Trump pushes Ukraine to accept peace deal, saying it is losing

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. President Trump dialed up pressure on Ukraine to swiftly accept a U.S.-designed peace plan, hardening his position toward the embattled country and its European backers, who insist U.S. security guarantees are vital to a peace deal.

Exacerbating tensions between Europe and Washington, Trump lambasted European leaders as “weak" and said Russia holds the cards in any peace negotiation with Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “is going to have to get on the ball and start accepting things," Trump said late Monday in an interview with Politico, adding that Ukraine “is losing." Russia is slowly advancing on the battlefield at a massive cost to men and materiel. Zelensky earlier on Monday said he wasn’t willing to concede Ukrainian land to Russia despite U.S.

pressure to do so. He echoed what European officials have said for days: Without clear security guarantees, including a U.S. commitment to backstop European forces, it is risky for Ukraine to make significant concessions and for Europe to follow through on the security guarantees it has worked on.

“The strongest security guarantees we can get are from the United States," Zelensky said Monday while traveling from London to Brussels. He said they can’t be “empty promises, but legally binding, voted through the U.S. Congress." Zelensky said the issue was under discussion.

Ukraine and European national-security advisers worked on another version of the proposal which is now ready to present to the U.S., he said Tuesday on X. “Together with the American side, we expect to swiftly make the potential steps as doable as possible," he wrote. Many European officials have said privately that differences among Russia, the U.S.