Trump says the most secure “” for reaching an agreement for Ukraine

US President Donald Trump has said he feels much safer “for reaching an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, following talks on February 18th in Saudi Arabia between American and Russian representatives.

Trump made this comment after completing talks in Riyadh between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other American officials, as well as a Russian delegation led by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“I think I have the power to end this fight”, he told reporters, speaking at a press conference at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

He said he could meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin this month and added that he would not oppose a European movement to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine, an idea discussed during a European summit in Paris on February 17th.

“If they want to do this, I fully agree to”, Trump said, adding that the United States has no plans to contribute troops to any contingent sent to Ukraine to offer security guarantees.

He also dismissed Ukraine's concern about not taking part in talks in Saudi Arabia, repeating his claim that if he were president in 2022, he would have reached an agreement with Russia to avoid the invasion.

“Today we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years”, Trump said, referring to Ukraine. “You should never have started. You could have made a deal”.

Trump did not explain what it meant, but he has often hinted that the war was initiated by Ukraine's desire to join NATO. Experts say Russia's full invasion was prompted by Putin's imperialist ambitions, not Ukraine's aspirations for NATO, which had little support from the West at the time.

Trump added that Ukraine must hold elections, saying: “This is not something coming from Russia, but from me and many other countries also”.

Other American officials have suggested that Ukraine could hold elections after a ceasefire agreement and that this would be <x0-positive for democracy”.

However, Ukraine's constitution prohibits holding elections during the war situation, which was declared when Russia began its full invasion in February 2022 and continues after several successive extensions.

The five-year mandate of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was due to end in May 2024, and Putin has said he will not negotiate with Zelensky because he will not have authority to sign a peace agreement.

In talks in Riyadh, which were the first official summits between Washington and Moscow since the 2022 invasion, Russia and the United States agreed to create negotiating teams to find a way to end the “war as soon as possible”, Rubyo said.

Yuri Usakov, Putin's foreign policy adviser, confirmed the agreement for the negotiating teams, but said it was hard “to set a date for a possible meeting between Trump and Putin.

Rubio said the European Union “should be on the table at a certain moment” due to the sanctions the bloc has imposed on Russia.

Sanctions were decided as a result of the conflict, he said in an interview for the Associated Press and CNN. To end any conflict, there must be concessions from all sides”.

Rubio stressed the need for improvements in US and Russian embassies to create missions that support peace talks, bilateral relations and co-operation in a broader sense.

If our diplomatic channels are broken, it will be very difficult to engage consistently on a range of issues, including some other problems that could hinder broader negotiations for Ukraine”, Rubio said.

He called for quick action to restore “normality” to the embassy, adding that this would be the “important to prepare the ground for the other two things we want to do. ”

Some European leaders, alarmed by the radical change in US policy towards Russia, fear Washington will make serious concessions and rewrite the continent's security structure.

Zelensky, who postponed a visit to Saudi Arabia scheduled for February 19th until next month, said any talks to end the war should be “right” and include European countries, including Turkey é, which has offered to be a negotiator.

US National Security Adviser Michael Waltz said any post-war peace guarantees should be Europe-led “, repeating the American officials' call for European allies to step up defence spending and commend Britain and France for the biggest “age for the security of Ukraine”.

During the February 17th summit in Paris, European leaders voiced readiness to offer Ukraine security guarantees, but warned that the level of these guarantees would depend on Washington's participation in the case of a comprehensive peace agreement.

France will host a second meeting on February 19th to discuss the war in Ukraine and European security. This time, Canada and other European countries that were not present at the previous emergency summit will participate. /Radio Free Europe