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Globe and Mail
19 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
Trump tells Zelensky that Putin demands more control of Ukraine, urges Kyiv make a deal
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Ukraine should make a deal to end the war with Russia because 'Russia is a very big power, and they're not', after a summit where Vladimir Putin was reported to have demanded more Ukrainian land. After the two leaders met in Alaska on Friday, Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Putin had offered to freeze most front lines if Kyiv ceded all of Donetsk, the industrial region that is one of Moscow's main targets, a source familiar with the matter said. Zelensky rejected the demand, the source said. Russia already controls a fifth of Ukraine, including about three-quarters of Donetsk province, which it first entered in 2014. Trump also said he agreed with Putin that a peace deal should be sought without the prior ceasefire that Ukraine and its European allies, until now with U.S. support, have demanded. Zelensky said he would meet Trump in Washington on Monday, while Kyiv's European allies welcomed Trump's efforts but vowed to back Ukraine and tighten sanctions on Russia. Analysis: Despite Trump's impatience to broker a settlement in Russia-Ukraine War, Putin presents some obstacles to peace Trump's meeting with Putin, the first U.S.-Russia summit since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, lasted just three hours. 'It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a Peace Agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere Ceasefire Agreement, which often times do not hold up,' Trump posted on Truth Social. His various comments on the meeting mostly aligned with the public positions of Moscow, which says it wants a full settlement - not a pause - but that this will be complex because positions are 'diametrically opposed'. Russia has been gradually advancing for months. The war - the deadliest in Europe for 80 years - has killed or wounded well over a million people from both sides, including thousands of mostly Ukrainian civilians, according to analysts. Before the summit, Trump had said he would not be happy unless a ceasefire was agreed on. Ukrainian women give birth in bomb shelters as country faces plummeting population But afterwards he said that, after Monday's talks with Zelensky, 'if all works out, we will then schedule a meeting with President Putin'. Those talks will evoke memories of a meeting in the White House Oval Office in February, where Trump and Vice President JD Vance gave Zelensky a brutal public dressing-down. Putin signalled no movement in Russia's long-held demands, which also include a veto on Kyiv's desired membership in the NATO alliance. He made no mention in public of meeting Zelensky, which the Ukrainian leader said he was willing to do. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said a three-way summit had not been discussed. In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Trump signalled that he and Putin had discussed land transfers and security guarantees for Ukraine, and had 'largely agreed'. 'I think we're pretty close to a deal,' he said, adding: 'Ukraine has to agree to it. Maybe they'll say 'no'.' Asked what he would advise Zelensky to do, Trump said: 'Gotta make a deal.' 'Look, Russia is a very big power, and they're not,' he added. Zelensky has consistently said he cannot concede territory without changes to Ukraine's constitution, and Kyiv sees Donetsk's 'fortress cities' such as Sloviansk and Kramatorsk as a bulwark against Russian advances into even more regions. Zelensky has also insisted on security guarantees, to deter Russia from invading again. He said he and Trump had discussed 'positive signals' on the U.S. taking part, and that Ukraine needed a lasting peace, not 'just another pause' between Russian invasions. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney welcomed what he described as Trump's openness to providing security guarantees to Ukraine under a peace deal. He said security guarantees were 'essential to any just and lasting peace.' Putin, who has opposed involving foreign ground forces, said he agreed with Trump that Ukraine's security must be 'ensured'. 'I would like to hope that the understanding we have reached will allow us to get closer to that goal and open the way to peace in Ukraine,' Putin told a briefing on Friday with Trump. For Putin, just sitting down with Trump represented a victory. He had been ostracized by Western leaders since the start of the war, and just a week earlier had faced a threat of new sanctions from Trump. Trump spoke to European leaders after returning to Washington. Several stressed the need to keep pressure on Russia. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said an end to the war was closer than ever, thanks to Trump, but added: '... until (Putin) stops his barbaric assault, we will keep tightening the screws on his war machine with even more sanctions.' A statement from European leaders said, 'Ukraine must have ironclad security guarantees' and no limits should be placed on its armed forces or right to seek NATO membership as Russia has sought. Some European politicians and commentators were scathing about the summit. 'Putin got his red carpet treatment with Trump, while Trump got nothing,' Wolfgang Ischinger, former German ambassador to Washington, posted on X. Both Russia and Ukraine carried out overnight air attacks, a daily occurrence, while fighting raged on the front. Trump told Fox he would postpone imposing tariffs on China for buying Russian oil, but he might have to 'think about it' in two or three weeks. He ended his remarks after the summit by telling Putin: 'We'll speak to you very soon and probably see you again very soon.' 'Next time in Moscow,' a smiling Putin responded in English.
