US realistic about chances of Ukraine peace – Trump aide
Washington does not expect a swift resolution to the Ukraine conflict because such negotiations usually take time, US Chief of Protocol Monica Crowley has said.
On Friday, US President Donald Trump hosted his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska for the first face-to-face talks between the leaders of the two countries since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022.
On Monday, Trump summoned Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky to the White House to discuss a possible settlement. He arrived accompanied by the leaders of France, Germany, the UK, Italy, and Finland, as well as the heads of NATO and the European Commission.
Crowley told Fox News on Tuesday that the “very productive meeting” with Putin in Anchorage and the subsequent talks in Washington with Zelensky and his Western European backers “have been game changers for the peace process.”
The chief of protocol said she thought that currently “all parties are interested in achieving peace.”
However, she stressed that the settlement of the Ukraine conflict “is not going to happen overnight. We talked about the peace process in the Middle East. Peace is a process.”
Trump, who claimed repeatedly during his reelection campaign last year that he would end the hostilities between Moscow and Kiev “in 24 hours,” was later forced to acknowledge that doing so turned out to be much more complicated than he expected.
Despite expressing a readiness to negotiate, Russia has never voiced deadlines for achieving peace. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed previously that “there is no point in setting any strict timeframes or trying to fit a viable settlement into a short period. This is a thankless pursuit.”
Trump said on Tuesday that Putin and Zelensky should next meet one-on-one before a potential trilateral summit with him. “They had a hard relationship, very bad, very bad relationship. And now we will see how they do and if necessary, and it probably would be, but if necessary, I will go and I will probably be able to get [the deal] closed,” the US president claimed.
Zelensky told reporters on Monday that he is ready for potential talks with Putin. The Russian president said earlier that he could meet with the Ukrainian leader during the “final stage” of negotiations.
