US schedules meetings and negotiations with Ukraine, Russia, and other parties – Trump

The President of the United States announced that his administration has scheduled meetings and preliminary discussions with the Ukrainian, Russian, and other parties regarding the end of the war.

CNN and Radio Svoboda report this.

Upon arriving at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., Donald Trump told reporters:

"As you know, we had a hectic weekend, we dealt with Israel, we dealt with Ukraine and Russia.

We're dealing with Ukraine and Russia, we have meetings and talks scheduled with various parties, including Ukraine and Russia."

He did not provide specific details but noted that developments are currently progressing in a positive direction.

"And I think those discussions are actually going pretty well," Trump said.

According to CNN, Trump's comments were made after Dmytro Lytvyn, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, urged Kyiv's allies to adopt a "deeper approach" to addressing the issue. 

These remarks followed statements by Trump's special representative for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, who told Reuters that the United States is advocating for elections in Ukraine by the end of the year, contingent upon a ceasefire with Russia being reached in the coming months.

In response, Zelensky's adviser, Lytvyn, said that Kellogg's plan is a failure if it consists only of a ceasefire and holding elections.

"In response to Reuters' question about Mr. Kellogg's statements about a ceasefire and elections – we have not seen the full interview with Kellogg, only a few quotes about the elections, so it is difficult to assess his position thoroughly.

But if his plan is only a ceasefire and elections, then this is a failed plan – Putin cannot be intimidated by just these two things," Lytvyn wrote on the social network X.

Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized that achieving a diplomatic resolution to the war requires an effective plan for a just peace and a strong negotiating position for Ukraine. He warned that excluding Kyiv from negotiations between the United States and Russia regarding the war in Ukraine would be a "hazardous" scenario. Zelensky asserted that not only the United States and Russia but also Ukraine and the European Union should participate in such negotiations.

For reference:

As noted by experts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is demonstrating his disinterest in a negotiated ceasefire and continues to seek to destroy Ukrainian statehood.

At the same time, it is not the first time that Putin and his representatives have made statements portraying Russia as ready for negotiations to resolve the war in Ukraine, which are not taking place because Kyiv allegedly does not want them.

In reality, Putin is demanding that Kyiv refuse to join NATO and internationally recognize the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson regions, and Crimea as Russian territories.

On January 29, Putin said that he was ready to "allocate people" for negotiations with Ukraine to end the war but called the talks themselves "illegitimate." In response, Zelensky said that with such statements, Putin only confirmed that he was afraid of negotiations and was trying to drag out the war. According to Ukraine's head of state, Russia is doing everything possible to either continue a full-scale invasion instead of real peace or to get a pause for preparing a new aggression.