President Donald Trump has said there is a "very good chance" the war between Russia and Ukraine could end after “productive discussions” between a U.S. envoy and Vladimir Putin.
Trump added he had requested that Putin spare the lives of thousands of "completely surrounded" Ukrainian troops, seemingly referring to ongoing fighting in the western Russian Kursk region.
"We had very good and productive discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia yesterday [Thursday], and there is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end," Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social.
The White House added that Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, rather than the U.S. president himself, had spoken to Putin.
Witkoff met the Russian leader on Thursday evening to discuss plans for a 30-day ceasefire, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to earlier in the week.
Russian forces have made swift advances in Kursk in recent days, retaking parts of territory that had been under Ukrainian control since last summer, when Kyiv launched a surprise incursion into Russia in an attempt to relieve pressure on other parts of the frontline.
"We had very good and productive discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia yesterday [Thursday], and there is a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end," Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social.
The White House added that Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, rather than the U.S. president himself, had spoken to Putin.
Witkoff met the Russian leader on Thursday evening to discuss plans for a 30-day ceasefire, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to earlier in the week.
Russian forces have made swift advances in Kursk in recent days, retaking parts of territory that had been under Ukrainian control since last summer, when Kyiv launched a surprise incursion into Russia in an attempt to relieve pressure on other parts of the frontline.
No encirclement in Kursk, says Kyiv
However, Ukraine’s general staff dismissed comments about Kyiv’s troops being encircled in the region as false, and said there was no such threat because units had been pulled back to more favorable defensive positions.
Putin said on Thursday that he agreed in principle to U.S. proposals for a ceasefire in Ukraine, but that any truce would have to address what the Russian president called the “original causes” of the conflict.
Zelenskyy questioned Moscow’s motives, saying on Friday that Putin was “doing everything possible to sabotage diplomacy, setting extremely difficult and unacceptable conditions from the very beginning, even before the ceasefire.”
“Putin will try to drag everyone into endless discussions, just as he did with Minsk...while his weapons continue to kill people,” he added, referring to the broken ceasefire agreements that were put in place after the Russian annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014.
Despite this, the Ukrainian leader said on Friday that he saw a good chance to end the war.
One of Moscow’s key justifications for launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was the refusal of Kyiv and its Western allies to rule out potential future NATO membership for Ukraine.
Putin portrays the conflict as part of an existential battle with an enlarging NATO military alliance which is encroaching on what he considers Moscow’s sphere of influence – including Ukraine, a part of the former Soviet Union.
The West and Ukraine describe Russia's invasion as an imperial-style land grab, and have repeatedly vowed to defeat Russian forces, which control nearly a fifth of Ukraine's territory and have been edging forward since mid-2024.
Trump has made finding a resolution to the war in Ukraine a priority of his administration, saying that he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker.
However, many European powers are concerned that Trump could be turning his back on Europe for a bargain that makes significant concessions to Putin.
Source: Reuters
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