US President Donald Trump will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to put an end to an end of the war in Ukraine on 15 August in Alaska, Trump said on Saturday.
Trump made the social media announcement after he said that the parties, including Ukrainian President VolodyMyr Zenskyy, were close to a cease-fire deal that could solve the three-year conflict.
Trump focused on reporters at the White House at night and suggested that an agreement would be to include an exchange of land.
“There will be an exchange of areas for the improvement of both,” said Trump.
‘A challenging process’
Russia then confirmed the top in an online statement.
The two leaders will “focus on discussing options for achieving a long -term peaceful solution for the Ukrainian crisis,” said Putin Aide Yuri Ushakov.
“This will clearly be a challenging process, but we will be actively and energetically working on it,” said Ushakov.
In his evening address for the nation on Friday, Zenskyy said it was possible to reach a ceasefire -fires as long as sufficient pressure was applied to Russia. He said he had had more than a dozen conversations with leaders from different countries and his team had constant contact with the United States.
Putin claims four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – as well as the Black Sea peninsula, which he annexed in 2014. His troops do not fully control all the territory in the four regions.
Ukraine has previously indicated a willingness to be flexible in the search for an end to a war that destroyed its villages and towns and killed a large numbers of his soldiers and civilians.
But accepting the loss of about one fifth of the territory of Ukraine would be painful and politically challenging for Zenskyy and his government.
The US and Russia wanted to reach a deal to put the war in Ukraine that would close the occupation of Moscow’s territory during his military invasion, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.
According to Bloomberg, Russia would stop his offensive in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions along the current combat lines under the alleged deal.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has moved to restore relations with Russia and has tried to end the war. In his public comments, he has become Putin between admiration and sharp criticism.
In a sign of his growing frustration about Putin’s refusal to stop the military offensive of Russia, Trump had threatened to impose new sanctions and rates against Moscow and countries buying her export, unless the Russian leader agreed to end the 3.5 -year -old conflict.
It was unclear whether and when those sanctions would come into effect.
The administration took a step on Wednesday in the direction of the penalties of Moscow’s oil clients, which imposed an additional rate of 25 percent of goods from India because of the import of Russian oil, which marked the first financial fine aimed at Russia in Trump’s second term.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff held three hours of conversations with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday that both parties described as constructive.
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