President Trump confirmed he was prepared to “take a pass” on negotiating peace in Ukraine if either side made a settlement too difficult to achieve.
Trump said Marco Rubio, his secretary of state, was “right” to say the US would decide “in a matter of days” whether peace was doable. “We’re going to get it stopped, ideally,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday, but added: “If for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say: ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people, and we’re going to just take a pass’. But hopefully we won’t have to do that.
“We want to see it end. Think of it, every day, a lot of people are being killed … as they play games. So we’re not going to take that, and we will see. I think we have a good chance of solving the problem, however.”
Asked if President Putin of Russia was stalling, Trump said: “I hope not. I’m going to let you know about that soon, if he is. But I hope not. He’s got a big force out there … Nobody’s playing anybody. We are going to see if we can get it done. I think we have a really good chance of getting it done.”
Trump was asked what he wanted to see from Russia and Ukraine. “I have to see,” he said. “My whole life has been one big negotiation And I know when people are playing us and I know when they’re not, and I have to see an enthusiasm to want to end it. I think I see that enthusiasm. I think I see it from both sides.”
Trump added later that the peace process he started when he came to office in January was “coming to a head right now” and would not confirm a “specific number of days” but that “quickly, we want to get it done”. Asked whether if he “took a pass”, the US would continue to support Ukraine, he said: “I don’t want to talk about that.”
Earlier on Friday, Rubio met European and Ukrainian diplomats in Paris and told them: “We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end. So we need to determine very quickly now, and I’m talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks. If it is we’re in. If it’s not, then we have other priorities to focus on as well.”
During a meeting on Thursday in Paris, the US is said to have presented allies with proposals to facilitate a deal, which included effectively freezing the war, with Ukrainian territory currently occupied by Moscow’s forces remaining under Russian control, and easing sanctions on Russia. European officials told Bloomberg that under the plans, Ukraine would also have to take joining Nato off the table.
[Last week, Trump’s Ukraine envoy exclusively told The Times of a plan to divide Ukraine like postwar Berlin.]
Trump promised during his election campaign to end the war within his first 24 hours in the White House. He has since moderated that claim, suggesting a deal by April or May.
The US president said on Thursday that he felt a ceasefire was “close”, and that Moscow was set to get back to him imminently regarding a recent proposal. JD Vance, the vice-president, echoed that sentiment as he met Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, in Rome on Friday.
JD Vance greeted Georgia Meloni warmly upon arrival in Rome
DOMENICO CIPPITELLI/REX
Vance landed with his wife, Usha, and children in tow
RICCARDO DE LUCA/GETTY IMAGES
Vance told Meloni he would update her on negotiations, including “some of the things that have happened in the past 24 hours”, and said: “I won’t prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war, this very brutal war, to a close.”
In Moscow, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said: “There have already been certain developments. But, of course, there are still many difficult ones ahead.”
Russian state media said Putin had not yet issued any instructions on whether a supposed 30-day moratorium on strikes on energy infrastructure would be extended now that it had expired. Both Russia and Ukraine were said to have agreed to the selective truce, but have accused each other of breaching it on multiple occasions.
Rubio also said he hoped Europeans would remain engaged in US-led talks towards a Ukraine ceasefire. “I think the UK and France and Germany can help us move the ball on this and then get this closer to a resolution. I thought they were very helpful and constructive with their ideas,” he told reporters at Le Bourget airport as he was leaving the French capital.
Rubio’s comments came after Ukraine announced that it had signed the outline of a deal that would give the US access to its mineral wealth and set up a reconstruction fund.
Yulia Svyrydenko, a deputy prime minister, said the “memorandum of intent” paved the way for the long-awaited economic partnership agreement between the two countries. She posted photographs on X showing her signing the document in an online meeting with Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, on Thursday.
Yulia Svyrydenko signing an economic agreement between the US and Ukraine on Friday
UKRAINIAN MINISTRY OF ECONOMY/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES
The two sides had planned to sign a deal on Ukraine’s rare earth minerals in February during President Zelensky’s trip to the White House, before it was derailed by the angry clash between the US and Ukrainian leaders, and Vance, in the Oval Office.
Trump had suggested that future American support to Kyiv was conditional on a deal, while Zelensky had sought security guarantees from Washington in exchange for any agreement.
The memorandum, a single-page document seen by The Times, is light on detail but does state the intention to create a joint “reconstruction investment fund” as part of a future deal. It does not provide any detail on what assets will be included in a proposed joint investment and how profits will be spent.
Svyrydenko gave few details about the nature of the memorandum but said she expected the final agreement would be “very beneficial for both countries”.
As negotiations between Ukraine and the US continued, Russia kept up its offensive, including bombing an apartment block in Kharkiv on Friday
MARKO DJURICA/REUTERS
SERGEY BOBOK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
However, she cautioned that there was “a lot to do” before the full text of an agreement could be finalised, signed and ratified.
Bessent said the memorandum was “substantially what we’d agreed on previously” but added that the details were still being worked out. “We went straight to the big deal, and I think it’s an 80-page agreement and that’s what we’ll be signing,” he said.
• Meet Scott Bessent, money man who talked Trump back from brink
Denys Shmyhal, the Ukrainian prime minister, will visit Washington next week to meet Bessent for further talks. Negotiating teams are expected to report on the progress of technical discussions by April 26, the memorandum said.
Inna Sovsun, a Ukrainian opposition MP and former minister, said the memorandum appeared to be “unfavourable” for Ukraine, pressuring it into giving payback to the US while offering no security guarantees, which she said would be difficult for Kyiv to accept.
On Rubio’s comments, she said: “It seems to be that the Americans now are trying to find a way out of the situation because they don’t understand how to deal with it, they don’t have a strategy. They are trying to find a way out of the deal rather than the war.”
Trump previously demanded that Ukraine hand over a share of its mineral wealth as compensation for more than $100 billion of previous American support for the war effort. A draft plan, leaked to the media, suggested Ukraine’s mineral resources, including oil and gas, would be transferred into a joint investment fund. The US would also be given control over infrastructure linked to natural resources.
The outline agreement came as Russian missile attacks on Ukraine continued early on Friday morning. One person was killed and 74 were injured in a missile strike on Kharkiv, according to Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of Ukraine’s second largest city. He said the strikes appeared to use “cluster munitions” and damaged more than 20 apartment buildings. Another person was killed in a drone attack on a factory in Sumy.