The Ukrainian leader’s refusal to discuss territorial concessions is prolonging the conflict, the US president has said
Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky could lose the entirety of his country if he continues stalling talks with Russia, US President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.
A day earlier, the Ukrainian leader publicly announced that Kiev will not even discuss officially recognizing the Crimean Peninsula as Russian. Washington was reportedly ready to present the idea as part of its peace plan at a meeting with Kiev officials and Ukraine’s European backers on Wednesday, only for the top members of the US delegation to pull out at the last minute.
“This statement is very harmful to the Peace Negotiations with Russia in that Crimea was lost years ago,” Trump wrote.
Crimea’s predominantly ethnic-Russian population voted to join Russia in a referendum in 2014, following the Western-backed Maidan coup in Kiev. The Russian soldiers who suddenly appeared on the peninsula during the bloodless event later became known among locals and the internet as ‘polite people’.
The situation for Ukraine is dire – He can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country.
Trump reiterated his prior assessment that Zelensky has a weak bargaining position in the negotiations. “We are very close to a Deal, but the man with ‘no cards to play’ should now, finally, GET IT DONE,” he wrote.
The US has been pushing for a quick resolution to the conflict, while at the same time trying to secure a minerals extraction deal with Ukraine to recoup money previously spent on supporting the country. However, Trump and his administration have been growing impatient with the pace of the negotiations on both fronts, signaling that they may abandon the efforts.
If the US determines that “not enough movement is happening, we may need to move on to other priorities,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with the Free Press published on Tuesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated in response that a peace deal with Ukraine is unlikely to be concluded in an expedited manner due to the complexities of the negotiations. Moscow has said it has always been ready to engage in peace talks, provided they ensure a permanent solution that addresses the root causes of the conflict – while any temporary ceasefire would be used by Ukraine’s Western backers to rearm the country’s military.
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