President Donald Trump slammed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, accusing him of derailing negotiations to end the war in Ukraine while a peace deal was “very close.”
In a long post on Truth Social, Trump described Zelenskyy’s rejection of Russia’s takeover of Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014, as “very harmful” to achieving peace.
“It’s inflammatory statements like Zelenskyy’s that makes it so difficult to settle this War,” Trump wrote.
Zelenskyy has consistently rejected the suggestion that his country give up its claim to the Crimean Peninsula.
“There’s nothing to talk about here,” he said at a media conference Tuesday. “This is against our constitution.”
Trump’s post comes after months of discord between the two leaders, including a heated exchange in the Oval Office in February. The two men had a near-shouting match when Zelenskyy noted that Russia has broken previous agreements with Ukraine during a disagreement that included Vice President JD Vance.
The situation escalated when Trump raised his voice and pointed his finger at Zelenskyy, accusing him of “gambling with World War III” and being “disrespectful” to the U.S.
Trump ordered a pause on military aid, including providing Ukraine with intelligence, following the Oval Office clash.
Zelenskyy urged Trump to visit Ukraine earlier this month after Russia launched two ballistic missiles at Sumy, killing 34 people and injuring 119. He suggested that a visit to the destruction would help U.S. leadership “understand what Putin did.”
High-level talks aimed at bringing a pause to fighting in Ukraine disintegrated earlier after Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff pulled out, dealing a blow to Kyiv’s hopes for a short-term peace agreement.
While ministerial talks that had been planned in London fell apart, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, still planned to meet with Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak, who arrived in London early Wednesday with the Ukrainian defense and foreign ministers.
The parties in London agreed to “continue the dialogue,” Yermak said in a Telegram post following the meeting.
“We conveyed our position and emphasized that an immediate, complete, and unconditional ceasefire must be the first step toward launching negotiations aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace,” Yermak said. “We expressed hope that this aligns with the vision of President Donald Trump.”
In an post on X, Zelenskyy commended today’s meeting though “emotions have run high.”
“It’s important that each side was not just a participant but contributed meaningfully. The American side shared its vision. Ukraine and other Europeans presented their inputs,” Zelenskyy wrote. “And we hope that it is exactly such joint work that will lead to lasting peace.”
The latest setback comes during a week in which the Trump administration has doubled down on efforts to push Kyiv and Moscow toward a truce. Next week marks 100 days of Trump’s second presidential term, and he promised to end the war on his first day back in office. Rubio suggested last week that the United States may walk away from ceasefire efforts, failing any further progress.
Vance said earlier in the day that he was “optimistic” about the talks, but also doubled down on the threat to walk away from negotiations.
“I think that we put together a very fair proposal,” Vance told reporters on his trip in India. “We’re going to see if the Europeans, the Russians and the Ukrainians are ultimately able to get this thing over the finish line.”
Earlier, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the U.S. has not set a deadline for a ceasefire and that “Russia does not consider it appropriate to set deadlines either,” Russian news agency Tass reported.
“The downgrading is significant,” said Bence Németh, a senior lecturer in the defense studies department at King’s College London, citing Zelenskyy’s rejection that Russia maintain control of Crimea as part of any deal.
Rubio and Witkoff’s absence “suggests that Washington is increasingly disinterested in drawn-out, multilateral negotiations,” Németh added. “This is not just about diplomacy fatigue. It also signals a hard pivot: The U.S. is not positioning itself as a neutral mediator.”
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce confirmed Tuesday that Rubio would skip the meeting hours after saying the opposite. “That is not a statement regarding the meetings. It’s a statement about logistical issues in his schedule,” he said.
Despite initial plans to attend the scheduled talks, neither Rubio nor Witkoff were in London on Wednesday, a European diplomat told NBC News.
But representatives from the U.K., Germany and France still met with Yermak and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov in what the British Foreign Ministry described as “productive and successful” discussions.
“All parties reiterated their strong support for President Tump’s commitment to stopping the killing and achieving a just and lasting peace,” the ministry said. “The talks today were productive and successful, and significant progress was made on reaching a common position on next step.”
Expectations that Kyiv and Moscow would make a deal to end their three-year war this week remained low after the U.S. presented Ukraine and its European allies with peace proposals last week in Paris that both sides saw as unacceptable, according to NBC News’ international partner, Sky News.
Under a “terms sheet” offered by Rubio and Witkoff, a land-for-peace deal would recognize Russia’s currently illegal annexation of Crimea and work toward lifting European Union sanctions on Russia. Both parties have since rejected the terms.
Yulia Svyrydenko, the country’s deputy prime minister, wrote in a post on X that Ukraine was ready to negotiate, “but not to surrender.”
“Our people will not accept a frozen conflict disguised as peace,” Svyrydenko wrote.
After months of upbeat statements on indirect U.S.-led talks, but limited practical engagement, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday suggested for the first time that he would be open to bilateral ceasefire talks with Zelenskyy.
The issue of Crimea may well be one of the most difficult points of difference to overcome, said Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.
“I think it will be extraordinarily difficult, bordering on political suicide, for him [Zelenskyy] to commit to paper on things like giving up Crimea,” Savill said. That said, “Ukraine is not going to recapture Crimea anytime soon. Ukraine is unlikely to be a NATO member anytime soon.”
“There might be some formulation [of a deal] that effectively kicks those into the long grass,” Savill added, with the caveat that “the terms of any deal at the moment are not going to be particularly favorable to Ukraine.”
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