Trump blames Zelenskyy for delaying Russia ceasefire, prolonging ‘killing field’ – National

U.S. President Donald Trump is blaming Volodymyr Zelenskyy for delaying the possibility of a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, arguing that the Ukrainian president could end the war if he agreed to formally hand over Crimea to Russia as part of a proposed peace deal.

“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?” the president wrote on Truth Social in a lengthy post on Wednesday.

Russian forces annexed the Crimean peninsula during the Ukrainian revolution in February 2014.

A power vacuum created by the uprising, which came about after former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych failed to sign an agreement aligning Ukraine more closely with the EU — instead choosing to strengthen ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin — provided Russia with the opportunity to seize the area. Within just two months, Putin had declared it Russian territory.

The strategically located region gives Russia access to numerous ocean routes in the southern Atlantic and Indian oceans.

It is also home to valuable energy supplies, including offshore oil and gas stores in the Black Sea; the invasion granted Russia access to some of those vital assets.

Taking control of Crimea was also a political move and an “attempt by Russia to make any western integration with Ukraine much less attractive,” Emily Ferris, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, explained in a video on the Imperial War Museum’s website, adding that it was precursor to Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy shut down the notion of Ukraine ceding territory to Russia as part of any agreement.

“There is nothing to talk about — it is our land, the land of the Ukrainian people,” Zelenskyy said. He doubled down on Wednesday, telling media, “Stopping the killing is task number one.”

His initial rebuttal came a day before high-level talks set for Wednesday in London between U.S., European and Ukrainian officials were downgraded after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff pulled out.

Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, is attending talks in London in place of Rubio and Witkoff.

The U.S. State Department blamed the last-minute cancellation on logistical complications, but it was clear the decision caught the British Foreign Office off-guard, the BBC reported.

American diplomats instead turned their attention to Moscow, where Witkoff is set to meet with Putin for the fourth time, as a sense of urgency to end the war mounts.

On Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Vice-President JD Vance, speaking to media on the tarmac of an airport in Agra, India, told reporters that if Ukraine and Russia failed to agree on a ceasefire deal, his country would turn its back on peace talks.

“We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say ‘yes’ or for the United States to walk away from this process,” Vance said.

“We’ve engaged in an extraordinary amount of diplomacy,” he said, explaining that for a deal to be reached, both Russia and Ukraine would likely have to give up some territory.

During similar talks last week in Paris, U.S. officials presented a proposal that included allowing Russia to keep control of occupied Ukrainian territory as part of a deal, according to a European official familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, The Associated Press said.

Peace talks are ongoing.

— With files from The Associated Press

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