In the negotiations on the Ukraine War, US President Donald Trump sees an agreement with Russia: “I think we have a deal with Russia,” said Trump on Wednesday in Washington. Now he still had to convince the Ukrainian President Wolodymyr Selenskyj, which is “more difficult”. Details were initially not known, statements from Kiev and Moscow were not immediately available on Thursday night.
Trump's explanation initially seemed to be contradicted by the latest statements of rank-high US government agents. A few hours earlier, his spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt had announced that Trump was frustrated in view of how slowly the negotiations will be made. In addition, she said Selenskyj seems “to move in the wrong direction”.
On Friday, Trump threatened to withdraw from the Ukraine negotiations on Friday if the governments in Kiev or Moscow were “very difficult”.
Trump puts pressure on Selenskyj
Trump has been pushing for a quick end to the Ukraine War for months and calls for a quick ceasefire. In the election campaign, he initially claimed that he could end the Ukraine war within 24 hours. Later he named six months as a period of time.
After a phone call to Putin on February 12, Trump had agreed an “immediate” start of talks. Negotiations with representatives of Russia and Ukraine in Saudi Arabia at the end of March did not make a breakthrough. Putin rejected a proposal for an unconditional ceasefire presented by the USA and Ukraine.
Finally, the government in Washington increased the pressure on Kiev in the course of its efforts to terminate the war to forego the return of some areas occupied by Russia. The refusal of the Ukrainian President Selenskyj to cede the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia was “very harmful to the peace negotiations” with Moscow, Trump wrote on Wednesday in his online service Truth Social. US Vice President JD Vance put up with freezing the current border lines in the Ukraine War.
