Zelenskyy said the United States has set a fresh timeline for ending the war with Russia, with Washington now pushing for a peace settlement by June and inviting both sides to further talks in the coming days.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the US has set another deadline for Ukraine and Russia to reach a peace settlement, with Washington now proposing that the war should end by June. He also said both sides had been invited to further talks next week.
Speaking to reporters, Zelenskyy said the Trump administration was likely to increase pressure on both Kyiv and Moscow to bring the conflict to an end by the start of summer. “They say they want to get everything done by June,” he said, adding that Washington wanted a clear timeline for the process.
Zelenskyy said that if the new June deadline was not met, the US would probably step up pressure on both sides to reach an agreement.
Before taking office, Donald Trump had promised to end the war in 24 hours. His special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, later suggested that a deal could be reached within 100 days of Trump’s inauguration. That did not happen. A subsequent deadline set for August last year also passed without progress, and in December Trump said a draft agreement was nearly “95 percent done”.
This week, two days of US-led peace talks were held in Abu Dhabi but failed to deliver a breakthrough. However, Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s presidential office, described the trilateral discussions as “genuinely constructive”.
Zelenskyy said on Saturday that the Trump administration had proposed hosting the next round of trilateral talks in the US, likely in Miami, in about a week. “We confirmed our participation,” he said.
He also suggested that the June deadline could be linked to Trump’s midterm election campaign, saying domestic political considerations were important for Washington. At the same time, Zelenskyy said setting a deadline would matter if Russia was genuinely ready to end the war.
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