After days of violent attacks and controversy, even from his trusted advisor Elon Musk, Donald Trump leaves little doubt about the path he intends to follow to end the conflict in Ukraine. "To be honest, I don't think Zelensky's presence at the meetings is important ," accusing the Ukrainian leader of " having done a bad job in the negotiations so far ." For this reason , having him sit at the negotiating table "is not a priority" for this administration.
The White House chief then doubled down when he said he had had " very good talks with Vladimir Putin but not as many" with the Ukrainian president. "They have no cards in their hands, but they want to play hardball. We will not allow this to continue," the commander-in-chief warned. The Kremlin leader, he continued, "wants a deal. He doesn't have to do it because, if he wanted to, he could have all of Ukraine."
The Donald then admitted, after having declared that it was Ukraine that started the war, that it was actually Russia that attacked. "But he wouldn't have done it if there were people in charge who knew what they were doing," meaning Joe Biden and Zelensky. "Putin could have been easily dissuaded," Trump argued, reiterating a concept he repeated several times during the election campaign.
Meanwhile, US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said he was confident that the Ukrainian president would sign the rare minerals agreement "in the coming days. " "It's beneficial for the country. What's better than having a trade partnership with the United States?" he added.
And while Musk accuses Zelensky of "feeding on the corpses of his soldiers" and of having lost hundreds of millions of dollars in aid due to corruption, the New York Post tabloid has raised the hypothesis of the Ukrainian president's exile in France . According to White House sources, in fact, given Washington's hostility towards him, " ."
