Donald Trump has accused Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky of prolonging the ‘killing field’ by refusing at hand Russia land.
The White House has demanded that Kyiv surrender territory as a part of a long-sought peace deal to finish the three-year war with Russia.
Moscow has captured about 20% of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it seized in 2014. Some 4.6million Ukrainians have fled their homes within the occupied territories and Crimea.
But Zelensky said today, ahead of talks in London amongst US, European and Ukrainian officials, that ceding territory is out of the query.
‘There’s nothing to discuss. It’s our land, the land of the Ukrainian people,’ Zelensky said.
His comment got here after American media reports said Trump administration was ready to simply accept recognition of the annexed land in Crimea.
In a post on his Truth Social network, Trump accused the Ukrainian leader of ‘inflammatory’ comments that he claimed would drag the war out.
‘If he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia with out a shot being fired?’ Trump wrote within the 260-word-long rant.
‘The statement made by Zelensky today will do nothing but delay the “killing field,” and no person wants that!’
He added: ‘Its inflammatory statements like Zelenskyy’s that makes it so difficult to settle this War.
‘He has nothing to boast about! The situation for Ukraine is dire — He can have Peace or he can fight for one more three years before losing the entire Country.’
Russia annexed Crimea, a peninsula in Eastern Europe, practically overnight in 2014.
Vladimir Putin redrew the Crimean border that had been recognised as a part of an independent Ukraine for 23 years by sending troops to overrun it.
So to simply accept Crimea as Russian land can be to ‘violate’ Ukraine’s structure, Zelensky said.
Yulia Svyrydenko, the Ukrainian economy minister, agreed.
Writing on X, she said: ‘Ukraine is able to negotiate — but to not give up. There will probably be no agreement that hands Russia the stronger foundations it must regroup and return with greater violence.
Vice President JD Vance called on Ukraine to simply accept the American peace deal today, one which closely aligns with Putin’s wants.
Putin has long said that he would sign a peace agreement wherein Ukraine withdraws troops from the 4 provinces he abruptly annexed in 2022.
The deal says that Ukraine and Russia would ‘freeze’ territorial lines, leaving Russian forces deep inside occupied eastern Ukraine. It will also stop Ukraine from joining NATO.
‘We’ve issued a really explicit proposal to each the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say yes or for america to walk away from this process,’ US Vice President JD Vance told reporters in India today.
‘The one method to really stop the killing is for the armies to each put down their weapons, to freeze this thing and to get on with the business of really constructing a greater Russia and a greater Ukraine.’
Lower-level diplomats from the UK, France, Germany, Ukraine and the US gathered for peace talks led by Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
‘We’re working at pace with US, Ukraine and European allies to finish the war and secure a just and lasting peace, with senior official talks in London today,’ Lammy said.
As officials met within the English capital to speak, the lives of extraordinary people in war-torn Ukraine and Russia continued.
Nine Ukrainians were killed and 54 injured after a Russian drone hit a bus transporting employees within the eastern city of Marhanets this morning.
Zelensky said the attack was a ‘deliberate war crime’ on an ‘extraordinary bus… clearly a civilian goal’.
In Moscow, three explosions rocked the town’s central business district just quarter-hour from the Kremlin this afternoon.
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