WASHINGTON DC: US President Donald Trump has once again warned that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy must commit to negotiating an end to the war with Moscow, cautioning that a failure to do so will lead to severe consequences.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump placed the onus directly on Kyiv to seek a resolution to the ongoing conflict. “Ukraine has to want to settle this war.
Zelenskyy has to want to settle this war,” Trump said. “And if he doesn’t, I think it’s going to be a very bad thing.” Expressing frustration with the scale of American financial support sent to Ukraine, Trump argued that US taxpayers have received no return on their investment while continuing to face economic fallout.
“Look, we have given tremendous amounts to Ukraine. We’ve got nothing back other than high diesel,” Trump stated. “We have given probably more money to Ukraine than almost anybody over the years, hundreds of billions of dollars. We got nothing back. And the American taxpayers are tired of it.”
Trump contrasted the situation in Kyiv with Moscow’s position, asserting that Russia is interested in reaching a deal while steadily expanding its territorial gains on the battlefield. “Well, I think what’s happening is that Russia would like to get it done,” Trump said.
“I think that—and you know, Russia is a big machine. They just keep grinding forward, and that’s what they’ve done. They’ve taken a very large piece of land.” Highlighting Russia’s continuous territorial advancements and vast manpower reserves, Trump questioned claims that Ukraine is holding its ground effectively.
“And you know, you can say that Ukraine is doing well or poorly, but the land gets bigger and bigger all the time,” Trump remarked. “Week by week, it just—they march forward. They just keep marching forward. They have an unlimited supply of people, this too.”
On Monday (local time), Trump expressed willingness to hold a high-stakes trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping to end the war in Ukraine and pursue global denuclearisation, even if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is excluded from the negotiations.
Speaking to reporters at the White House before departing for Kansas, President Trump confirmed he would readily meet with the Russian and Chinese leaders to broker peace and halt nuclear proliferation. “Anything I can do to end the war, whether somebody’s there or not, whatever I could do to end the war,” Trump said when asked if he would meet with Xi and Putin without Zelenskyy present.
“And they do want to have a meeting. That’s my suggestion, because I’m going to be over in China in November, on the denuclearisation. And if we can do denuclearisation, I will have done the world a big, big favour.”
Addressing initial queries regarding a potential three-way sit-down with Moscow and Beijing, Trump noted that while a meeting had not yet been formally arranged, he actively supported the idea, primarily framed around global denuclearisation. “No, but I would do it,” Trump said.
“Not so much for Ukraine, because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine. They haven’t been doing much. And the same thing with China.” When asked about Zelenskyy’s recent remark that the US administration was on “the wrong side of history,” Trump criticised the Ukrainian leader’s handling of the conflict and suggested that someone else could negotiate on Ukraine’s behalf.
“Zelenskyy doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Trump asserted. “Zelenskyy is a man who should have had this war settled a long time ago. If he would have listened to me, he would have made a much better deal a long time ago, and he’d have a million people living from his side.”
Asserting that the battlefield stalemate has resulted in catastrophic human loss without significant territorial shifts, Trump argued that Kyiv needs fresh leadership at the negotiating table. Earlier this month, Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov said, as reported by TASS, that Trump and Putin are potentially set to meet in person on the sidelines of the upcoming APEC summit in China. (ANI)