Russian President Vladimir Putin will drag out a deal for a ceasefire because he is not interested in peace, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Thursday night, while President Donald Trump remained optimistic about the progress of the discussions.
The Ukrainian president, during his evening address to Ukrainians, said that Putin’s response to the ceasefire proposal was “very predictable,” reports The New York Times on Friday.
He added that Putin has demanded so many preconditions that “nothing will work out at all, or that it will not work out for as long as possible.”
Zelenskyy also accused Putin of pretending to be willing to accept the agreement but “at the moment he is, in fact, preparing to reject it,” according to The Guardian.
“Putin does this often — he doesn’t say ‘no’ outright, but he drags things out and makes reasonable solutions impossible,” said Zelenskyy.
Trump, however, said that he sees “good signals” toward finalizing a 30-day ceasefire agreement between the warring countries, with U.S. officials visiting Moscow expected to meet with Putin.
“It doesn’t mean anything until we hear what the final outcome is, but they have very serious discussions going on right now with President Putin and others, and hopefully, they all want to end this nightmare,” Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Thursday, reports The New York Times.
“It’s a nightmare,” he added. “It’s a horrible thing.”
His remarks came as Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff has been conducting meetings in Russia.
Trump also said he hopes to speak with Putin soon and that the United States has been discussing the potential of concessions on “pieces of land that would be kept and lost and all of the other elements of a final agreement.”
“A lot of the details of a final agreement have actually been discussed,” the president added.
Meanwhile, Trump’s meeting with Rutte appeared to have been friendly, even with Trump’s frequent complaints about NATO.
He said Rutte is doing a “fantastic job,” with Rutte praising Trump for pushing countries to contribute more money for military spending.
“I really want to work together with you in the run-up to The Hague summit to make sure that we will have a NATO which is really reinvigorated under your leadership, and we are getting there,” said Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister.
Rutte appeared to steer away from conflict with Trump during the meeting, including when Trump was asked about efforts to annex Greenland, a territory controlled by fellow NATO member Denmark.
He said that Rutte “could be instrumental” in the plans because “we have to do it. We really need it for national security.”
Rutte responded by saying he did not want to “drag NATO into that,” and pivoted the topic to agreeing with Trump that Russia and China are posing threats in the Arctic.
Source: News Max
