US President Donald Trump has said a deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine may be imminent, after meeting privately at the White House with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump said: “I think we’re going to be very close to settling Russia-Ukraine.” He added: “There’s going to be an agreement. It’s going to be a big agreement, and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine… I could even say it might involve all of Europe.”
Trump declined to give details of his conversation with Dmitriev, and said he did not meet the Ukrainian delegation that was visiting Washington on Thursday.
Dmitriev had attended a White House event hosted by First Lady Melania Trump, marking the six-day ceasefire she helped broker in the southern Ukrainian city of Oleshky. The truce, which ran from 27 October to 1 November, allowed nearly 800 civilians to be evacuated from the Russian-occupied city and food and medical supplies to be delivered.
The diplomatic activity comes ahead of US-mediated talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives scheduled for 10 and 11 November in Abu Dhabi. Trump’s envoy Jared Kushner said US officials held “productive and substantive discussions” in Brussels on Thursday with Ukraine, NATO and European partners on security guarantees for Ukraine and a broader European security architecture.
Trump has frequently predicted that an agreement to end the war, Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two, was close. Negotiations have, however, picked up in recent weeks.
Source: Al Jazeera
