Trump’s message to Kyiv: Don’t expect your land back

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are expected to speak again this week as the White House seeks to revive ceasefire talks and secure a 30-day truce in Ukraine.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Mike Waltz, the US national security adviser, says a final Ukraine peace accord supported by the US would probably force Kyiv to concede ‘territory for future security guarantees’.

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are expected to speak again this week as the White House seeks to revive ceasefire talks and secure a 30-day truce in Ukraine.

Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy, who met Putin in Moscow at the end of last week, said that the Russian leader now accepted the “philosophy of President Trump” in seeking a truce in the three-year conflict.

“The President [Trump] uses the time frame ‘weeks’, and I don’t disagree with him,” Mr Witkoff told CNN. “Nobody expected progress this fast. This is a highly complicated situation and yet we’re bridging the gap between two sides.”

The optimism in the White House continues to contrast with the caution among European ­allies, however.

President Emmanuel Macron said over the weekend that Russia “does not give the impression it sincerely wants peace”.

He accused Putin of “escalating the fighting”, suggesting that he wanted to “get everything, then negotiate”.

Putin has so far given no clear answer to the ceasefire deal proposed by the US last week and ­accepted by Ukraine, aside from suggesting that it is not acceptable in its current form.

However, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, ­Alexander Grushko, on Monday said Moscow would insist on guarantees that NATO will not allow Ukraine to join and that Kyiv’s neutrality will be locked in before any lasting agreement is made.

“We will demand that iron-clad security guarantees become part of this agreement,” he said. “Part of these guarantees should be the neutral status of Ukraine, the refusal of NATO countries to accept it into the alliance.”

Responding to Mr Macron’s comments about Putin not ­wanting peace, Mr Witkoff said of his meeting with the Russian President: “I know what I heard, the body language I witnessed.”

Although the Trump administration hailed the prospect of a breakthrough, officials have cautioned against hope that Kyiv will recover territory held by Russian forces, including the Donbas and Crimea.

Mike Waltz, the US national security adviser, told ABC that a final peace accord would probably force Kyiv to concede “territory for future security guarantees”. Mr Waltz was asked whether Russia could be given the Donbas, which it annexed after the 2022 invasion, as well as Crimea, which it has ­occupied since 2014.

“Are we going to drive every Russian off of every inch of Ukrainian soil, including Crimea?” he said. “We ... have to talk about the reality of the situation on the ground.”

In an apparent concession to demands from Moscow, Mr Trump moved on Saturday to sideline his envoy for Russia and Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, a retired army general.

In a social media post, Mr Trump confirmed that Mr Kellogg, 80, would now “deal directly with President Zelensky, and Ukrainian leadership”, stripping the general of half his brief.

“He knows them well, and they have a very good working relationship together,” Mr Trump said.

Those close ties with Kyiv have been Mr Kellogg’s undoing, however. Though a staunch advocate of Mr Trump’s America First doctrine, Mr Kellogg is seen as a Russia hawk who is wary of the pitfalls of negotiating with Putin.

He was conspicuously absent from the opening rounds of talks in Saudi Arabia as Mr Witkoff, Mr Waltz and Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, took the lead in the negotiations.

Russian officials have communicated that they do not want Mr Kellogg involved in top-level discussions aimed at ending the war.

One Russian official recently told NBC News: “Too close to Ukraine. Not our kind of person, not of the calibre we are looking for.”

THE TIMES