Canada News.Net
43 minutes ago
- Canada News.Net
US has responsibility to bring Ukraine war to end, after provoking it
Donald Trump came into office promising to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Now, six months later, his high stakes meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska may have put the United States and Russia on a new path toward peace, or, if this initiative fails, could trigger an even more dangerous escalation, with warhawks in Congress already pushing for another $54.6 billion in weapons for Ukraine. After emerging from the meeting, Putin correctly framed the historical moment: "This was a very hard time for bilateral relations and, let's be frank, they've fallen to the lowest point since the Cold War. I think that's not benefiting our countries and the world as a whole. Sooner or later, we have to amend the situation to move on from confrontation to dialogue." Trump said he will follow up by talking to NATO leaders and Zelenskyy, as if the U.S. is simply an innocent bystander trying to help. But in Ukraine, as in Palestine, Washington plays the "mediator" while pouring weapons, intelligence, and political cover into one side of the war. In Gaza, that has enabled genocide. In Ukraine, it could lead to nuclear war. Despite protests from Zelenskyy and European leaders, Trump was right to meet with Putin, not because they are friends, but because the United States and Russia are enemies, and because the war they are fighting to the last Ukrainian is the front line of a global conflict between the United States, Russia and China. In our book, War In Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, which we have now updated and revised to cover three years of war in Ukraine, we have detailed the U.S. role in expanding NATO up to Russia's borders, its support for the violent overthrow of Ukraine's elected government in 2014, its undermining of the Minsk II peace accord, and its rejection of a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine after only two months of war in 2022. We doubt that Donald Trump fully grasps this history. Are his simplistic statements alternately blaming Russia and Ukraine, but never the United States, just a public façade for domestic consumption, or does he really believe America's hands are clean? At their first meeting in Saudi Arabia on February 18th, senior U.S. and Russian negotiators agreed on a three-step plan: first to restore U.S.-Russian diplomatic relations; then to negotiate peace in Ukraine; and finally to work on resolving the broader, underlying breakdown in relations between the United States and Russia. Trump and Putin's decision to meet now was a recognition that they must address the deeper rift before they can achieve a stable and lasting peace in Ukraine. The stakes are high. Russia has been waging a war of attrition, concentrating on destroying Ukrainian forces and military equipment rather than on advancing quickly and seizing a lot more territory. It has still not occupied all of Donetsk province, which unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine in May 2014, and which Russia officially annexed before its invasion in February 2022. The failure of peace negotiations could lead to a more aggressive Russian war plan to seize territory much faster. Ukrainian forces are thinly spread out along much of its 700 mile front line, with as few as 100 soldiers often manning several miles of defenses. A major Russian offensive could lead to the collapse of the Ukrainian military or the fall of the Zelenskyy government. How would the U.S. and its Western allies respond to such major changes in the strategic picture? Zelenskyy's European allies talk tough, but have always rejected sending their own troops to Ukraine, apart from small numbers of special operations forces and mercenaries. Putin addressed the Europeans in his remarks after the Summit: "We expect that Kyiv and the European capitals will perceive [the negotiations] constructively, and that they won't throw a wrench in the works, will not make any attempts to use some backroom dealings to conduct provocations to torpedo the nascent progress." Meanwhile, more U.S. and NATO troops are fighting from the relative safety of the joint Ukraine-NATO war headquarters at the U.S. military base in Wiesbaden in Germany, where they work with Ukrainian forces to plan operations, coordinate intelligence and target missile and drone strikes. If the war escalates further, Wiesbaden could become a target for Russian missile strikes, just as NATO missiles already target bases in Russia. How would the United States and Germany respond to Russian missile strikes on Wiesbaden? The U.S. and NATO's official policy has always been to keep Ukraine fighting until it is in a stronger position to negotiate with Russia, as Joe Biden wrote in the New York Times in June 2022. But every time the U.S. and NATO prolong or escalate the war, they leave Ukraine in a weaker position, not a stronger one. The neutrality agreement that the U.S. and U.K. rejected in April 2022 included a Russian withdrawal from all the territory it had just occupied. But that was not good enough for Boris Johnson and Joe Biden, who instead promised a long war to weaken Russia. NATO military leaders believed that Ukraine's counter-offensive in the fall of 2022 achieved the stronger position they were looking for, and General Milley went out on a limb to say publicly that Ukraine should "seize the moment" to negotiate. But Biden and Zelenskyy rejected his advice, and Ukraine's failed offensive in 2023 squandered the moment they had failed to seize. No amount of deceptive propaganda can hide the reality that it has been downhill since then, and 69% of Ukrainians now want a negotiated peace, before their position gets even worse. So Trump went to Alaska with a weak hand, but one that will get weaker still if the war goes on. The European politicians urging Zelenskyy to cling to his maximalist demands want to look tough to their own people, but the keys to a stable and lasting peace are still Ukrainian neutrality, self determination for the people of all regions of Ukraine, and a genuine peace process that finally lays to rest the zombification of the Cold War. The whole world celebrated the end of the Cold War in 1991, but the people of the world are still waiting for the long-promised peace dividend that a generation of corrupt, war-mongering leaders have stolen from us. As negotiations progress, U.S. officials must be honest about the U.S. role in provoking this crisis. They must demonstrate that they are ready to listen to Russia's concerns, take them seriously, and negotiate in good faith to achieve a stable and lasting agreement that delivers peace and security to all parties in the Ukraine war, and in the wider Cold War it is part of. Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of a new edition of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, just published by OR Books. Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including .
