American president Donald Trump can say that he believes that Russia and Ukraine can conclude a peace agreement, but he has a long way to go to sell such a possibility to the Ukrainians.
“It really seems that they want to hand over Ukraine, because I do not see any advantage for our country of these negotiations or the rhetoric of Trump,” a 23 -year -old manager in kyiv told Reuters.
Trump revealed this week that he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and had discussed the prospect of ending the total war in Ukraine. He then spoke to the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the same subject.
The American president also said that he had ordered his officials to start talks to end the war. In the middle of ambiguity to find out if such discussions would involve Ukraine, Trump said Thursday: “They are part of this.”
Trump’s decision to start talking with Putin and go around Ukraine, which did it, upset American policy and was criticized by European leaders – including those in Ukraine.
After the American president, Donald Trump, covered when he was asked if the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy would be an equal partner in peace talks with Russia, the Defense Ministers of NATO countries, including Bill Blair of Canada, said that there should not be a discussion on Ukrainian territory without Ukraine.
Zelenskyy had tried to go to the front of the line with Trump in front of Putin. But that has not happened, and now Ukraine must assert its arguments after the fact.
Oleksandr Merezhko, a Ukrainian legislator and president of the Verkhovna Rada foreign committee, said it would have been “much better” if the American president had had his conversations in the opposite order.
“It would make sense because it is Ukraine who is the victim of Russian assault,” MEZHKO told CBC News in kyiv.
No details, also no comfort
Melezhko said Trump seems to have political reasons to want to see the conflict ending, but it also seemed that the American leader still had a lot to learn about war and his causes.
“He has this desire to bring peace to Ukraine, but he does not seem … [have] Any concrete detail, which matters, “said Merezhko, noting that Trump previously said that he could end the war within 24 hours.
In the streets of kyiv, residents who spoke in Reuters did not express much comfort in the details that are missing on what Trump could want to see with the future of their country.
Engineer Hryhoryi Buhoyets, 60, said Trump was a political animal different from his predecessor, Joe Biden.
“But on the other hand, he can put pressure on people,” said Buhoyets on Thursday. “Some say that he can have backup plans, but these plans will not benefit Ukraine. The type of Ukraine that we would like to have.”
Biden was in office when Russia launched its large -scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Under Trump, officials provided a fuzzy vision on the conflict, claiming to consider hit Russia with sanctions and pricesWhile saying that it is not realistic for Ukraine to recover land occupied by the Russian forces.
The White House led by Trump also decided to try to quickly organize conditions for an agreement that would see that Ukraine shares its rare resources with the United States, in exchange for continuous support and security guarantees.
By reflecting on this particular proposal, Angelica Tkachuk, a 29 -year -old office worker, told her that “what her plans are to steal Ukraine as much as possible. Not to make peace here”.
View outside Ukraine
Observers outside Ukraine have also expressed their own concerns about what Trump offers – and this includes negotiation with Putin and believing that he will follow the terms of any future arrangement.
“I do not trust Poutine with a thumb, and without any form of mechanism [to prevent further aggression] … he will be back, “said Ben Wallace, former British Secretary of State for Defense, When you talk to Times Radio. “He will reorganize and he will be back.”
Regarding negotiations with Putin, Trump was questioned Thursday in the White House if he trusted his Russian counterpart.
“I think he would like something to happen. I trust him,” said Trump.
In almost three years of total war, Russian forces have struck Ukrainian towns and villages, as well as key infrastructure, with a range of artillery, drones, bombs and ski missiles. The war killed more than 12,000 civilians in Ukraine, until the end of 2024, According to the United Nations Human Rights Surveillance Mission in Ukraine.
However, Ukraine also brought the conflict to Russia – in particular by entering a band of the Kursk Oblast last August. The best commander of the Ukraine army, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Thursday that Ukraine still held 500 square kilometers of Kursk.
But the Kremlin seems cool of the possibility of exchanging land occupied by Russia for certain parts of Kursk under Ukrainian control.
“It’s impossible,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. “Russia has never discussed and will not discuss the exchange of its territory.”
