Kyiv:
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zensky warned on Thursday against the trust of Vladimir Putin, while US President Donald Trump insisted that he believed that the Russian leader wants to “peace”.
Trump's shock statement that he wanted to start with Putin to end the war to end the war, surprised Ukraine and European allies – of whom some of whom questioned his strategy and warned Washington without excluding a deal without them.
Meetings of the NATO partners, Minister of Defense Pete Hegseeth denied Trump's 90-minute phone call with Putin on Wednesday meant a betrayal of Kyiv's almost three-year war efforts.
Zensky – who will meet us on Friday Vice President JD Vance at the Munich – Security Conference – said it was “not very pleasant” that Trump called Putin before talking to him.
In a social media post after talking to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Zensky “world leaders warned against the confidence of Putin's claims for readyness to end the war”.
The Ukrainian leader said he wanted the United States to agree a “plan to stop Putin” before negotiations.
The American president said he expected to meet the Russian leader in Saudi Arabia “in the not too distant future” who feared that Kyiv would be frozen from discussions.
But Trump stated on Thursday that Ukraine “would be part of” negotiations and that he was convinced that Putin wants “peace”.
“I think he would tell me if he didn't,” he added.
– “Somehow” –
The Kremlin said that “somehow” Kiev would be involved in the conversations, but there would also be a “bilateral Russian-American song”.
The European Backers of Ukraine rejected every movement to force an arrangement on KYIV.
The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rejected every “dictated peace”, with the argument that “a Russian victory or a Ukrainistic collapse will not lead to peace – on the contrary”.
“This would endanger peace and stability in Europe, much further than Ukraine,” he said.
EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas insisted that no deal “behind our back” could work because she accused Washington of “Appeasement” towards Russia.
“We don't have to get anything off the table before the negotiations even started because it plays at the Russian court and it's what they want,” she said.
“Every fast solution is a dirty deal,” she said.
That was after the government of Trump had deposited cold water on the goals of Ukraine to reclaim all his territory and to urge itself to join NATO.
Hegseeth said that Europe should now offer the “overwhelming share” of Ukraine's help and that the United States would not use any troops in a deal.
“There is no betrayal
“That requires both parties to recognize things they don't want.”
He denied that Trump had given up the lever to Putin and said that negotiations would involve the Russian leader and Zensky.
The Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umerov told Kyiv's NATO -Backban: “We are going on, we are strong, we are able, we are able, we will deliver.”
The meeting of Zensky with Vance in Munich will be the latter in a flurring of European meetings at a high level for Top-Trump officials.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent held in Kiev in Kiev on Wednesday about granting access to Washington to the rare earth deposits of Ukraine in exchange for security support.
In a radio interview on Thursday, the American State Secretary Marco Rubio said that he expected that Ukraine would sign a Minerals Access -deal that “the American taxpayer would repay for the billions of dollars spent there”.
– Losing in Kursk –
Trump's outreach to Putin was broadly expected, but the rapid pace of his peace spush has run its heads after three years of avid Western support for Ukraine.
Trump suggested that he would “want to” welcome in the G7 from which it was suspended in 2014 after Moscow had annexed the Crimean Peninsula of Ukraine.
“I think it was a mistake to throw him out,” Trump said, referring to Putin.
The European financiers of KYIV fear that Trump could force Ukraine in a peace agreement, which confronts them with an encouraged Putin while the lion's share of the costs for post-war security pays.
French Minister for Forces Sebastien Lecornu said that Paris was worried that the “American government gives up everything” that Russia wanted.
Hegseeth said that European troops could offer security guarantees under a deal for Ukraine – and his British counterpart John Healey said that the planning in that area was “accelerated”.
Zensky has cleaned up the possibility to change the Russian territory of Kiev for Ukrainian land that occupies Moscow.
But the handle of Ukraine in the Russian region of Kursk has slipped – with Kiev who says that it now hardly has a third of the area that it caught last year.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by Our staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
