US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodimir Zelanski hoped to play Shanti broker between Russia and Kiev after a weeks of an hour after a fierce exchange at the White House.
In Wednesday’s call, the two leaders were described as “very good” and “positive”, Zelansky said that permanent peace could be obtained with “with the US, with President Trump and under the US leadership”. He also said that the first step towards ending the Russia-Ukraine war is to end the energy and other citizen infrastructure attacks. He thanked the US for his military support, especially the Javelin missiles, requesting more air defense resources.
Trump also suggested the proposal of Ukrainian energy infrastructure, especially Russian-accepted zaporizhia nuclear power plant to avoid attacks. US State Department spokesman Tami Bruce said, “It is probably somewhat beneficial to have an economic relationship with the nation, which has a history of being able to protect itself and protect your friends.” A statement by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and State Secretary Marco Rubio said that the American ownership of plants would be “best protection”.
The US-Ukraine Minerals deal was also discussed, while the White House press secretary Karolin Levitt said that the US is “beyond minerals” and focuses more on peace talks.
Trump also asked Zelansky that “about the children who had gone missing from Ukraine during the war, which were abducted”, while vowed to work with both sides to return the children.
Trump filled his phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin to Zelancesi, while the two agreed to stay in touch at the “highest level”.
In a post on his truth social media account, Trump described the call as “very good”. He wrote, “Most of the discussion was based on the call with President Putin yesterday to align in terms of their requests and needs to both Russia and Ukraine.” Zelansky said that the phone call was “positive”, “frank”, and “very important”.
Zelansky said that Ukraine and United States officials may meet in the second round of peace talks in Saudi Arabia in the coming days and discuss issues related to implementing partial ceasefire.
Trump and Putin have a direct conversation to discuss the ongoing struggle, the latest Tuesday is a 90 -minute call. During the latest exchanges between Trump and Putin, the latter rejected an immediate and full ceasefire, but agreed to stop the attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 30 days. But the attacks remained overnight, Zelanski accused Russia of targeting energy facilities.
