The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has called his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, and his government “ungrateful” for Washington’s efforts in relation to the war with Russia, while in Geneva representatives of his Administration meet with a delegation from kyiv and senior European officials to discuss the 28-point peace plan that the United States has presented to settle the conflict.
In a long message on his social network, Truth, Trump launches a string of complaints about the behavior of the United States’ partners in the war, which, as he usually does on every occasion in which he quotes it, he remembers that it did not begin under his command. In addition to criticizing the Government of Ukraine, the US president also mentions – as he has done on other occasions – that European countries continue to buy oil from Moscow, which has its energy sector as the great engine of its economy and its war industry. “Ukraine’s ‘leadership’ has expressed zero gratitude for our efforts, and Europe continues to buy crude oil from Russia,” he writes, in all caps.
Meanwhile, “the United States continues to sell enormous quantities of weapons to NATO for distribution in Ukraine,” says Trump, who has given kyiv until Thursday to respond to a peace plan that includes the main Russian demands to end the fighting: control of the eastern region of Donbas – including territory that is today in Ukrainian hands – and the drastic reduction of the Armed Forces of the invaded country. Another requirement is kyiv’s perpetual refusal to join the Atlantic Alliance.
If Zelensky and his government do not accept the ultimatum, the United States would withdraw its military support, including the intelligence collaboration that Ukraine needs at all costs to protect itself from Russian attacks and plan its military strategy. Despite the pressure, Trump pointed out on Saturday in statements to the press that the plan on the table was not his “definitive proposal.”
After the plan was leaked to the press in the middle of this week, the US Administration presented the document as its own proposal, prepared by the White House special envoy for international conflicts, Steve Witkoff.
This Saturday, a group of senators assured that the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had explained to them that the text was a “wish list” from Russia. The State Department has denied those claims. Rubio heads, along with Witkoff, the US representation in the negotiations in Geneva this Sunday.
In statements to the program Meet the Press on NBC, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent expressed his opinion that peace negotiations will move forward, but pointed out that it depends on kyiv’s response. “In the end, it will be a decision for the Ukrainians,” said the senior official.
European leaders who participated in the G-20 summit this weekend in Johannesburg have considered that the proposal, as it stands, is insufficient and needs “more work.”
The alleged “ungratefulness” of Zelensky and his Government is a leitmotiv on the list of complaints that Trump maintains regarding the war in Ukraine. In the first face-to-face meeting between the two in the Republican’s second term, last February in the Oval Office, the American president and his vice president, JD Vance, humiliated the Ukrainian with an ostensible rant in which they reproached him, among other things, for not having shown gratitude for the help that the United States had given him.
“You don’t have the cards” to win, Trump snapped then, in a phrase that he recalled again this week to urge Ukraine to accept the peace plan.
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