Washington: President Donald Trump said he is hopeful that Russia will agree to a 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine even as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday termed it as a positive step and said it is up to the US to convince Russia to accept it.
Senior officials from the US and Ukraine held talks in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday focussing on ending the over three year war between Moscow and Kyiv, which gave an indication to accept a 30-day ceasefire.
“A while ago, Ukraine has agreed to the ceasefire. Now we go to Russia and hopefully President Putin will agree to it also,” Trump said here soon after the Jeddah announcement.
“If we get Russia to do it, that will be great. If we can’t, we keep going on and on and people are going to get killed,” he said in another video posted on his TruthSocial account.
He also spoke about meetings with Russia soon, in an apparent reference to Steve Witkoff, his special envoy, who is likely to visit Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
President Zelenskyy said the American side understands his country’s arguments and considers their proposals and added that he is “grateful to President Trump for the constructive conversation
between our teams.”