After positive talks between U.S. officials and Russian officials, Donald Trump announced that he will speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin about ending the conflict in Ukraine on Tuesday.
“We want to see if that war can be brought to an end,” Trump said to reporters aboard Air Force One on a late flight from Florida back to Washington. “Maybe we will, maybe not, but I believe we have a good chance.”
I’ll be talking to President Putin on Tuesday. “A lot of work has been done this weekend.”
Trump is trying to win Putin’s approval for a ceasefire proposal of 30 days that Ukraine accepted last weekend. Both sides traded heavy aerial attacks through the weekend, and Russia was moving closer to expelling Ukrainian forces from the region of Kursk in western Russia.
The Kremlin announced on Friday that Putin sent a ceasefire message to Trump via U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff who met in Moscow. Witkoff expressed “cautious confidence” that an agreement could be reached for the end of the three-year war.
Separately, Witkoff and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on separate Sunday television shows in the United States. They all emphasized the need to resolve several issues before Russia would agree to a ceasefire or even a peaceful end to the conflict.
Waltz responded, “Are you going to force every Russian out of every inch of Ukrainian soil?” Waltz was asked on ABC if the U.S. will accept a deal that allows Russia to keep portions of eastern Ukraine it has captured. Waltz added that negotiations must be grounded in reality.
Rubio said that a final deal “would involve a lot hard work and concessions from Russia and Ukraine” and it would be very difficult to begin negotiations “as they continue shooting each other.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said that after Kyiv had accepted the U.S. proposal of a 30-day ceasefire for interim purposes on Friday he believed there was a good possibility to end the Russian War.
Zelenskyy, however, has repeatedly stated that the sovereignty and territorial control of his country are not negotiable. Russia must therefore surrender the seized territory. Since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia has controlled the majority of four eastern Ukrainian regions.
RUSSIA DEMANDS ‘IRONCLAD’ GUARANTEES
In remarks published Monday, the Russian deputy minister of foreign affairs said that Russia would seek “ironclad guarantees” in any peace agreement that NATO nations will exclude Kyiv and that Ukraine will stay neutral.
Alexander Grushko, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, said in a wide-ranging interview that did not mention the ceasefire proposal that any lasting peace treaty for Ukraine must satisfy Moscow’s requirements.
Grushko was quoted by Izvestia as saying: “We will insist that this agreement include ironclad guarantees of security.”
The neutrality of Ukraine and the refusal of NATO to accept Ukraine into the alliance should be part of the guarantees.
Putin said that NATO’s expansion was a threat to Russia’s security. He demanded that Ukraine abandon its NATO ambitions and that Russia retain control over all seized Ukrainian territory. He wants the Western sanctions to be eased, and Kyiv claims that a presidential vote in Ukraine is premature because martial law is still in place.
Peacekeepers
Trump has said that Ukraine is more difficult to deal with than Russia. Last month, he had an explosive meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy that ended in the Ukrainian leader leaving early from the White House.
The acceptance of the ceasefire proposal by Ukraine has put pressure on Russia to accede to Trump’s requests and will test President Trump’s positive view of Putin.
Ukraine’s European and British allies have stated that any final peace agreement and ceasefire must be negotiated by Ukraine.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated on Saturday that Western Allies other than the U.S. are stepping up their preparations to help Ukraine in the case of a ceasefire agreement with Russia. Defense chiefs will be finalizing “robust” plans next week.
Both Britain and France have stated that they would be willing to send peacekeeping forces to Ukraine to monitor any ceasefire.
Russia has refused to send peacekeepers to the conflict zone until it is over.
Grushko stated that it did not matter whether NATO contingents would be deployed in Ukraine under the European Union or NATO label, or as part of a national capacity.
He said: “If they appear, that means they’re deployed in a conflict zone and all of the consequences are for them as parties to this conflict.”
We can discuss unarmed observers, a civil mission that would monitor individual aspects of the agreement or guarantee mechanisms. It’s all just hot air.
French President Emmanuel Macron said in remarks published on Sunday that the stationing of peacekeeping troops in Ukraine is a question for Kyiv to decide and not Moscow.
