“If I got Russia to give up Moscow as part of the Deal, the Fake News, and their PARTNER, the Radical Left Democrats, would say I made a terrible mistake and a very bad deal,” he posted on Truth Social, his media site.
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“That’s why they are the FAKE NEWS! Also, they should talk about the 6 WARS, etc., I JUST STOPPED!!! MAGA”
White House officials argue that Trump has negotiated peace deals between Thailand and Cambodia, Pakistan and India, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Serbia and Kosovo, Egypt and Ethiopia, Israel and Iran, and Azerbaijan and Armenia. Trump did not name the six wars he was referring to.
In a signal of his attitude to the Ukraine peace talks, he also forwarded a post on Truth Social from a private citizen that said: “Ukraine must be willing to lose some territory to Russia otherwise the longer the war goes on they will keep losing even more land!!”
Zelensky joined von der Leyen in Brussels on Sunday – early on Monday, AEST – to demonstrate unity before flying to the US capital.
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“Putin does not want to stop the killings. But he must do it,” Zelensky said.
“We need real negotiations, which means they can start where the front line is now. The contact line is the best line for talking.”
Russia has seized most of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine and has large parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south, as well as the Crimea.
Putin is seeking a peace agreement that secures Russian control of this territory and places curbs on the Ukrainian military as well as blocking Ukraine from joining NATO.
In an important message about the US approach to a peace deal, Trump’s top officials told American television networks that the US would offer security guarantees to Ukraine so it was protected in any agreement with Russia.
Macron warned on the weekend that Putin had broken peace agreements in the past, highlighting European concerns that a security guarantee from Trump would be too weak to prevent Russia sparking future conflicts with its neighbours.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff framed this as a concession extracted from Putin and said the Russian leader accepted that the US would offer security guarantees to Ukraine that are similar to those offered to NATO members under Article 5 of the NATO treaty.
“We were able to win the following concession, that the United States could offer Article 5-like protection,” he told CNN on Sunday in the US.
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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke of security guarantees in an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, but he was challenged on this when the interviewer played remarks from Rubio when he was a senator in 2022 and he said Putin could not be trusted.
“He’s never kept a deal they’ve ever signed, and he’s lied all – he lies all the time,” Rubio said in March 2022, soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“And I don’t know why, but he plays us like a violin in the West, because the West wants to believe that you can cut a deal with everybody. You can’t cut a deal with guys like this. He’s a professional, experienced liar.”
Asked about that remark, Rubio said it explained why the US was now considering security guarantees.
“That’s why the deal has to have enforceable mechanisms in it. That’s why the deal has to have things like security guarantees,” he said.
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