After largely fruitless meetings between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj, a video on social media is causing irritation. In it, Trump can be heard saying: “Russia wants Ukraine to succeed. It sounds a little strange.” You can see Selenskyj, who then raises his eyebrows in surprise and laughs.
Before the bilateral meeting, the US President had with the Russian head of state Vladimir Putin telephoned. Trump’s statement followed a question about the content of the conversation. Russian government critic and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov wrote on X: “We are all Zelensky. But no one on earth has their own self-control.” He also posted the clip of the press conference in Mar-a-Lago.
Trump and Zelenskyj confident after conversation
After their conversation, the two heads of state spoke at the press conference emphatically confident about the negotiations to end the war in the Ukraine. Trump spoke of a fantastic meeting. “We are getting much closer (to an agreement), maybe even very close,” Trump said. However, there are still one or two difficult questions.
Zelensky said he had a great discussion with Trump. “We have agreed that our teams will meet in the coming weeks to finalize all the matters discussed,” Zelensky said. There could be a meeting in Washington in January with Trump and representatives from Ukraine and Europe. He said the issue of security assurances has been 100 percent resolved. The US President, however, said that this question had been 95 percent solved.
At the center of the negotiations is one of the Ukraine revised version of US plan to end Russian war of aggression. In November, the USA initially presented a 28-point plan that was criticized as being too Russia-friendly. In recent weeks it has been revised at the urging of Ukraine and its European allies. In the new version is, among other things, one Freeze the current front path provided. Ukraine would therefore withdraw some of its troops in the east of the country to create a demilitarized buffer zone.
You can follow current developments on the war against Ukraine in our live blog.
