AGENCIES

US President Donald Trump said he remains committed to pursuing a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine despite uncertainty over the prospect of face-to-face talks between Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, CBS News said in a report published yesterday.

“I’ve been watching it, I’ve been seeing it, and I’ve been talking about it with President Putin and President Zelensky,” Trump said in a phone interview with CBS News on Wednesday. “Something is going to happen, but they are not ready yet. But something is going to happen. We are going to get it done.”

Trump earlier on Wednesday said he plans to hold talks about the war in Ukraine in coming days after his Alaska summit with Putin in August failed to achieve a breakthrough.

Meanwhile, European leaders yesterday spoke to Trump after holding a summit with Zelensky on security guarantees for Kyiv in the event of a peace accord to end Russia’s three-and-a-half war against Ukraine.

The guarantees by the so-called coalition of the willing, which remain under wraps but are expected to include ramped-up training for the Ukrainian army and deployment of troops by some European states, have angered Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday he would carry on fighting in Ukraine if a peace deal cannot be reached.

Putin also said he was ready to meet with Zelensky if the Ukrainian president came to Moscow but that any such meeting had to be well prepared and lead to tangible results. Ukraine’s foreign minister dismissed the suggestion of Moscow as a venue for such a meeting, reports AFP.

Trump told CBS News he is unhappy with the carnage between Russia and Ukraine but will keep pushing for a peace agreement.

“I think we’re going to get it all straightened out. Frankly, the Russia one, I thought, would have been on the easier side of the ones I’ve stopped, but it seems to be something that’s a little bit more difficult than some of the others,” he said.

Trump has been frustrated at his inability to get a halt to the fighting, which began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, after he initially predicted he would be able to end the war swiftly when he took office in January.

Trump also said on Wednesday that he watched China’s “beautiful ceremony” marking the end of World War Two, where Putin was seen alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“I understand the reason they were doing it, and they were hoping I was watching, and I was watching,” Trump told CBS News.