Trump says Russia is ready for a ceasefire deal

President Trump said Russia is ready to make a ceasefire deal with Ukraine.

“If I can solve it because of a certain ability, that will be great. And if it doesn’t happen, I will say that I think Russia is ready. And a lot of people said Russia wanted to go for the whole thing,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office.

“I think we have a deal with Russia. We have to get a deal with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, and I hope that Zelenskyy, I thought it might be easier to deal with Zelenskyy. So far, it’s been harder,” he said. “But that’s okay. It’s alright, but I think we have a deal with both.”

The war has raged since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The estimated death toll from the war is in the hundreds of thousands.

Mr. Trump said getting the war ended is “about a lot of humanity.”

He said he may meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia next month, “but most likely not. I think we’ll meet with him shortly thereafter.”

Mr. Trump said he has “no favorites” and just wants to see the war end.

“I don’t want to have any favorites. I want to have a deal done. I want to save their lives,” he said.

Mr. Trump railed against Mr. Zelenskyy earlier Wednesday for saying he wouldn’t accept a deal that has Russia keeping Crimea.

He said the comments “very harmful to the Peace Negotiations with Russia in that Crimea was lost years ago under the auspices of President Barack Hussein Obama and is not even a point of discussion.”

“Nobody is asking Zelenskyy to recognize Crimea as Russian Territory but, if he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?” he wrote Wednesday on social media. “The area also houses, for many years before ‘the Obama handover,’ major Russian submarine bases. It’s inflammatory statements like Zelenskyy’s that makes it so difficult to settle this War.”

Officials from the U.S., Ukraine, the U.K. and Europe met in London Wednesday to discuss a ceasefire deal.

Tensions are growing over the continuation of the war with no end. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that what Mr. Trump “is asking is for people to come to the negotiating table, recognizing that this has been a brutal war for far too long.”

“In order to make a good deal, both sides have to walk away a little bit unhappy, and unfortunately, President Zelenskyy has been trying to litigate this peace negotiation in the press, and that’s unacceptable to the president,” she said.