Zelenskyy wants ‘strong ties’ to United States – DW – 02/20/2025

Hungary has said it opposes additional European Union support for Ukraine proposed by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas that would amount to about €20 billion ($21 billion).

“We will not support spending European taxpayers’ money to prolong the war,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto posted on X, adding that Hungary also would not support extending EU sanctions on Russian and Belarusian individuals.

It remained unclear to EU officials where Szijjarto got the total of €20 billion, when the envisaged support came to €6 billion.

Szijjarto said Trump’s election in the United States had shifted global politics towards peace.

“We are closer than ever to a solution, as direct US-Russia talks have revived hope for peace,” Szijjarto said.

While Hungary has long maintained close relations with Russia, it has also not completely blocked EU sanctions on Russia or the 27-country bloc’s aid to Ukraine.

As the leaders of Ukraine and the United States traded barbs this week, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy said Thursday he hoped for a strong relationship with Washington.

“Strong Ukraine-US relations benefit the entire world,” Zelenskyy said following what he described as a “productive meeting” with US envoy Keith Kellogg that addressed the “battlefield situation, how to return our prisoners of war, and effective security guarantees.”

In a post on X, Zelenskyy said, “We must and can ensure that peace is strong and lasting — so that Russia can never return with war.”

“Ukraine is ready for a strong, effective investment and security agreement with the president of the United States,” he added. “We have proposed the fastest and most constructive way to achieve results. Our team is ready to work 24/7.”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk pushed for additional air policing, stronger Baltic defenses and reinforced European Union borders with Russia, citing growing security concerns.

“Enough talking, it’s time to act!” Tusk wrote on X. “Let’s finance our aid for Ukraine from the Russian frozen assets.”

French President Emmanuel Macron hosted two meetings with European leaders earlier this week to discuss how to move faster to increase defense spending, and how to move more quickly as Donald Trump’s administration speeds up diplomacy to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The United States is ready to reduce — or increase — sanctions on Russia depending on the outcome of talks to end the war in Ukraine, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said.

President Donald Trump has rattled Kyiv and its European backers by conducting talks with Moscow without consulting US allies in Ukraine or Europe.

In reply to a question from Bloomberg News asking if the Treasury had plans for looser and stricter sanctions on Russia depending on the talks, Bessent replied: “I think that’d be a very good characterization.”

Bessent had earlier proposed an offer to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy for Ukraine to hand over much of the country’s minerals to the United States in exchange for US support. Kyiv rejected the offer.

“President Zelensky, when I met with him, assured me that he’d be signing the minerals deal in Munich. He has not,” added Bessent, referring to last weekend’s Munich Security Conference.

US Vice President JD Vance defended President Donald Trump’s negotiations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. He also said an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine was near.

“How are you going to end the war unless you’re talking to Russia?” Vance said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.

“I really believe we’re on the cusp of peace in Europe for the first time in three years,” he added.

Robust security guarantees are needed to achieve a lasting peace for Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said during a visit to Slovakia.

“It is vital that any deal reached brings an enduring peace that Russia will never again try to take one more square kilometer of Ukrainian land,” he told reporters in Bratislava.

“This will require robust (…) security guarantees, and NATO allies are actively discussing what that might entail,” Rutte added.

The NATO chief also stressed that Europe has a vital role to play in securing peace in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine did not give a press conference or any public statements following their meeting in Kyiv.

“At the request of the American side, the format of the meeting provides for protocol filming and does not include statements or questions,” Zelenskyy’s spokesperson Sergiy Nykyforov told reporters.

Earlier in the day, Kellogg met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and Ruslan Stefanchuk, the Chairperson of Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada.

The United States opposes labeling Russia an aggressor in a G7 statement on the third anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Financial Times reported, citing five Western officials familiar with the matter.

The participation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a virtual G7 summit on Monday has also not yet been agreed upon, the officials said.

US envoys have objected to the phrase “Russian aggression” and similar descriptions used by G7 leaders since 2022 to describe the conflict, the Western officials said.

The world’s leading economies have traditionally issued a statement of support on February 24, the day the full-scale invasion began three years ago.

