Zelenskyy put out his own message shortly thereafter, reiterating that “we all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably” — and alluding to parameters of his own around territorial concessions and security guarantees.
“Peace must be lasting,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post to X. “Not like it was years ago, when Ukraine was forced to give up Crimea and part of our East—part of Donbas—and Putin simply used it as a springboard for a new attack. Or when Ukraine was given so called ‘security guarantees’ in 1994, but they didn’t work.”
Trump reportedly said he believed Putin would agree to a deal if Ukraine handed over its easternmost Donbas region, including parts Russia doesn’t control. Zelenskyy has previously warned doing so would mean Ukraine loses key defensive positions and would be more vulnerable to Russian attacks in the future.
The Ukrainian president was also sure to include an expression of gratitude for Trump’s efforts — which the Trump administration accused him of failing to do during their blowup row in the Oval Office in February — writing that “our people will always be grateful to President Trump.”
Trump convened Monday’s last-minute meeting in the U.S. capital after a summit with Putin in Alaska on Friday. The U.S. president, who warmly welcomed Putin to American soil, had billed those talks as an opening for potential trilateral peace negotiations with Zelenskyy — but they ended with no deal on the table, and no ceasefire in sight.
During a call with his European counterparts after that meeting, Trump said “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.”
