Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the US has given Ukraine and Russia yet another deadline to reach a peace settlement, and is now proposing the war should end by June. The Ukrainian president also told reporters that both sides had been invited to further talks next week.
Zelenskyy said the Trump administration “will probably put pressure” on Ukraine and Russia to end the war by the beginning of the summer. “They say they want to get everything done by June,” he said. “They will do everything to end the war and they want a clear schedule of all events.”
He told reporters that if the new deadline of June was not met, Washington would probably put pressure on both sides to meet.
Before Donald Trump took office, he promised to “end the war in 24 hours”. Later, his special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, suggested both sides could reach an agreement within 100 days of Trump’s inauguration.
After this failed to occur, the US president set a new deadline for a deal in August last year, which also passed without any sign of peace, and in December he said a draft agreement to end the war was nearly “95% done”.
Two days of US-led peace talks to end the war took place this week in Abu Dhabi but did not produce a breakthrough, although Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said the trilateral negotiations had been “genuinely constructive”.
Zelenskyy said on Saturday that the Trump administration was proposing to host the next round of trilateral talks in the US, probably in Miami, in a week’s time. “We confirmed our participation,” he said.
He hinted that the new June deadline for peace could be linked to Trump’s midterm elections campaign. “The [midterm] elections are definitely more important for them [the Americans]. Let’s not be naive.”
He added: “If the Russians are really ready to end the war, then it is really important to set a deadline.”
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