Trump Says 'Good Chance' of Russia, Ukraine Deal This Week

Michael Allen, former White House national security official and managing director of Beacon Global Strategies, breaks down the latest in cease fire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

The US will hold talks Wednesday in London with Ukrainian and European officials as President Donald Trump pushes for a deal to halt Russia’s full-scale invasion.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump’s special envoys Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg are expected to meet with the foreign ministers and national security advisers from France, Germany, the UK and Ukraine, people familiar with the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

“Ukraine, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States — we are ready to move forward as constructively as possible, just as we have done before, to achieve an unconditional ceasefire, followed by the establishment of a real and lasting peace,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Monday on the platform X after a phone call with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “An unconditional ceasefire must be the first step toward peace, and this Easter made it clear that it is Russia’s actions that are prolonging the war.”

A spokesperson for the US National Security Council didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The gathering is intended as a follow-up to meetings in Paris last week, where the US shared proposals to enable a ceasefire and peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. The US is prepared to ease sanctions on Moscow and to recognize Russia’s control over the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea as part of a deal, Bloomberg previously reported.

The US proposal would effectively freeze the front line in the war that’s now in its fourth year, with Russia retaining de facto control of most of the other territory its forces currently occupy in Ukraine’s east and south. Ukraine’s aim of joining NATO would be off the table, too, though any agreement would have to include security guarantees for Kyiv to ensure any deal holds, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin seized Crimea in 2014, then staged a referendum to justify the Kremlin’s takeover. The US and the European Union responded with sanctions, and Russia’s annexation of the peninsula hasn’t gained international recognition. A US decision to recognize Russia’s occupation of Crimea would potentially undermine the international order established after World War II that opposed one country taking territory from another by force.

Zelenskiy has repeatedly said he won’t cede territory to Russia.

“There’s a very good chance” that Ukraine and Russia can reach a deal this week, Trump told reporters on Monday at the White House. Good meetings have been held on Russia and Ukraine, he said.

Trump declared during his election campaign that he’d bring the war to a rapid end as president. On Friday, he signaled the US may walk away from efforts to end the war if a deal can’t be found soon to halt Russia’s February 2022 invasion. While Trump didn’t put a deadline on it, Rubio said Washington needed to see in “a matter of days” whether a deal was “doable in the short term.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday it had resumed military operations after the expiration of a 30-hour pause for Easter announced by Putin. Zelenskiy described the brief halt as a Kremlin publicity stunt and called on Russia to agree to extend the truce to 30 days as a first step toward a peace deal.

Putin said Monday in televised comments that he’s willing to consider a proposal by Kyiv to avoid strikes on civilian targets and is open to bilateral talks with Ukraine on the issue.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier in the day that Russia welcomed the Trump administration’s stance ruling out membership for Ukraine in the NATO military alliance. “Of course, we’re satisfied about this,” he said.

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