Latest news with #TrumpZelensky
Russia Today
5 days ago
- General
- Russia Today
Trump views Zelensky as ‘bad guy'
US President Donald Trump is frustrated with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, seeing him as a 'bad guy' who is pushing the world closer to nuclear conflict, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing sources. Unnamed Trump advisers told the NYT that the president is 'exasperated' with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky, but 'reserves special animosity' for the Ukrainian leader, who he has publicly criticized on several occasions. Although Trump has said it is 'understandable' that Ukraine wants to keep fighting, his stance toward Zelensky is notably harsher than toward Putin, the report says. The US president reportedly tends to be more deferential to his Russian counterpart, and previously believed that their 'very, very good relationship' would help end the conflict. Because of this, he has thus far refrained from imposing new sanctions on Moscow. On Wednesday, the two leaders held a 75-minute phone conversation in which Trump said they discussed Ukraine's recent attack on Russian airbases that reportedly host strategic aircraft. 'President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields,' Trump said. The Kremlin confirmed the conversation. Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said Putin informed Trump of Ukraine's efforts to derail peace talks between Moscow and Kiev, including 'terrorist' attacks on civilian targets. Ushakov was apparently referring to incidents of railroad sabotage in the regions of Bryansk and Kursk in which seven people died and more than 100 were injured. Following the call, Zelensky posted a statement on Telegram, saying: 'If the world reacts weakly to Putin's threats, then he perceives this as the world's readiness to turn a blind eye to his actions… If the strong do not stop Putin, it means that they share responsibility with him.' Trump previously engaged in a public spat with Zelensky when the two met at the White House in late February. At the time, the US president accused Zelensky of 'gambling with World War III,' and of being 'disrespectful' and ungrateful for American support.
Daily Mail
22-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Trump 'told Zelensky that Ukraine and Russia will need to reach a peace deal themselves' after his bombshell phone call with Putin in clearest sign yet he is ready to walk away from ceasefire talks
US president Donald Trump has seemingly given his clearest sign that he is willing to wash his hands of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, after reportedly telling Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders they would have to find a solution themselves. Trump reportedly gave the signal following his two-hour call with Russian despot Vladimir Putin, during which he heralded 'impressive' prospects for ties with Russia. This came just days after he told reporters that only he and Putin had the power to end the conflict. And according to the New York Times, Trump told Zelensky and other European leaders that he was also planning to backtrack on his own threats to join the EU in placing additional sanctions on Russia. This came after months of Trump frequently threatening to place sanctions and tariffs on Russia if it refused to join Ukraine in announcing an unconditional 30-day ceasefire. He wrote on Truth Social earlier this month: 'If the ceasefire is not respected, the U.S. and its partners will impose further sanctions.' But this ferocity has seemingly vanished, and European partners have begun to notice. Several EU officials told the newspaper that they understood not to expect any additional financial pressure to be applied to Putin by the US under Trump. Just one day after the call, the EU announced its 17th package of sanctions against Russia. While the UK joined the efforts to apply monetary pressure on Putin's nation, Trump was nowhere to be found. It comes after Russia and Ukraine have scheduled no further direct talks on ending their more than three-year war, the Kremlin said today , almost a week after the first face-to-face engagement between their delegations since 2022, and days after Trump announced they would start ceasefire negotiations 'immediately.' 'There is no concrete agreement about the next meetings,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. 'They are yet to be agreed upon.' During two hours of talks in Istanbul last Friday, Kyiv and Moscow agreed to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war each, in what would be their biggest such swap. Apart from that step, the meeting delivered no significant breakthrough. Several months of intensified U.S. and European pressure on the two sides to accept a ceasefire and negotiate a settlement have yielded little progress. Meanwhile, Russia is readying a summer offensive to capture more Ukrainian land, Ukrainian government and military analysts say. Putin said earlier this week that Moscow would 'propose and is ready to work with' Ukraine on a 'memorandum' outlining the framework for 'a possible future peace treaty.' Putin has effectively rejected a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine has accepted. He has linked the possibility to a halt in Ukraine's mobilization effort and a freeze on Western arms shipments to Kyiv as part of a comprehensive settlement. The major prisoner swap is a 'quite laborious process' that 'requires some time,' Peskov said. But he added: 'The work is continuing at a quick pace, everybody is interested in doing it quickly.' Peskov told Russian news agency Interfax that Moscow had provided to Kyiv a list of prisoners it wants released in the swap. 'We have not yet received a counter list from Kyiv. We are waiting,' he told Interfax. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that preparations are underway for the potential prisoner exchange, which he described as 'perhaps the only real result' of the talks in Turkey. Peskov disputed a report Thursday in the Wall Street Journal that Trump told European leaders after his phone call with Putin on Monday that the Russian leader wasn't interested in talks because he thinks that Russia is winning. 'We know what Trump told Putin, we don't know what Trump told the Europeans. We know President Trump's official statement,' Peskov said. 'What we know contrasts with what was written in the article you mentioned.'
Russia Today
17-05-2025
- Business
- Russia Today
Billions ‘were being pissed away' on Ukraine aid
US President Donald Trump has said he was concerned that billions of American dollars were being wasted on aid to Ukraine. In an interview aired on Friday, Fox News host Bret Baier asked Trump whether he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin was an 'obstacle to peace' between Moscow and Kiev. Trump instead directed criticism at Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. 'I had a real rough session with Zelensky because I didn't like what he said. He was not making it easy. And I always said he doesn't have the cards,' the US president said. He went on to slam the aid sent to Kiev by his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.'The money is the money. What bothered me – I hated to see the way it was, you know – excuse me – pissed away. I hated to see the cheques for $60 billion,' Trump said. 'I think Zelensky is the greatest salesman in the world, far better than me. He comes to Washington – he walks out with a hundred million every time.' 'Congress is very upset about it. You know, they're saying, where is all this money going?' Trump added. He stated, however, that Zelensky's ability to lobby for American aid has been 'shrinking' over time. The US has provided approximately $128 billion to Ukraine since 2022, including $66.5 billion in military assistance. Although Trump has criticized both Zelensky and Putin in the past, he has mostly blamed Ukraine and the Biden administration for the ongoing conflict with Russia. During a heated exchange in the Oval Office in February, Trump accused Zelensky of being ungrateful for US support and claimed the Ukrainian leader was 'gambling with World War III.' The president has since softened his rhetoric toward Ukraine and has threatened to impose further sanctions on Moscow if no peace deal is reached. Russia and Ukraine held their first direct talks in three years in Istanbul on Friday. The head of Russia's negotiating team, Vladimir Medinsky, said the two sides had agreed to a 1,000-for-1,000 prisoner swap, as well as to each formulate a 'vision of a possible future ceasefire.'
Russia Today
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Trump announces upcoming talks with Zelensky
US President Donald Trump has announced that he plans to talk with Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky in the near future. He has also confirmed that a minerals agreement between Washington and Kiev had been ratified by the Ukrainian parliament. 'We just concluded the rare earth deal with Ukraine,' Trump told journalists in the White House on Thursday. 'We appreciate that and I'll be speaking with [Zelensky] in a little while,' he stated, without providing any further details about the date or the format for the upcoming talks. DETAILS TO FOLLOW
