Smoke rises over Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers building in central Kyiv following a Russian drone strike, 7 September 2025. EPA / SERGEY DOLZHENKO
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he would meet with a number of European leaders this week to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, as Western officials continued to condemn Russia’s largest-ever airstrike on its neighbour over the weekend.
In comments reported by Reuters, Trump said that “certain European leaders” would be visiting the US “individually” on Monday or Tuesday to discuss an end to the war, but provided no further details.
The US president added that he planned to speak with Vladimir Putin by phone “over the next couple of days”, in what would be his seventh call with the Russian leader since taking office in January.
Trump also said that he would be ready to move to the “second phase” of sanctions against Moscow in the wake of Russia’s largest-ever airstrike on Ukraine on Sunday, which killed at least five people and damaged a key government building in central Kyiv.
While Trump did not say what measures second phase sanctions might entail, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested to NBC News that Washington and the EU could work together to impose “secondary tariffs on the countries that buy Russian oil”, which would force the Russian economy into “total collapse” and “bring President Putin to the table”.
In a Friday interview with ABC News that was broadcast following the attacks on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that imposing secondary tariffs on countries purchasing Russian oil and gas was the “right idea”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky being interviewed by Martha Raddatz of ABC News, 5 September 2025. Photo: ABC News
Describing the continued purchase of Russian oil and gas by Ukraine’s partners as “unfair”, Zelensky said that targeting the Russian energy sector was one way to “stop the killer” and force Putin to end the war.
Condemnation of the combined Russian missile and drone strike on Ukraine continued to pour in throughout Sunday, with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer describing it as “cowardly” and evidence that Putin believed he could “act with impunity”.
French President Emmanuel Macron said that Russia was “locking itself ever deeper into the logic of war and terror” with Sunday’s strike, while Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the attack showed that attempts to appease Putin made “no sense”.
In his nightly address to Ukrainians on Sunday, Zelensky said that the latest Russian attack had been “testing the world”, and stressed that Western condemnation needed to be “backed by strong actions — sanctions against Russia and individuals connected with Russia, tough tariffs and other restrictions on trade with Russia”.
