On Tuesday, President Donald Trump pledged that there will be no U.S. troops defending Ukraine’s border, even after he leaves office.
“You have my assurance,” he told “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday.
“I’m just trying to stop people from being killed,” he continued. “They’re losing 5,000 to 7,000 people a week in that ridiculous war that should have never happened. If we had a normal president — not even a great president — if we had normal president, it wouldn’t have happened.”
Trump said he intends to let Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet one-on-one before focusing on a broader trilateral discussion.
The president also reiterated that Ukraine will not be admitted into NATO, but argued that some European nations have agreed to provide NATO-like protections, including security guarantees.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Monday warned NATO leaders against deploying troops in Ukraine.
“We reiterate our repeatedly expressed position that we deny any scenarios that envisage the deployment of a military contingent to Ukraine with the participation of NATO states, which could lead to an uncontrollable escalation of the conflict with unpredictable consequences,” Zakharova said, directing her statements at British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron formed the “Coalition of the Willing” earlier this year, threatening “several thousand boots on the ground” with the support of 31 countries in response to Moscow’s escalation in Eastern Europe.
In her Monday statement, Zakharova pushed back on Starmer’s assertion that the United Kingdom would send troops to Eastern Europe, citing progress during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s meeting with President Trump in Anchorage, Alaska.
Trump’s comments came on the heels of a high-profile meeting with Zelenskyy and a slew of European and NATO leaders at the White House on Monday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said peace negotiations could be finalized with security guarantees in the next 10 days following his Monday meeting Monday with President Trump.
“Security guarantees will probably be ‘unpacked’ by our partners, and more and more details will emerge,” Zelensky told reporters after his conversation with Trump in the Oval, according to Reuters. “All of this will somehow be formalized on paper within the next week to 10 days.”
The Ukrainian leader added that he was ready to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in “any format” to discuss bringing an end to the more than three-years-long war.
Trump previously met with Putin at a summit in Alaska and spoke with the Russian leader again following his meeting with Zelenskyy to begin coordinating next steps in the peace process aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
Provide the tools for war but not the personnel is a great idea, no more Viet Nam.