Zelensky offers olive branch to Russia and Trump in bid to end war

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that peace with Russia is possible if Moscow agrees to certain conditions, as the Kremlin also eyed an end to the war but for different reasons.

Zelensky, whose country has been fending off a full-scale Russian invasion for three years, also made clear he bears no grudges following a fractious meeting with US President Donald Trump last week. He thanked Trump for his leadership and arms deliveries.

“Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer,” Zelensky wrote on X following US accusations that he did not want to end the war enough, prompting Trump to even suspend US military aid to Kiev.

“My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts,” the Ukrainian leader added in a carefully-worded post.

“We are ready to work fast to end the war, and the first stages could be the release of prisoners and truce in the sky — ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure — and truce in the sea immediately, if Russia will do the same.”

Zelensky is hoping for a reset in relations with Washington and also said he was still ready to sign a minerals and security exchange deal with the US – which an angry Trump refused to finalize last week.

“We remember the moment when things changed when President Trump provided Ukraine with Javelins [missiles]. We are grateful for this. Our meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way,” Zelensky said.

“Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it in any time and in any convenient format.”

Kremlin hopes US move pushes Kiev to peace

Russia meanwhile said a peace process was more likely following the suspension of US military aid to Ukraine.

According to the Russian news agency Interfax, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We have yet to figure out the details but if it’s true, then this is a decision that really can push the Kiev regime towards a peace process.”

Russia has repeatedly accused Zelensky of having no interest in peace negotiations and preferring to continue the war, started by Moscow in February 2022. Trump seemingly siding with Russia has led to dismay among other Western nations.

The Trump administration launched bilateral talks with Moscow last month to negotiate an end to the conflict, as well as potentially normalizing ties between the two nations which have been strained since before the war.

Peskov on Tuesday stressed the need for Washington to lift sanctions imposed on Russia before the relationship could be restored.

“We consider them to be illegal,” the Kremlin spokesman said of the punitive measures, some of which were implemented during Trump’s first term, before being substantially expanded by Joe Biden amid the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the suspension of US aid deliveries to Ukraine has already taken effect.

“Reports from the border, from our hub in Jasionka, confirm the announcements by the US side,” Tusk said in Warsaw.

There is no reason to believe that the US announcement was “just empty words,” the Polish news agency PAP quoted Tusk as saying.

Europe has widely condemned Trump’s move and he gained an ulikely critic on Tuesday.

French far-right figurehead Marin Le Pen, who has often agreed with Trump, slammed the suspension of US military aid to Ukraine.

“This is very cruel to the Ukrainian soldiers who are fighting for the patriotic defence of their country,” Le Pen, from France’s far-right National Rally party, told the newspaper Le Figaro.

“I consider the brutality of this decision to be reprehensible.”