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President Donald Trump has worked ardently to bring an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine — a war that has resulted in millions of casualties and transformed much of Eastern Ukraine into drone-netted wasteland.
Fresh off brokering a tenuous ceasefire in Gaza and speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday.
'They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide!'
While Trump suggested on social media that the meeting was "cordial," there are reports indicating that it descended at times into a "shouting match" reminiscent of Zelenskyy's disastrous visit to the White House in February.
Zelenskyy evidently saw his trip to the White House as an opportunity to ask Trump for long-range Tomahawk missiles. The Ukrainian president seeks to use such missiles in concert with long-range drones to strike targets deep inside Russia, including military bases, factories, oil infrastructure, and command centers — as well as Moscow — in hopes of turning the tide in the war and improving Kiev's position in future negotiations.
In exchange for the Tomahawk cruise missiles, Zelenskyy — who spoke earlier in the day with representatives of Raytheon, the manufacturer of Tomahawk missiles — indicated that Kiev could provide the U.S. with some advanced drones.
Trump, who allegedly cursed repeatedly during the meeting, poured cold water on the idea. Rather than hand over weapons that he believes America should retain for its own defense and, in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, would amount to an escalation, Trump once again impressed on Zelenskyy the need to negotiate an immediate end to the war.
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Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Trump echoed this suggestion Friday evening on Truth Social, writing, "I told him, as I likewise strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing, and make a DEAL! Enough blood has been shed, with property lines being defined by War and Guts."
"They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide!" continued Trump. "No more shooting, no more Death, no more vast and unsustainable sums of money spent."
The Financial Times, citing a European official briefed on the meeting, reported that Trump told Zelenskyy that it was imperative that he make a deal to end the war, allegedly noting that "if [Putin] wants it, he will destroy you."
There are, however, conflicting reports about the contentiousness of Trump's meeting with Zelenskyy.
One EU diplomat told Politico, for instance, that the meeting was "not as bleak as reported."
A pair of Republican foreign policy experts with direct knowledge of the meeting suggested Trump had not engaged in any cursing.
One GOP foreign policy expert characterized the meeting as "a dud for the Ukrainians rather than a disaster." The other suggested that "it wasn’t a bad meeting, just a victim of poor timing and inflated expectations."
Blaze News has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.
The European official further told the Times that at one point during the meeting, Trump brushed aside one of Ukraine's maps of the battlefield, saying the sight of it made him "sick."
"This red line, I don't even know where this is," Trump allegedly said.
Russia presently occupies around 20% of the entire country and most of the Donbas — including all of the Luhansk region, most of the largely Russian-speaking Donetsk region, much of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, and parts of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
While Moscow has made gradual territorial gains over the past year, recent analysis by the Institute for the Study of War suggests that Russian forces are several years away from capturing the remainder of the Donetsk region, which "contains territory that is strategically vital for Ukraine’s defense and defense industrial base."
Two senior officials familiar with Trump's conversation last week with Putin told the Washington Post that the Russian president has conditioned ending the war on Ukraine's surrender of Donetsk — a proposal Zelenskyy apparently remains unwilling to accept.
Zelenskyy — whose term officially ended in May 2024 — told reporters after his meeting with the American president that Putin had asked Trump to "withdraw from the Donbas — not the entire east, but specifically the Donbas, that is, completely from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions."
The Ukrainian president suggested further that he "made it clear" to Trump "that Ukraine's stance in this context remains unchanged."
"Trump wants a quick victory — an end to the war — and that would be a victory for all reasonable people," Zelenskyy later told reporters. "Putin, however, wants the total occupation of Ukraine."
Zelenskyy said in an address on Saturday, "We will give nothing to the aggressor."
'Zelenskyy was very negative.'
President Trump said in an interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo that aired on Sunday, "[Putin is] going to take something. I mean, they fought, and he has a lot of property. I mean, you know, he's won certain property."
Trump told reporters on Sunday, "We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are — the battle lines."
As for the Donbas region, Trump said, "I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia. You leave it the way it is right now."
Although Zelenskyy suggested the needle had been moved where ending the war was concerned, another European official briefed on the Friday meeting told the Financial Times that "Zelenskyy was very negative" after the American president sent him on his way.
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