Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, 17 August 2025. EPA/OLIVIER HOSLET
US President Donald Trump urged Ukraine to cede Crimea to Russia and renounce its ambitions to join NATO in order to end the war on Sunday, just hours before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Washington for high-stakes talks at the White House on Monday.
“President Zelensky of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that it was unrealistic for Kyiv to demand the return of Russian-occupied Crimea, which he noted had been annexed “12 years ago, without a shot being fired” during the presidency of Barack Obama. He also insisted there should be no Ukrainian membership of NATO.
The US president also reposted comments from another Truth Social user arguing that “Ukraine must be willing to lose some territory to Russia” or it would “keep losing more land” the longer the war went on.
Trump’s remarks echoed conditions put forward by the Kremlin to end its war in Ukraine, with Reuters reporting earlier on Sunday that Vladimir Putin had demanded international recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions as prerequisites for peace during his meeting with Trump in Alaska on Friday — demands the agency said would present “huge challenges” to Ukraine’s leadership.
Zelensky arrived in Washington on Sunday evening ahead of what Trump called a “big day” of talks on ending Russia’s war in Ukraine on Monday. The Ukrainian president is set to meet one-on-one with Trump on Monday afternoon before a multilateral meeting involving European leaders including UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Writing on X upon his arrival in the US capital, Zelensky said that Ukraine, Europe and the US shared a “strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably”, but that any peace must be “lasting” to prevent Russia attacking again.
“Not like it was years ago, when Ukraine was forced to give up Crimea and part of our East — part of Donbas — and Putin simply used it as a springboard for a new attack,” Zelensky said. “Or when Ukraine was given so-called ‘security guarantees’ in 1994, but they didn’t work”.
“I hope that our joint strength with America, with our European friends, will force Russia into a real peace,” the Ukrainian president concluded.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN that, while Russia remained opposed to Ukraine joining NATO, Putin had agreed to accept Western countries providing Kyiv with “robust” security guarantees offering “Article 5-like protection” against future attacks — with Zelensky hailing Washington’s commitment to participate in such guarantees as “historic”.
