The White House said President Donald Trump is still working toward a bilateral meeting. "Nobody is ready to throw in the towel," one national security official said.

Trump said that his decision relies on developments over the coming fortnight and advocated for talks between Russia's Vladimir Putin and Ukraine' Volodymyr Zelensky.

Last month was the deadliest since Putin launched his full-scale war on Ukraine three and a half years ago. In July alone, 286 civilians were killed and another 1,388, according to official data.

President Trump said in a social media post Monday that he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin and set in motion arrangements for a summit at a location to be decided.

The denial of a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting comes days after Donald Trump said he had begun arrangements for them to sit down together.

Under the proposed Russian deal, Kyiv would fully withdraw from the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions in return for a Russian pledge to freeze the front lines in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the sources said.

Reports of the Russian president's demands have emerged following the summit in Alaska - as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepares to fly to Washington DC to see Donald Trump for the next stage of talks.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief says the possibility of Ukraine ceding land to Russia as part of a peace deal to end their three-year war is “a trap” set by Russian President Vladimir Putin