Latest news with #PresidentialOfficeofUkraine
New York Post
6 days ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Ukraine says it's open to US-backed aerial cease-fire with Russia — but doubts Putin will agree
Ukraine is open to a US-backed aerial cease-fire with Russia, an advisor to President Zelensky has said — as Presidents Trump and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin prepare to meet for high-stakes talks in Alaska. 'Ukraine is ready to discuss it, is ready to consider this scenario, and sees it as the initial stage for reaching realistic negotiating positions,' Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera published on Tuesday. However, Podolyak said Putin is unlikely to cooperate. Advertisement 3 'Ukraine is ready to discuss' a US-backed aerial cease-fire with Russia, an advisor to President Zelensky said. The Presidential Office of Ukraine 3 An explosion of a drone lights up the sky over Kyiv during a Russian drone strike on August 8, 2025. REUTERS 3 'Putin is not ready for realistic negotiations' and his 'main task at this stage is to stall and mislead the US,' Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said. AP 'Russia is unlikely to forgo the use of strategic aviation and the massive deployment of drones,' he warned. 'Aerial bombardments are a key tool with which Moscow exerts psychological pressure on the country and influences our position.' Advertisement He also cast doubt on hopes for Friday's summit between Trump and Putin in Alaska, where the pair will discuss the bloody three-year conflict. 'Putin is not ready for realistic negotiations. His main task at this stage is to stall and mislead the US administration,' Podlyak warned.
Egypt Independent
10-08-2025
- Politics
- Egypt Independent
Trump-Putin summit in Alaska resembles a slow defeat for Ukraine
Location matters, former real estate mogul US President Donald Trump said. Moments later he announced Alaska, a place sold by Russia to the United States 158 years ago for $7.2 million, would be where Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to sell his land deal of the century, getting Kyiv to hand over chunks of land he's not yet been able to occupy. The conditions around Friday's summit so wildly favor Moscow, it is obvious why Putin leapt at the chance, after months of fake negotiation, and it is hard to see how a deal emerges from the bilateral that does not eviscerate Ukraine. Kyiv and its European allies have reacted with understandable horror at the early ideas of Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, that Ukraine cede the remainders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in exchange for a ceasefire. Naturally, the Kremlin head has promoted the idea of taking ground without a fight, and found a willing recipient in the form of Witkoff, who has in the past exhibited a relaxed grasp of Ukrainian sovereignty and the complexity of asking a country, in the fourth year of its invasion, to simply walk out of towns it's lost thousands of men defending. It is worth pausing and reflecting on what Witkoff's proposal would look like. Russia is close to encircling two key Donetsk towns, Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, and may effectively put Ukrainian troops defending these two hubs under siege in the coming weeks. Ceding these two towns might be something Kyiv does anyway to conserve manpower in the months ahead. The rest of Donetsk – principally the towns of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk – is a much nastier prospect. Thousands of civilians live there now, and Moscow would delight at scenes where the towns evacuate, and Russian troops walk in without a shot fired. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's rejection of ceding land early Saturday reflects the real dilemma of a commander in chief trying to manage the anger of his military and the deep-seated distrust of the Ukrainian people towards their neighbor, who continues to bombard their cities nightly. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits soldiers on the front lines of the Kharkiv region on August 4. Presidential Office of Ukraine/DPA/Picture Alliance/AP What could Ukraine get back in the 'swapping' Trump referred to? Perhaps the tiny slivers of border areas occupied by Russia in Sumy and Kharkiv regions – part of Putin's purported 'buffer zone' – but not much else, realistically. The main goal is a ceasefire, and that itself is a stretch. Putin has long held that the immediate ceasefire demanded by the United States, Europe and Ukraine for months, is impossible as technical work about monitoring and logistics must take place first. He is unlikely to have changed his mind now his troops are in the ascendancy across the eastern frontline. Europe is also wary of mirroring the failure of former UK Foreign Secretary Neville Chamberlain to stand up to Nazi Germany in 1938 – of the worthlessness of a 'piece of paper' signed by a Kremlin that has repeatedly agreed to deals in Ukraine and then simply used the pause to regroup before invading again. To his credit, Putin has made it clear what he wants from the start: all of Ukraine subjugated or occupied and a strategic reset with the US that involves it dropping Kyiv like a stone. His aide, Yury Ushakov, spoke of Alaska being a great place to talk economic cooperation between Washington and Moscow, and suggested a return summit in Russia had already been proposed. There is a risk we see bonhomie between Trump and Putin that allows the US president to tolerate more technical meetings between their staffers on the what and when of any ceasefire deal. A plan about land swaps or grabs that is wholly in Moscow's favor, might then be presented to Kyiv, with the old US ultimatums about aid and intelligence sharing