US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Ukraine should reach an agreement to end the conflict with Russia because “Russia is a powerful country and Ukraine is not,” after a meeting with President Vladimir Putin that failed to produce a ceasefire.
Mr Trump also made a significant shift in his position, arguing that he agreed with Mr Putin that negotiators should move immediately to a peace deal rather than a ceasefire, as Ukraine and its European partners, who continue to receive US support, are pushing for.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would travel to Washington on Monday, while Kyiv's European allies welcomed Mr Trump's moves but vowed to support Ukraine and tighten sanctions on Russia.
Mr Trump met with Mr Putin in Alaska on Friday for nearly three hours in the first US-Russia summit since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“Everyone has come to the conclusion that the best way to end the terrible war between Russia and Ukraine is to move directly to a peace agreement that ends the conflict, not just a cease-fire agreement that often fails to hold,” Mr. Trump wrote in Truth Social.
Russia Will Likely Welcome Changes in Trump's Position
The announcement will be welcomed in Moscow, which says it is seeking a full resolution rather than a temporary pause, but that will be difficult as the positions are “absolutely opposed”.
Russian troops have been slowly advancing for months. The war, the bloodiest in Europe in 80 years, has killed more than a million people on both sides, including thousands, mostly civilians in Ukraine, analysts estimate.
Trump said before the summit that he would not be satisfied unless a ceasefire was agreed upon. But he added that after talks with Zelensky, “if everything goes well, we will schedule a meeting with President Putin.”
Monday's talks will take place in the Oval Office of the White House, where Mr. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance publicly criticized the Ukrainian leader in February, accusing him of ingratitude.
Mr Zelensky said after his conversation with Mr Trump that he supported the idea of a trilateral meeting.
But Mr Putin showed no change in his long-standing position and made no mention of a meeting with Mr Zelensky. His aide Yuri Ushakov told Russia's state-run TASS news agency that no discussion of a trilateral summit had taken place.
The need for security guarantees for Ukraine
In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Mr. Trump hinted that he and Putin had discussed the transfer of territory and security guarantees for Ukraine and “we came to a general agreement.”
“I think we are quite close to an agreement,” he said, adding: “Ukraine has to agree to it. They might say 'no.'”
Asked what advice he would give Mr Zelensky, Mr Trump replied: “We need to make a deal.”
“Look, Russia is a very big power, and they are not,” he added.
Mr Zelensky stressed the need for security guarantees for Kyiv to prevent Russia from invading again in the future. He said he had discussed with Mr Trump “positive signals from the American side” about engaging in the war, and that Ukraine needed a lasting peace rather than “another pause” between Russian incursions.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni noted that the most important points of the summit concerned security guarantees for Ukraine based on Article 5 of the transatlantic NATO alliance.
“The starting point of the proposal is to define the conditions of collective security that would allow Ukraine to secure the support of all its partners, including the United States, ready to act in the event of a new attack,” she said.
Mr Putin, who has so far opposed foreign intervention in peacekeeping, said he agreed with Mr Trump that Ukraine's security must be “ensured”.
“I hope that the understanding we have reached will allow us to get closer to this goal and open the way to peace in Ukraine,” Putin said at a briefing where no one
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
