Ukraine's Western allies are preparing a final push to pressure Vladimir Putin before a winter expected to be gruelling for Kyiv, even as Ukraine's own long-range strikes campaign and deepening Russian economic strain have convinced Brussels and Washington that Kyiv is winning on the battlefield, according to Russian-language business outlet The Bell. Yet that battlefield momentum has not translated into any Kremlin willingness to negotiate, The Bell's Kremlin sources say — if anything the opposite.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy met Donald Trump at the White House on July 28 in a closed-door meeting Kyiv had high hopes for, given Trump's warming attitude. Officially, Zelenskiy said the talks covered licensing Patriot missile production and "intensifying the diplomatic process"; unofficially, sources speaking to Ukrainian media rated the meeting an "8 out of 10" and said the diplomatic push means arranging a visit to Kyiv by Trump envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff within two weeks — a trip a Russian source separately told TASS could be followed by a Moscow leg, though nothing is confirmed, The Bell reports.

Zelenskiy went on to the Capitol to meet the full Senate, which began voting the same day on a bill imposing "hellish sanctions" — including 100% tariffs on buyers of Russian oil — whose author, Senator Lindsey Graham, died in July; his funeral was the occasion for Zelenskiy's Washington visit. A bipartisan Senate agreement now folds in sanctions on Iran, a condition Trump set for his support, with final passage expected this week — though the bill could stall in the Democrat-controlled House over concerns it hands Trump too much tariff authority.

Europe is moving on a parallel track. Having just adopted its 21^st sanctions package, the EU is already drafting what would be its largest yet by number of companies covered — targeting more than 1,600 firms with combined turnover above $20bn and 265,000 employees, Bloomberg reports. The list would extend beyond Russian entities to intermediaries helping defence-sector firms dodge import sanctions, though drafters do not expect approval before October, if at all, given how hard the 21st package was to pass.

None of this has moved Putin, according to The Bell's sourcing. Early efforts to negotiate under the current battlefield conditions — oligarch Roman Abramovich's May backchannel mission, the Kyiv Post reported, and an early-July Trump-Putin phone call — produced nothing. Sources close to the Kremlin cited by Reuters said Putin is becoming increasingly convinced he must fight to the bitter end, and is no longer willing to make even symbolic territorial concessions in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions. Efforts to broker talks continue at various levels, including one channel described by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, but The Bell said none of its Russian sources believe Putin is currently prepared to compromise.

The one crack in the Kremlin's public confidence is manpower. Former president Dmitry Medvedev acknowledged a decline in contract-soldier recruitment, telling a mid-year review meeting that "around 200,000 people" had signed military contracts in the first half of 2026 — at least 5% below the 210,000 recorded in the same period of 2025. German analyst Janis Kluge, who tracks budget payments to volunteers, has separately estimated first-quarter recruitment fell 20% year-on-year. Medvedev dismissed rumours of an autumn mobilisation as a "deceitful provocation" and "paid-for story" spread by an enemy he said faces its own manpower shortage, insisting: "There is absolutely no need for mobilisation."