being contingent on their accepting the deal that we have seen before. Cue French President Emmanuel Macron on the phone to Trump again, and around we go. Putin needs more time to continue to conquer and he is about to get it. What has changed since the last time Trump found his thinking dragged somehow back towards Russia's orbit, around the time of the Oval Office blowout with Zelensky? Two elements are there now that were absent then. Firstly, we cannot ignore that India and China – the former risking 25% tariffs in two weeks and the latter still waiting to learn what damage it'll suffer – were on the phone to the Kremlin in the past days. They might have provided some impetus for Putin to meet Trump, or at least provide more lip service to diplomacy again, and may be concerned at their energy imports being compromised by Trump's secondary sanctions. But Putin cannot have needed much persuading to agree to a formal invitation to the US to have the bilateral meeting his team have long held out as the way towards peace in Ukraine. And another sanctions deadline of Friday has just whizzed past, almost unnoticed in the kerfuffle about Alaska and land deals. Donald Trump claims his thinking around Vladimir Putin has Trump claims his thinking around Putin has evolved. 'Disappointed,' 'disgusting,' 'tapping me along' are all newcomers to his lexicon about the Kremlin head. While Trump appears effortlessly able to stop himself causing genuine pain to Moscow, allowing threats and deadlines to fall lifeless around him, he is surrounded by allies and Republicans who will remind him of how far down these roads he has gone before. Much could go right. But the stage is set for something more sinister. Consider Putin's mindset for a moment. The third Trump threat of sanctions has evaporated, and his forces are moving into a period of strategic gain on the frontlines. He's got his first invitation to the US in a decade to talk peace about Ukraine without Ukraine, discussing a deal where he doesn't even have to fight to get some of the rest of the land he wants. And this is before the former KGB spy gets to work his apparent magic on Trump. Friday is six days away, but even at this distance resembles slow defeat for Kyiv.
Yomiuri Shimbun
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Zelenskiy Meets U.S. Vice President Vance, Says Source in Ukrainian Delegation
Reuters Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine Andriy Yermak, Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov attend a bilateral meeting with U.S. Vice President JD Vance (not pictured), on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), in Munich, Germany February 14, 2025. KYIV, May 18 (Reuters) – Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of Pope Leo's inauguration on Sunday, a source in the Ukrainian delegation told Reuters. It was the first meeting between Zelenskiy and Vance since they clashed during talks at the White House in February over the future of the war in Ukraine.
The Star
18-05-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Zelenskiy meets U.S. Vice President Vance, says source in Ukrainian delegation
FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine Andriy Yermak, Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov attend a bilateral meeting with U.S. Vice President JD Vance (not pictured), on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), in Munich, Germany February 14, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
The Star
08-05-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Ukraine, allies discuss ways to pressure Russia into 30-day ceasefire
FILE PHOTO: President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine, Swiss Federal President Viola Amherd and Head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine Andriy Yermak applaud during a session of the Summit on Peace in Ukraine, in Stansstad, Switzerland, June 16, 2024. ALESSANDRO DELLA VALLE/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine has discussed ways to pressure Russia into agreeing to a 30-day ceasefire with U.S., French, British and German senior officials, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's top aide said on Thursday, part of a flurry of diplomacy to try to end the war. Andriy Yermak, Zelenskiy's chief of staff, did not say when the online talks with U.S. special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg, France's top diplomatic adviser Emmanuel Bonne, Britain's national security adviser Jonathan Powell and Guenter Sautter, a top adviser to the German leader, took place. But he said all parties "emphasised that a complete and unconditional ceasefire should be the first step towards a just and sustainable peace". "We also discussed instruments of pressure in case Russia refuses the initiative or violates the agreements," Yermak said on Telegram. Ukraine has expressed readiness to accept a U.S. proposal to enact an immediate, interim 30-day ceasefire, which could be extended by mutual agreement of the parties, and has accused the Kremlin of ignoring the plan. Putin has proposed a ceasefire of only three days - from May 8-10. "The Kremlin's proposal for a three-day truce is not about peace, but about safely holding of the parade in Moscow. This is political manipulation," Yermak said. Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, is preparing to stage a military parade on May 9 to mark the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in what President Vladimir Putin hopes will be a show of strength. On Thursday, after the declared ceasefire had come into effect, the skies over Ukraine's major cities were quiet, though there were reports of clashes in eastern Ukraine. (Reporting by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Gareth Jones)
