\n<\/p>\n
United States President Donald Trump has increased pressure on Ukraine to accept an agreement to end Russia\u2019s war, claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could choose to end the conflict \u201calmost immediately\u201d.<\/p>\n
Addressing Zelenskyy a day before his high-stakes visit to the White House on Monday, Trump\u00a0warned that the return of Russian-occupied Crimea and Ukrainian membership of NATO would be off the table in any negotiated settlement.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,\u201d Trump said on his Truth Social platform on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember how it started. No getting back Obama given Crimea (12 years ago, without a shot being fired!), and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things never change!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s comments came as European leaders were set to accompany Zelenskyy on his visit to Washington, DC, on Monday amid concerns in Brussels and Kyiv that the US president could sign off on a deal that is overly favourable to Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n
Speaking shortly after Trump\u2019s comments on Sunday, Zelenskyy said that previous\u00a0concessions to\u00a0Moscow, including in Crimea, had only emboldened Putin to wage more war.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably. And peace must be lasting,\u201d Zelenskyy said in a post on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot like it was years ago, when Ukraine was forced to give up Crimea and part of our East \u2013 part of Donbas \u2013 and Putin simply used it as a springboard for a new attack. Or when Ukraine was given so called \u2018security guarantees\u2019 in 1994, but they didn\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy added that Crimea \u201cshould not have been given up then, just as Ukrainians did not give up Kyiv, Odesa, or Kharkiv after 2022\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cUkrainians are fighting for their land, for their independence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While Trump has indicated that a deal with Moscow would involve \u201csome swapping, changes in land\u201d between Russia and Ukraine, Zelenskyy has repeatedly ruled out handing over Ukrainian territory to \u201cthe occupier\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a bid to press Trump to maintain support for Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni are attending Monday\u2019s talks at the White House.<\/p>\n
Macron said on Sunday that European leaders and Zelenskyy would aim to present a united front in the face of Russian aggression.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we show weakness today in front of Russia, we are laying the ground for future conflicts,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n
Despite Trump dismissing the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said earlier on Sunday that Putin had agreed to support a US-backed security guarantee resembling the 32-member transatlantic alliance\u2019s collective defence mandate during last week\u2019s meeting with the US president in Alaska.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to win the following concession: That the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO,\u201d Witkoff told CNN\u2019s State of the Union.<\/p>\n
Under\u00a0Article 5, an armed attack against a NATO member nation is considered an attack against all members of the alliance.<\/p>\n
Still, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday sought to temper expectations, saying an agreement to end the war was \u201ca long ways off\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not at the precipice of a peace agreement,\u201d Rubio told ABC News\u2019s This Week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe made progress in the sense that we identified potential areas of agreement, but there remain some big areas of disagreement.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
United States President Donald Trump has increased pressure on Ukraine to accept an agreement to end Russia\u2019s war, claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy could choose to end the conflict \u201calmost immediately\u201d. Addressing Zelenskyy a day before his high-stakes visit to the White House on Monday, Trump\u00a0warned that the return of Russian-occupied Crimea and Ukrainian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[8507,150,2722,81,4371,261,1770],"class_list":{"0":"post-16396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-immediately","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-russiaukraine","11":"tag-trump","12":"tag-ukraines","13":"tag-war","14":"tag-zelenskyy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}