiv in three weeks of June.

Others are taking more extreme measures. Small business owner Storozhuk, who had no shelter within three km of her home, invested over $2,000 earlier this year in a Ukrainian-made "Capsule of Life" reinforced steel box, capable of withstanding falling concrete slabs.

She climbs in nightly, with her Chihuahua, Zozulia.

"I developed a lot of anxiety and fear," Storozhuk said. "I realized that in order to be able to sleep peacefully in Ukraine, I needed some kind of safe shelter."