Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia refusing to accept a ceasefire was complicating efforts to end Moscow’s more than three-year-long conflict against his country.
“We see that Russia rebuffs numerous calls for a ceasefire and has not yet determined when it will stop the killing. This complicates the situation,” he said in a social media post late Saturday, August 16.
“If they lack the will to carry out a simple order to stop the strikes, it may take a lot of effort to get Russia to have the will to implement far greater – peaceful coexistence with its neighbors for decades.”
Trump drops Ukraine ceasefire demand after Putin summit
The comment comes after Donald Trump earlier on Saturday dropped his push for a ceasefire in Ukraine in favor of pursuing a full peace accord – a major shift announced hours after his summit with Russian leader Vladimir Putin yielded no clear breakthrough.
Prior to the high-stakes meeting in Alaska, securing an immediate cessation of hostilities had been a core demand of Trump – who had threatened “severe consequences” on Russia – and European leaders, including Zelensky, who will visit Washington on Monday.
The shift away from ceasefire would seem to favor Putin, who has long argued for negotiations on a final peace deal – a strategy that Ukraine and its European allies have criticized as a way to buy time and press Russia’s battlefield advances.
Trump spoke with Zelensky and European leaders on his flight back to Washington, saying afterward that “it was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement which would end the war.”
Ceasefire agreements “often times do not hold up,” Trump added on his Truth Social platform.
In the call, Trump expressed support for a proposal by Putin to take full control of two largely Russian-held Ukrainian regions in exchange for freezing the frontline in two others, an official briefed on the talks told AFP.
Putin “de facto demands that Ukraine leave Donbas,” an area consisting of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine, the source said.
In exchange, Russian forces would halt their offensive in the Black Sea port region of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in southern Ukraine, whose main cities are still under Ukrainian control.
Several months into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia in September 2022 claimed to have annexed all four Ukrainian regions even though its troops still do not fully control any of them.
“The Ukrainian president refused to leave Donbas,” the source said.
Trump notably also said the United States was prepared to provide Ukraine security guarantees, an assurance German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hailed as “significant progress.”
But there was a scathing assessment of the summit outcome from the European Union’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas, who accused Putin of seeking to “drag out negotiations” with no commitment to end the bloodshed.
“The harsh reality is that Russia has no intention of ending this war any time soon,” Kallas said.
Zelensky back in White House
The main diplomatic focus now switches to Zelensky’s talks at the White House on Monday.
An EU source told AFP that a number of European leaders had also been invited to attend.
The Ukrainian president’s last Oval Office visit in February ended in an extraordinary shouting match, with Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly berating Zelensky for not showing enough gratitude for US aid.
Zelensky said Saturday after a “substantive” conversation with Trump about the Alaska summit that he looked forward to his Washington visit and discussing “all of the details regarding ending the killing and the war.”
In an interview with broadcaster Fox News after his sit-down with Putin, Trump had suggested that the onus was now on Zelensky to secure a peace deal as they work towards an eventual trilateral summit with Putin.
“It’s really up to President Zelensky to get it done,” Trump said. “And I would also say the European nations, they have to get involved a little bit, but it’s up to President Zelensky.”
European pressure
The leaders of France, Britain and Germany are due to host a video call Sunday for their so-called “coalition of the willing” to discuss the way forward.
In an earlier statement, they welcomed the plan for a Trump-Putin-Zelensky summit, but added that they would maintain pressure on Russia in the absence of a ceasefire.
“We will continue to strengthen sanctions and wider economic measures to put pressure on Russia’s war economy until there is a just and lasting peace,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, the conflict in Ukraine raged on, with Kyiv announcing Saturday that Russia had launched 85 attack drones and a ballistic missile during the night.
Back in Moscow, Putin said his summit talks with Trump had been “timely” and “very useful.”
“The conversation was very frank, substantive, and, in my opinion, brings us closer to the necessary decisions,” he said.
In his post-summit statement in Alaska, Putin had warned Ukraine and European countries not to engage in any “behind-the-scenes intrigues” that could disrupt what he called “this emerging progress.”
