Despite negotiations to end the war in Ukraine hitting a wall and a deadly Russian strike on the country’s capital city early Thursday, President Donald Trump remained insistent that talks had made “a lot of progress.”
“We’ll see what happens,” the president said during a bilateral meeting with the prime minister of Norway at the White House. “This next few days is going to be very important.”
Trump’s comments come as his negotiators have been pushing to bring the three-year-long conflict to a speedy end but encountering resistance to a U.S.-backed peace proposal from both Russia and Ukraine.
The president said he has a “deadline” in mind for talks to make progress, though he did not say what it was. Trump administration officials say they had initially hoped to have secured a negotiated settlement before the 100th day of the president’s second term next Tuesday, but that that goal now seems like a pipedream.
On Thursday, Trump issued a rare public rebuke of Russian leader Vladimir Putin after Moscow launched missile and drone strikes at Kyiv that killed at least 12 people, marking the deadliest attack on the capital city since the summer of 2024.
“Vladimir, STOP!” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.
“I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV,” he added. “Not necessary, and very bad timing.”
Despite the provocation from the Kremlin, the White House indicated no changes to Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s plans to meet with Putin for the fourth time, and, when asked, Trump said he wouldn’t immediately move to impose any penalties on Russia in the wake of the strike.
“I’d rather answer that question in a week. I want to see if we can have a deal,” Trump said.
Since the onset of negotiations, the Trump administration has drawn criticism for being overly favorable to Moscow — an allegation the president disputed, insisting he is “putting a lot of pressure” on both parties.
“Very simply, I have, no allegiance to anybody,” he declared. “I have allegiance to saving lives.
Asked what concessions Russia has offered to get to closer to peace, Trump responded, “Stopping the war. Stopping taking the whole country. Pretty big concession.”
So far, neither Russia nor Ukraine has formally signed off on the administration’s framework for a peace settlement, which stipulates that the U.S. would recognize large swaths of seized Ukrainian land — including the strategically important peninsula of Crimea — as Russian territory.
Ukrainian leaders have indicated the terms are a nonstarter, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio abruptly cancelled plans to attend a round of high-level talks in London earlier this week after officials in Kyiv indicated that they would use the discussions to focus on securing a 30-day ceasefire rather than the U.S. framework, according to Trump administration officials familiar with the matter.
“This war is end-able,” Rubio said at the Oval Office on Thursday. “We’ve shown them the finish line. We need both of them to say yes.”
At the State Department, spokesperson Tammy Bruce suggested that the U.S.-peace proposal was not a take-it-or-leave it option and that there was room for negotiation.
“What I’ve noticed here about Secretary Rubio and President Trump is flexibility,” said Bruce. “This is about human beings, having conversations, negotiating literally existential issues.”
But those skeptical of the Kremlin’s motives see Russia as intractable and argue it will take more than flexibility to push Moscow toward peace.
“Russia’s latest missile and drone barrage is a stark reminder that Moscow, not Kyiv, is the party responsible for starting this war and the party that should be held responsible for ending it,” said John Hardie, the deputy director of the Russia Program and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“Yet while President Donald Trump has exhorted the Kremlin to make peace, he still has yet to bring tangible pressure to bear on Russia,” he continued. “This is not the path to a good deal.”
The post Trump insists Ukraine peace talks making progress despite Russian strikes: ANALYSIS appeared first on ABC News.
