Donald Trump announced a significant change on Saturday, abandoning his efforts to reach a ceasefire in Ukraine in favor of a comprehensive peace agreement, only hours after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to produce any conclusive results.
Securing a rapid end to hostilities had been a key goal of Trump prior to the high-stakes meeting in Alaska. Trump had promised “severe consequences” on Russia and European leaders, including Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, who is now scheduled to visit Washington on Monday.
The shift away from ceasefire would seem to favor Putin, who has long argued for negotiations on a final peace deal — a strategy that Ukraine and its European allies have criticized as a way to buy time and press Russia’s battlefield advances.
Trump spoke with Zelensky and European leaders on his flight back to Washington, saying afterward that “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.”
Ceasefire agreements “often times do not hold up,” Trump added on his Truth Social platform.
This new development “complicates the situation,” Zelensky said Saturday.
If Moscow lacks “the will to carry out a simple order to stop the strikes, it may take a lot of effort to get Russia to have the will to implement far greater — — peaceful coexistence with its neighbors for decades,” he said on social media.
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