Donald Trump has given an update on the progress of peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. The US President believes there is a still a “very good chance” of bringing the war to an end and is expected to talk to Vladimir Putin later this week.
His comments come despite Putin’s apparent reluctance to accept the terms of a 30-day ceasefire agreed last week between Washington and Kyiv. Trump told reporters on Sunday that a lot of work had been done over the weekend by peace negotiators.
Referring to his upcoming phone call with Putin, he said: “We will be talking about land.
“We will be talking about power plants … we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia.”
He then added, ominously for Ukraine as it suggests the wartorn country may need to give up some of its assets, that negotiators were already talking about how to “divide up certain assets”.
Trump’s approach to negotiations has left many Western allies concerned that any peace deal negotiated by Trump will amount to a surrender of Ukraine to the Kremlin.
Many believe Putin’s main objective still remains making Ukraine a vassal state of Russia – in other words a country that is economically, militarily and politically dependent on Moscow.
There has been much speculation that the US President is in thrall to Putin, and will not act as an honest broker in the peace negotiations.
However, a leading Russian opposition figure, who has close contacts with the White House administration, denied that Trump is a “friend of Putin’s”.
Ilya Ponomarev told the Express: “He’s not (a friend), that’s for sure. But one thing is that, in general, Trump shares Putin’s main idea of spheres of influence.
“He really believes that there are special nations which have special rights and that they have their special interests.
“And it’s better to grant them instead of contain them or fight them.”