The president of the United States, Donald Trump, raised the idea that Ukraine “can be Russian one day”, since his vice president JD Vance prepares to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the end of this week.
Pressing for an end of the war of almost three years with Russia, Trump discussed the conflict in an interview with the announcer Fox News That was broadcast on Monday.
“They can make a deal, they may not make a deal. They can be Russians someday, or they may not be Russians someday, ”he said.
Trump also emphasized the harvest of a return on investment with US help to Ukraine, suggesting an exchange for kyiv’s natural resources, such as rare minerals.
“We are going to have all this money there, and I say that I want it back. And I told them that I want the equivalent, like the rare land worth $ 500 billion, ”Trump said. “And they have essentially agreed to do that, so at least we don’t feel stupid.”
Trump also confirmed on Monday that he will soon send to Ukraine his special envoy Keith Kellogg, who has the task of preparing a proposal to stop the fight.
Trump is pressing for a rapid end of the conflict, while Zelensky is asking for difficult Washington security guarantees as part of any agreement with Russia.
kyiv fears that any settlement that does not include hard military commitments, such as the membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the deployment of peace maintenance troops, will only allow the Kremlin to regroup and redende for a new stroke.
Zelensky spokesman Sergiy Nikiforov said AFP that the Ukrainian President will meet with Vance this Friday outside the Munich Security Conference.
A source at the Zelensky office said Kellogg would arrive in Ukraine on February 20, without detailing in which part of the country he would visit. His trip would arrive only a few days before the three -year anniversary of Russia’s invasion on February 24.
Zelensky asked on Monday “real peace and effective security guarantees” for Ukraine.
“Security of people, the security of our State, the security of economic relations and, of course, our sustainability of resources: not only for Ukraine, but for the whole free world,” he said.
“All this is being decided now,” Zelensky added in a video address published on social networks.
Trump meetings
Trump has said he wants to negotiate the end of the war, but has not outlined a detailed proposal to take both parties to the negotiating table.
Both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin have previously ruled out direct conversations between them, and there seems to be little ground where the two could reach an agreement.
Putin demands that Ukraine be removed from the stripes of his south and east that kyiv still has control, and considers the closest ties between Ukraine and inadmissible NATO.
Meanwhile, Zelensky has rejected any territorial concession to Moscow, although he has recognized that Ukraine could have to trust diplomatic means to ensure the return of some territory.
Russia says that he has attached five regions of Ukraine, Crimea in 2014 and then Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia in 2022, although he has no total control over them.
Zelensky said on Monday that a meeting with Trump was being organized, although an appointment had not yet been arranged, while Trump had said last week that “he would probably” meet with Zelensky in the coming days, but ruled out that he travel personally to kyiv .
He New York Post He informed on Saturday that Trump told the publication that he had spoken on the phone for Putin to talk about ending the conflict in Ukraine, saying that the Russian leader had told him that “he wants to see that people stop dying.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to confirm or deny the call.
The organizers of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) followed closely confirmed on Monday that Zelensky would attend the summit of February 14-16.
The United States delegation will include the Secretary of State of the United States Marco Rubio, as well as Kellogg and Vance, said MSC president Christoph Heusgen, a Berlin press conference.
There will be no representatives of the Russian government present, said Heusgen.
The meeting comes with Russia advancing in the East Region of Donetsk of Ukraine, where it has captured several settlements, mostly completely flattened by months of Russian bombings, during the last year.
Moscow has also carried out a campaign to bombard months against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, claiming the attacks of directed facilities that help the kyiv military
On Tuesday, Ukraine Energy Minister said the energy sector “continues to be attacked,” and kyiv “urgently applies energy supply restrictions” to “minimize possible consequences.”
