New Delhi: Former US President Donald Trump has claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may select to finish the struggle with Russia “virtually instantly”, however warned that Ukraine should concede on two main factors: giving up its declare to Crimea and abandoning its bid to hitch NATO.
“President Zelensky of Ukraine can finish the struggle with Russia virtually instantly, if he desires to, or he can proceed to struggle,” Trump wrote on Sunday on his social media platform, Fact Social.
“No getting again Obama-given Crimea (12 years in the past, and not using a shot being fired!)… and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some issues by no means change!!!” he added.
US President Donald Trump posts, “President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can finish the struggle with Russia virtually instantly, if he desires to, or he can proceed to struggle. Keep in mind the way it began. No getting again Obama given Crimea (12 years in the past, and not using a shot being fired!), and NO GOING INTO… pic.twitter.com/78YpjX8vRZ
— ANI (@ANI) August 18, 2025
Trump’s feedback come forward of high-stakes conferences with Zelensky and a big delegation of European leaders, throughout which the previous president is predicted to push for a negotiated finish to the struggle. His social media publish appeared to preview the message he intends to ship: that Ukraine should settle for a few of Russia’s long-standing calls for if the battle is to be resolved.
The 2 circumstances Trump talked about, relinquishing claims to Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, and halting NATO aspirations, mirror key calls for made by Russian President Vladimir Putin as conditions for ending the struggle.
The remarks spotlight the diplomatic stress Zelensky might face throughout the upcoming talks, significantly as Trump positions himself as a dealmaker able to ending the struggle shortly, albeit on phrases largely aligned with Moscow’s stance.
European leaders visiting the White Home with Zelensky on Monday are involved the assembly will quantity to Trump pressuring the Ukrainian chief to simply accept the circumstances Putin put ahead of their Alaska summit final week.
They hope to glean extra data from Trump on what Russia would possibly concede as a part of a peace deal, together with what position the US would play in offering safety ensures going ahead.
“Large day on the White Home tomorrow. By no means had so many European Leaders at one time. My nice honour to host them!!!” Trump posted after his message to Zelensky.
The European delegation: French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen, Finland President Alexander Stubb and NATO Secretary Basic Mark Rutte will all be a part of Zelensky for the go to to the White Home on Monday.
Trump met Putin in Alaska on Friday however the talks didn’t yield any breakthrough on a ceasefire, although White Home envoy Steve Witkoff mentioned each leaders had agreed to supply “strong safety ensures” to Ukraine.
European Fee Chief Ursula von der Leyen hailed the information, however Zelensky, talking alongside her at a information convention in Brussels, rejected the thought of Russia providing his nation safety ensures.
“What President Trump mentioned about safety ensures is far more vital to me than Putin’s ideas, as a result of Putin won’t give any safety ensures,” he mentioned.
Zelensky later mentioned on social media that the US provide concerning safety ensures was “historic”.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who will participate within the Washington assembly together with von der Leyen and others, mentioned European leaders would ask in regards to the extent of the safety ensures provided to Ukraine in any peace settlement.
Of Moscow’s place, he mentioned: “There is just one state proposing a peace that will be a capitulation: Russia.”
Russian Overseas Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova referred to as that an “abject lie” in a press release on Telegram in a while Sunday.
Moscow had been proposing a “peaceable decision” of the battle for seven years below the phrases of the Minsk Accords, she mentioned.
Macron, she added, was making an attempt to persuade Ukraine that it may win on the battlefield even when he knew that that was “unattainable”.
Trump, who pivoted after the Alaska assembly to say he was now searching for a peace deal fairly than a ceasefire, on Sunday posted “BIG PROGRESS ON RUSSIA. STAY TUNED!” on his Fact Social platform, with out elaborating.
Trump’s sudden give attention to a peace deal aligns with the stance lengthy taken by Putin, one which Ukraine and its European allies have criticised as Putin’s means to purchase time whereas making an attempt to make battlefield positive factors.
Zelensky additionally mentioned he noticed “no signal” the Kremlin chief was ready to fulfill him and Trump for a three-way summit, as had been floated by the US President.
The leaders heading to Washington on Monday to look alongside Zelensky name themselves the “coalition of the prepared”.
On Sunday, all of the European leaders held a video assembly to organize their joint place.
Chatting with US broadcaster CNN, Witkoff mentioned: “I am hopeful that now we have a productive assembly on Monday, we get to actual consensus, we’re in a position to come again to the Russians and push this peace deal ahead and get it achieved.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, talking to NBC on Sunday, warned of “penalties” — together with the potential imposition of recent sanctions on Russia — if no peace deal was reached on Ukraine.
European leaders have expressed unease from the outset over Trump’s outreach to Putin, who has demanded Ukraine abandon its ambitions to hitch the EU or NATO. They have been excluded from Trump’s summit with Putin.
Witkoff, in his CNN interview, mentioned the method of providing “game-changing” safety ensures would contain territorial “concessions”.
Based on an official briefed on a name Trump held with Zelensky and European leaders as he flew again from Alaska, the US chief supported a Putin proposal that Russia take full management of two japanese Ukrainian areas in alternate for freezing the frontline in two others.
Putin “de facto calls for that Ukraine depart Donbas”, an space consisting of the Donetsk and Lugansk areas in japanese Ukraine, which Russia at present solely partly controls, the supply mentioned.
In alternate, Russian forces would halt their offensive within the Black Sea port area of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, the place the principle cities are nonetheless below Ukrainian management.
A number of months into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia in September 2022 claimed to have annexed all 4 Ukrainian areas regardless that its troops nonetheless don’t totally management any of them.
On the bottom in Ukraine, the battle rages on, with each Kyiv and Moscow launching assault drones.
Ukrainian authorities reported early Monday that 13 individuals have been wounded in Russian strikes on Kharkiv and the Sumy area.
(With inputs from IANS)