US President Donald Trump said on Monday that a resolution to the more than four-year-old war in Ukraine is 'getting closer than people realize' and that he will discuss the conflict during talks at the NATO summit in Turkiye this week. Trump made his remarks after speaking over the weekend with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.
No Specific Reason Given for Optimism
Trump gave no specific reason for his assertion that a solution to the conflict was in sight. Meanwhile, overnight Russia launched missiles and drones at Kyiv and the surrounding region, killing at least 28 people. In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he believed the US position on resolving the conflict remained unchanged. However, Zelensky, in an interview with the Financial Times, said he believed the US president was viewing the conflict in a new light due to recent Ukrainian successes.
'This is one that I think we're getting much closer than people realize. And President Putin wants it to end. I will tell you that very strongly,' Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. He said he had held a 'good call' with Putin on the Fourth of July holiday, a conversation that a Kremlin aide said lasted 85 minutes and featured the US president offering to help find a path toward peace.
Zelensky Also Wants to End the War
'And President Zelensky actually wants it to end now. And we're going to be going to NATO, and we're going to be talking about it, and I think we're going to get it,' Trump said. 'I think we're going to get it ended. It's been a terrible situation.' Trump is scheduled to meet Zelensky on Wednesday on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara. A US official said the idea of the talks was to make a renewed push to end the war, and that Trump would likely follow up with Putin after talking to Zelensky.
Kremlin Sees Consistent US Line on Ukraine
In Moscow, Peskov said Putin and Trump had agreed to continue contacts 'in the near future' and that Moscow believed the US president held a consistent position on the conflict. 'You know, President Trump, the US president, has a fairly consistent stance, and all these fabrications about him supposedly changing his views like a weather vane are, of course, untrue,' Peskov told reporters. 'He is consistent and confident in his understanding of what is happening, but, most importantly, he (Trump) is open to listening to the information that is conveyed to him by Putin.'
Zelensky also described his weekend phone conversation with Trump as 'very good.' In his comments to the Financial Times, he said the US president had told him that Ukraine 'is doing very well' with its long-range drone campaign targeting Russian oil industry infrastructure, which has triggered fuel shortages inside Russia. Asked whether that was enough to bring Trump firmly onto Ukraine's side, Zelensky said he felt the American leader was viewing the conflict in a new light. 'President Trump wants to be where there's success,' the newspaper quoted Zelensky as saying. 'That's tied to many things — not only to his personality, but to the approaching (US midterm) elections, to his status, to his belief in how this war can be ended.'
Since an Oval Office encounter between Trump and Zelensky last year degenerated into a shouting match, the Ukrainian president has worked to improve their relations through a series of meetings. Trump's latest comments made no reference to his earlier call for the Ukrainian leader to move quickly in agreeing to a deal with Russia because he lacked 'the cards' for negotiations.