Toronto Sun
an hour ago
- Toronto Sun
GOLDBERG: Trump's 'Mission Accomplished' tariff hype is just that
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 15, 2025 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. President Trump is traveling to Anchorage, Alaska, for peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the war in Ukraine. Photo by Andrew Harnik / Getty Images On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush announced, 'Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.' He was standing below a giant banner that read, 'Mission Accomplished.' At the risk of understating the matter, subsequent events didn't cooperate. However, it took some time for this to be widely accepted. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account We're in a similar place when it comes to President Donald Trump's experiment with a new global trading order. 'Tariffs are making our country Strong and Rich!!!' proclaims Trump, making him not only the first Republican president in living memory to brag about raising taxes on Americans, but also the first to insist that raising taxes on Americans makes us richer. MAGA's mission-accomplished groupthink relies primarily on three arguments. The first is that Trump has successfully concluded a slew of beneficial trade deals. The truth is that some of those deals are simply 'frameworks' that will take a long time to be ironed out. But Trump got the headlines he wanted. The second argument is a kind of populism-infused sleight of hand. The 'experts' — their scare quotes, not mine — are wrong once again. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The White House social media account crows, 'In April, 'experts' called tariffs 'the biggest policy mistake in 95 years.' By July, they generated OVER $100 BILLION in revenue. Facts expose the haters: tariffs WORK. Trust in Trump.' But the high-fivers are leaving things out. The most dire predictions of economic catastrophe were based on the scheme Trump announced on April 2, a.k.a. 'Liberation Day.' Trump quickly backed off that plan ('chickened out' in Wall Street parlance ) in response to a bond and stock market implosion. Saying the experts were wrong under those circumstances is like saying experts opposed to defenestration were wrong when they successfully convinced a man not to jump out a window. The third argument, made by the White House and many others — that tariffs are working because they're raising money — is a response to a claim no one made. To my knowledge, no expert claimed tariffs wouldn't raise money. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The estimates of these revenues from Trump World are stratospheric. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick expects somewhere between $700 billion and $1 trillion per year. Last month, the government collected $29 billion. Likely, this number will significantly increase as more tariffs come online and businesses run down the inventory they stockpiled earlier this year in anticipation of more tariffs to come. Normally, Republicans don't exult over massive revenues from tax hikes. But Trump's defenders get around this problem by insisting that money is 'pouring' and 'flowing' into America from someplace else. Tariff revenue is indeed pouring into the Treasury, but that money is coming out of American bank accounts, because American importers pay the tariff. Even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cannot deny this when pressed. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. So yes, tariffs are 'working' the way they're supposed to; the problem is Trump thinks tariffs work differently than they do. It's possible some foreign exporters might lower prices to maintain market share and some American businesses might absorb the costs for now to avoid sticker shock for inflation-beleaguered consumers, but what revenue is generated still comes from Americans. Ultimately, it means higher prices paid here, reduced profits for businesses here or reduced U.S. trade overall. Sometimes, when pressed, defenders of the administration will concede the true source of the revenues, but then they say the pain is necessary to force manufacturers and other businesses to build and produce in the United States. It's a backdoor industrial policy masquerading as trade policy. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. That, too, might 'work.' But all of this will take time, no matter what. And, if it works, that will have costs, too. Manufacturing in America is more expensive and that's why we manufacture so much stuff abroad in the first place. If this 'reshoring' happens, our goods will be more expensive, and less money will 'pour in' from tariffs. It's difficult to exaggerate how well-understood all of this was on the American right until very recently. But the need to grab any argument available to declare Trump's experiment a success has a lot of people not only abandoning their previous dogma but leaping to the conclusion that the dogma was wrong all along. Maybe it was, though I don't think so. The evidence so far suggests that problems are looming. The dollar is weakening. Prices continue to rise. The job market is reeling. The stock market (an unreliable metric, according to MAGA, when it plummeted after Liberation Day) is holding on, thanks to tech stocks. The truth is, we won't have real evidence for a while. It's worth remembering that Americans don't live by headlines and press releases and they don't live in the macro economy either. Declaring 'Mission Accomplished' for the macro economy won't convince people they're better off in their own micro-economies when they're not. Crime Toronto & GTA Toronto Blue Jays Sunshine Girls Toronto Blue Jays
