Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky can end the war waged by Russia against his country "almost immediately" or he can continue to fight. US President Donald Trump made this statement on his social network Truth Social.
Judging by the message of the head of the White House, the conditions that Ukraine must agree to in order to stop Russian aggression are to give up both its claims to the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia and its aspiration to join NATO.
Earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the following in a television interview: "Ukrainians are ultimately not ready to give up the territories claimed by Moscow, no one is going to push them to do so". But in this case, according to him, a peace agreement may not be concluded.
Zelensky: We should not have given Crimea
Ukrainian President Zelensky, in turn, wrote on Telegram after arriving in Washington that he thanked Donald Trump for the invitation. "We all equally want to quickly and safely end this war. And peace must be lasting. Not like it happened a few years ago, when Ukraine was forced to give Crimea and part of Donbas, and Putin simply used this as a springboard for a new attack. Or when Ukraine was supposedly given "security guarantees" in 1994, but it didn't work."
"Of course, we shouldn't have given Crimea then, just as after 2022 Ukrainians did not give Kiev, Odessa, Kharkiv. Ukrainians are fighting for their land, for their independence," Zelensky wrote. His opinion is that "Russia must end this war that it started". "And I hope that our joint strength with America, with our European friends, will force Russia to a real peace", the Ukrainian leader emphasized.
Trump's meeting with Zelensky and European leaders in Washington
The White House announced that the bilateral meeting between Trump and Zelensky will begin in Washington at 13.15 local time (20.15 Bulgarian time). Then, an hour later, Trump will welcome the European leaders who have arrived in the American capital, with whom his official meeting begins at 3 p.m. local time (10 p.m. Bulgarian time).
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian and British Prime Ministers Giorgia Meloni and Keir Starmer, French and Finnish Presidents Emmanuel Macron and Alexander Stubb, as well as NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and EC President Ursula von der Leyen are expected to arrive in the United States.
According to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among other things, European leaders and the Ukrainian president will discuss in Washington guarantees for Kiev's security. "For peace to come, the Russian side must recognize that Ukraine is a sovereign state that has the right to self-defense and the right to enter into alliances with other countries for the sake of its defense." In the coming days, there will be talk about what the guarantees should be and how they can be provided, Rubio added.
Author: Elena Gunkel