ROME — (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday called for Ukraine and Russia to meet for “very high level talks,” saying they are “very close to a deal” on ending the bloody three-year war.
Trump posted on his Truth Social site shortly after arriving in Rome for Pope Francis' funeral that it was a "good day in talks and meetings with Russia and Ukraine." His envoy, Steve Witkoff, had made a visit to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday,
“They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to ‘finish it off,’” Trump wrote. “Most of the major points are agreed to. Stop the bloodshed, NOW. We will be wherever is necessary to help facilitate the END to this cruel and senseless war!”
Trump's announcement followed him saying in an interview published Friday that “Crimea will stay with Russia," the latest example of how he has been pressuring Ukraine to make concessions to end the war while the country remains under siege.
He also earlier demanded on social media that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “IMMEDIATELY” sign a long-delayed agreement giving the United States access to his nation's mineral resources.
Progress on ending the war has seemed elusive in the months since Trump returned to the White House, and his previous claims of imminent breakthroughs have failed to come to fruition. Russia continued its bombardment of Ukraine on Friday, killing three people with a drone strike on an apartment building in a southeastern city.
Despite a rare admonishment of Putin this week, Trump's focus has largely been on urging Zelenskyy to cut a deal that would involve ceding territory to Ukraine's invader. In an interview with Time magazine, Trump described Crimea as a place where Russia has “had their submarines” and “the people speak largely Russian.”
“Crimea will stay with Russia,” Trump said. “And Zelensky understands that, and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time. It’s been with them long before Trump came along.”
When asked by reporters, Zelenskyy said he didn't want to comment on Trump's statement but repeated, as he has many times during the war, that recognizing occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian is a red line for his country.
Crimea is a strategic peninsula along the Black Sea in southern Ukraine. It was seized by Russia in 2014, while President Barack Obama was in office, years before Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022.
Trump has been accusing Zelenskyy of prolonging the war by resisting negotiations with Putin. Western European leaders, however, have accused Putin of dragging his feet in the negotiations and seeking to grab more Ukrainian land while his army has battlefield momentum.
The war could be approaching a pivotal moment as the Trump administration weighs its options. Senior U.S. officials had warned that the administration could soon give up attempts to stop the war if the two sides did not come to a settlement. That could potentially mean a halt of crucial U.S. military aid for Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters Friday as he left the White House to attend the pope's funeral, Trump said there was no deadline for the conclusion of peace talks.
“I just want to do it as fast as possible,” Trump said. Negotiators are “pretty close” to a deal, he said.
He promised to meet with foreign leaders while in Rome, and said it was “possible” he could meet with Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy said late Friday, however, that he was not sure he would make it to Rome in time for the funeral.
Witkoff's meeting with Putin on Friday was their second this month and the fourth since February. Witkoff's trip coincided with the death of a senior Russian military officer in a car bomb near Moscow.
The Kremlin released a short video of Putin and Witkoff greeting each other. “How are you, Mr. President?” Witkoff could be heard saying. “Fine, just fine, thank you,” Putin responded in rare remarks in English, as the two shook hands.
Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, who attended the talks, said the meeting lasted three hours and was “constructive” and “useful.” Further talks are expected, he said.
Putin and Witkoff discussed, “in particular, the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between representatives of the Russian Federation and Ukraine,” according to Ushakov. Delegations from the two countries last met in the weeks following Russia's February 2022 invasion of its neighbor.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” that he agreed with Trump’s opinion that negotiations “are moving in the right direction.”
Russia, he said before Trump's post late Friday, is “ready to reach a deal, but there are still some specific points — elements of this deal which need to be fine-tuned.” He declined to provide further details, according to excerpts of the interview that will air Sunday.
Meanwhile, Russia has continued its bombardment of Ukraine. A drone struck an apartment building in a southeastern Ukraine city, killing three people and injuring 10 others, officials said Friday, a day after Trump rebuked Putin for a major missile and drone attack on Kyiv that killed 12 people and injured 87.
A child and a 76-year-old woman were among the civilians killed in the nighttime drone strike in Pavlohrad, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, the head of the regional administration, Serhii Lysak, wrote on Telegram.
Russian forces fired 103 Shahed and decoy drones at five Ukrainian regions overnight, Ukraine’s air force reported. Authorities in the northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions reported damage to civilian infrastructure but no casualties.
Russian forces used Thursday's attack on Kyiv as cover to launch almost 150 assaults on Ukrainian positions along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, Zelenskyy said late Thursday.
“When the maximum of our forces was focused on defense against missiles and drones, the Russians went on to significantly intensify their ground attacks,” he wrote on Telegram.
Zelenskyy noted Thursday that Ukraine agreed to a U.S. ceasefire proposal 44 days ago, as a first step to a negotiated peace, but that Russian attacks continued.
During recent talks, Russia hit the city of Sumy, killing more than 30 civilians gathered to celebrate Palm Sunday, battered Odesa with drones and blasted Zaporizhzhia with powerful glide bombs.
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Megerian reported from Washington and Novikov reported from Kyiv, Ukraine.
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Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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