Months ago, Trump demanded that both sides accept his unilateral call for a ceasefire. Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed, but Putin snubbed Trump and has stubbornly refused to end the fighting. Russia has instead escalated attacks on the front lines in occupied Ukraine and on civilian targets in Kyiv and other cities.

While world leaders bicker over the prospects for peace, the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two is heating up fast.

The United States and Russia quarrelled in public on Wednesday over the intensifying Ukraine war after U.S. President Donald Trump warned that President Vladimir Putin was "playing with fire" and Moscow massed 50,