US President Donald Trump said he wants Russian leader Vladimir Putin to “stop shooting” and agree to a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, a day after his face-to-face meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral.
“Well, I want him to stop shooting, sit down, and sign a deal,” Trump told reporters on April 27 in response to a question on what actions he was seeking from Putin.
Trump also said his meeting with Zelenskyy on April 26 had gone well, but he added he thought Zelenskyy was ready to give up Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula to Russia as a concession — something the Ukrainian leader has long stated he would never do.
RFE/RL’s Systema reports in its investigative documentary, “The Slaughter Of Ghosts: How Russian Prisoners Fight In Ukraine,” that Russia’s military intelligence (GRU) oversaw the recruitment and funding of prisoners into assault units known as “Storm Z.”
“Oh, I think so,” Trump responded when asked whether he thought Zelenskyy was ready to “give up” the territory, which Russia occupied in 2014 and illegally annexed.
Trump’s April 26 Vatican meeting with Zelenskyy — which lasted about 15 minutes — was their first since Trump kicked Zelenskyy out of the Oval Office in February following a public spat over peace talks.
“I see [Zelenskyy] as calmer,” Trump said. “I think he understands the picture, and I think he wants to make a deal.”
The Ukrainian capital was hit by missiles and drones overnight on April 24, part of a massive Russian attack on locations across the country.
Zelenskyy said the latest talks represented a “very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results.”
Trump has made ending the 38-month war a top priority since taking office nearly 100 days ago, calling last month for an immediate and full cease-fire.
While Zelenskyy has agreed to Trump’s proposal, Putin has continued to negotiate details of a cease-fire with Washington.
Experts say Putin is dragging out talks because his forces have the momentum on the battlefield and a cease-fire at the current line of contact would leave him short of the goal of fully capturing the four regions of eastern Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed in 2022: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya, and Kherson.
Russian troops march during a rehearsal for a Victory Day military parade ahead of May 9 in St. Petersburg on April 22.
Experts say ceding territory to Russia would be politically and constitutionally impossible for Zelenskyy. Ukrainian citizens and lawmakers appear strongly opposed to the idea.
“We will never recognize Crimea as part of Russia,” Oleksandr Merezkho, a lawmaker with Zelenskyy’s party, told AP.
Earlier in the day, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said a deal to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is “closer,” even as Zelenskyy called for greater international pressure on the Kremlin following the latest wave of attacks along the front line.
“They [Russia and Ukraine] are closer in general than they have been anytime in the last three years, but it’s still not there,” Rubio said in an interview with NBC News on April 27.
Following the meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump made a rare critique of Putin, denouncing Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine, which have killed dozens of civilians over the past two weeks.
“There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities, and towns over the last few days. It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions’?” Trump wrote a social media post on April 26.
But Trump’s critique of Putin also came shortly after he made his most definitive statement to date about the need for Ukraine to cede territory to Russia to secure a peace deal. He said in a Time magazine interview published on April 25 that “Crimea will stay with Russia.”
Russia wants any peace deal to recognize its control of nearly 20 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea. It also wants Ukraine to be demilitarized and kept out of NATO. Moscow has also rejected Kyiv’s demand for a Western peacekeeping force to monitor any cease-fire agreement.
Rubio, in his NBC interview, said that Moscow would need to make concessions as well, although the US administration has not so far set out specifics.
European officials and US Democrats have pushed back against some US proposals to end the war.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on April 27 said Kyiv should not agree to US proposals that would include giving up land to Russia.
Kaja Kallas, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said it would be a mistake for the United States to consider the possibility of recognizing the occupied Crimea as Russian territory as part of a peace agreement.
“Crimea is Ukraine,” Kallas stressed, adding that the EU will never recognize the peninsula as part of Russia.
Chuck Schumer, the top US Senate Democrat, said he is concerned Trump will “cave in to Putin.”
On the battlefield, Russia on April 27 launched numerous air attacks across Ukraine, leaving at least four people dead, according to Ukrainian officials.
(RFE/RL)
