PUBLISHED on August 8, 2025, 10:32 AM EDT – Key Points and Summary – President Trump’s Friday deadline for Russia to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine has arrived, but there is little sign of peace.
Russian strikes continued to kill civilians, and Ukrainian soldiers on the front line expressed deep skepticism that Moscow would ever negotiate in good faith.
An analysis from the Institute for the Study of War suggests any Russian proposal, like a temporary “air truce,” would be a ploy to re-arm and renew its devastating attacks.
With Russia’s territorial demands unchanged and Ukraine determined to fight on, the war appears set to continue despite the looming threat of new U.S. sanctions.
The Ukraine War Isn’t Ending
The Friday deadline, threatened by President Donald Trump, has arrived, by which Russia has been asked to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine, or face “secondary tariffs” on its oil partners.
So far, it doesn’t look like Russia is getting ready to stop the war.
Per The New York Times, Russian strikes killed three people and injured two dozen in Ukraine on Friday.
As the deadline approached, President Trump was talking about the possibility of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which the Kremlin had suggested the day before might take place in the United Arab Emirates, as soon as next week. This followed Trump envoy Steve Witkoff’s visit to Moscow earlier this week to meet with Putin.
“No, he doesn’t,” Trump told reporters when asked if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would have a one-on-one meeting with his Russian counterpart. “They would like to meet with me, and I’ll do whatever I can to stop the killing.”
“It’s up to him,” Trump said of Putin and the deadline. “And we’ll see what he says.”
On the Battlefield
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported from the battlefield in Ukraine, where soldiers serving in Dnipropetrovsk expressed little optimism that the war was about to end.
“Ukrainian forces are locked in intense battles along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line that snakes from northeast to southeast Ukraine. The Pokrovsk city area of the eastern Donetsk region is taking the brunt of punishment as Russia looks to break out from there into the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukraine has significant manpower shortages,” the AP story said.
“It is impossible to negotiate with them. The only option is to defeat them,” the Spartan Brigade commander, who uses the name “Buda,” told the AP. “I would like them to agree and for all this to stop, but Russia will not agree to that; it does not want to negotiate. So the only option is to defeat them.”
Elsewhere on the front line, in the southern Zaporizhzhya region, a howitzer commander with the handle Warsaw told the AP that they continue to fight.
“We are on our land, we have no way out,” he said. “So we stand our ground, we have no choice.”
A New Assessment
The Institute for the Study of War released its latest assessment of where the war stands on Thursday.
“Putin may have used his meeting with Witkoff to propose a long-range strikes moratorium, which would allow Russia to stockpile long-range drones and missiles and renew devastating large-scale strikes against Ukraine after the moratorium expires,” ISW wrote Thursday. “A strikes moratorium will also handicap Ukraine’s ability to continue its long-range strike campaign aimed at attriting the Russian defense industrial base and wartime economy.”
The report also states that the Russian leader “likely claimed to Witkoff that Russia’s territorial ambitions are limited to the seizure of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts. Putin is likely attempting to frame Russia’s seizure of the four oblasts as inevitable in order to push Ukraine and the West to capitulate to Kremlin demands.”
Putin has stated multiple times in the last two years that he would demand that Russia occupy all four of those territories, as a precondition to agreeing to a ceasefire.
“Russia’s occupation of the four oblasts is neither inevitable nor imminent, as Russian forces will face serious operational obstacles in what are likely to be multi-year endeavors. ISW assesses that Russia has yet to seize roughly 6,500 square kilometers of Donetsk Oblast, or about 25 percent of the region,” ISW reported, adding that “Future Russian operations to seize the entirety of Zaporizhia and Kherson oblasts will require significant river crossing operations that Russian forces have historically struggled to complete since 2022.”
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
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