Trump targets Zelenskyy for saying peace ‘very far away’ as France floats one-month ceasefire – The Tribune

US President Donald Trump criticised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday over comments he made that a deal to end the war with Russia was not near.

On his Truth Social platform, Trump posted a story headlined “Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says end of war with Russia is ‘very, very far away.’”

“This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it for much longer!” Trump wrote, using an alternate spelling of Zelenskiy.

The comments follow Trump’s public clash in the Oval Office with Zelenskuy on Friday before what was expected to be the signing of an agreement on Ukraine’s rich natural resources.

The deal was never signed after Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, assailed the visiting leader as lacking gratitude for US aid and being disrespectful.

British Prime Minister Starmer hosted a summit of European leaders in London on Sunday and said European leaders had agreed to draw up a Ukraine peace plan to present to the United States.

At the summit, Starmer announced a four-point plan to work with Ukraine to end the war and bolster the UK’s defence against Russia. The plan involves including Ukraine in talks, continuing to supply it with military aid, boosting its defence capabilities and building a ‘coalition of the willing’ to defend a deal to end the fighting. However, apart from increasing defence spending, further consensus on a peace plan is still being thrashed out by leaders across Europe. UK Defence Secretary John Healey is expected to visit the US later this week to move forward the discussions to secure American backing for an agreed European peace plan.

Meanwhile, UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves signed off a GBP 2.26 billion loan scheme to help Ukraine buy weapons and fund its reconstruction after the war. Starmer later announced a further GBP 1.6 billion for missiles for Ukraine. Zelenskyyy welcomed Europe’s unequivocal backing, reiterating calls for an American security guarantee to any peace deal with Russia even as he sought to placate Trump by stressing on the “importance of America”.

In an interview given on his way to the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron raised the possibility of a one-month ceasefire, although so far there has been no public endorsement from other allies.

“Such a truce on air, sea and energy infrastructure would allow us to determine whether the Russian President is acting in good faith when he commits to a truce,” the French Foreign Minister said.

London summit fruitless: Russia

Influential Russian parliamentarians dismissed a summit of European leaders in London on Sunday, saying it had produced no plan to settle the war in Ukraine. Konstantin Kosachev, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the only thing Ukraine could count on was an improvement in Russian-US ties. He derided the outcome of the London meeting as “a desperate attempt to pass off as success the failure of a 10-year policy of inciting Ukraine towards Russia by the same Great Britain.