The disagreement comes after US President Donald Trump blamed Ukraine for the war, described Zelenskyy as a “dictator without elections,” and suggested that Russia should be invited back into the G7.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer backed Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a phone call after US President Donald Trump claimed the Ukrainian president was “a dictator without elections.”

In the call, the UK prime minister gave Zelensky his support “as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader.”

Starmer also said it was “perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time as the UK did during World War Two,” according to a Downing Street spokesperson.

Zelenskyy was elected president of Ukraine in May 2019. Elections in Ukraine were previously scheduled for 2024 but were not held due to martial law.

A day after a heated exchange between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the White House urged Kyiv to rein in criticism and quickly sign a minerals deal pushed by Trump.

“They need to tone it down and take a hard look and sign that deal,” Mike Waltz, the White House national security adviser, said in an interview with Fox News.

The pushback from Ukraine on the mineral deal and how Trump is conducting peace talks is simply unacceptable, Waltz said, given everything the United States has done for Ukraine.

However, Waltz said that US differences with Ukraine were not irreconcilable, saying, “The president also said how much he loves the Ukrainian people.”

Waltz also denied that US allies and Ukraine were not consulted in Trump’s push to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.

“There’s a term for this in diplomacy. It’s called shuttle diplomacy, because bringing everybody to the table at once just hasn’t worked in the past,” he said.

Meanwhile, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Zelenskyy had assured him that Ukraine would sign a $500 billion (€478.5 billion) deal to transfer rights to Ukrainian minerals, but hadn’t signed it yet, Bloomberg News reported.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said he discussed ways to achieve a just and lasting peace with US special envoy Keith Kellogg during the latter’s visit to Ukraine.

“I affirmed Ukraine’s willingness to achieve peace through strength and our vision for the necessary steps,” Sybiha wrote on X.

He also reiterated that Ukraine’s security and the transatlantic security are indivisible.

Kellogg arrived in Ukraine on Wednesday and is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday.

For the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Monday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa are scheduled to travel to Kyiv.

“Monday, February 24, marks the third anniversary of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I have decided to be in Kyiv for that occasion, with Ursula von der Leyen to reaffirm our support to the heroic Ukrainian people and to the democratically elected president Volodymyr Zelenskyy,” Costa wrote on X.

By pointing out that Zelenskyy was democratically elected, Costa sent a clear message to US President Donald Trump, who on Wednesday called Zelenskyy a “dictator” who lacked democratic legitimacy.

Earlier, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced on X that he plans to travel to Ukraine on Monday to support Zelenskyy and Ukrainian democracy.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Moscow soon for talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, hailing Russian-Chinese relations as an increasingly important factor in stabilizing the international situation.

“We have agreed on your visit to Moscow. So our next contact will already be in the Russian Federation,” Lavrov said after talks with his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the G20 ministerial meeting in South Africa.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made headlines before the two-day gathering began by canceling his participation. The US will instead be represented by an embassy diplomat according to the State Department.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will also not attend the G20, according to the German Foreign Ministry.

The head of Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency, Kyrylo Budanov, said he believes a ceasefire in the war with Russia could happen this year.

“I think it is going to happen. There are most of the components for it to happen,” Budanov said in a YouTube interview with Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev.

“How long it will be, how effective it will be — is another question,” he added.

Budanov gave no details. Ukrainian officials have largely dismissed the idea of a ceasefire, warning that it would only give Russia time to rearm and prepare for further aggression.

Russia launched 161 drones and a dozen missiles overnight, targeting gas infrastructure in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region and hitting the electricity supply in the southern Odesa region for the second night in a row, according to Ukrainian officials.

The Ukrainian military said it shot down 80 drones and 78 were “lost,” likely due to electronic countermeasures, adding that Russia also fired about 14 missiles targeting what it called “critical infrastructure” in Kharkiv.

“The purpose of these criminal attacks is to stop the production of gas needed to meet the domestic needs of citizens and central heating,” Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Facebook.

Ukraine’s main gas production capacity, which supplies almost half of Ukraine’s gas needs, is located in the frontline regions of Kharkiv and neighboring Poltava.

Meanwhile, in the Odesa region, a “massive” drone strike injured one person and cut power to 5,000 residents, the prosecutors said. It also damaged an administrative and a residential building, as well as a private company’s storage facility, they added.