The US President, Donald Trump, bears an entirely different opinion as that offered by the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, relating to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions with regard to the war in Ukraine. In his recent interview, Trump maintained that Putin wants to end the war, while Zelensky remains pessimistic on the Russian leader’s peace overtures warning that he can’t be trusted.
Trump suggested to reporters on Sunday that he is sure if Putin would be willing to end the war in Ukraine. The former first man claimed to have talked so much with the Russian leader, adding that he was so convinced it would be better not to widen the war outside the borders of Ukraine. “I think he wants to stop fighting. I see that. We spoke long and hard,” Trump said, referring to conversations with Putin and including a meeting with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. He emphasized further Russia’s army strengths and victories by saying, “They defeated Hitler and they defeated Napoleon.”
Trump dismissed, among other territorial intrigues, the question of whether all of Ukraine is out to Putin by saying he asked it directly from him. “I think he wants to stop,” Trump said. “If he’s going to go on, that would have been a big problem for us.” The former president added that both leaders would like a resolution to the war: Putin himself and even Zelensky.
Zelensky, however, was on the more cautious side, via an interview broadcast in NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” While admitting that Trump would always make the best top world leader, the president warned him, saying, “don’t trust his reassurance about peace.” “He is a liar,” said Zelensky, because mainly he believed that Putin cannot be trusted to keep any peace agreements. The president of Ukraine is also worried that Putin’s next target might be the NATO countries themselves, as he cited intelligence reports about troop activities in Belarus and prospective threats to Poland and Lithuania.
Regarding Trump, the same thing said for all concerns that move in the line with reports from Zelensky on fears; Trump completely rejected that under any circumstances Putin would wage war against NATO. “No, I don’t agree. I don’t agree. Not even a little bit,” Trump asserted, indicating a huge gap between the two leaders on how to deal with their situation evolving.
This is all happening as rival international actors are trying their hand at brokering peace amid the third ongoing year of the Russia-Ukraine war, with no full or general end in sight. While Zelensky sought more assurance from the West, it appeared that Trump’s rhetoric strayed from the norm and different from that of other non-Western leaders, directing more attention towards engaging Putin directly to bring about the end of the war.
