A Ukrainian politician has said Russia has 'never been and will never be a friend to the US', as President Donald Trump agreed to enter into negotiations with Vladimir Putin to end the war in Eastern Europe. Trump sensationally announced today he and Putin would "immediately" start to enter into negotiations aimed to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. The Republican said they had a "lengthy and highly productive call" and that the pair floated the idea of visiting each other's countries in the future.
Oleksiy Goncharenko of the European Solidarity party in the Ukrainian parliament told The Mirror he welcomed that Trump and Putin entered into negotiations. But he said Russia was no friend of the US and that it was in the country's best interests to show it is strong and would protect its allies. "President Trump was very clear from the very beginning that he is going to do this, and he is doing this. That’s a good thing," he said. "No one in the world wants this and they want this war to end," he said. He continued: "But is it a peace or a ceasefire? Is it peace and so on? We can give only at the end of these negotiations, not at the start.
"We hope that President Trump will follow the best interest of American people, not Ukrainian but American people and the best interest for American people, I am sure, is to have a strong ally in Europe that will show that America is strong and will protect its allies, which Ukraine is. I’m sure that’s what President Trump wants to do. "Russia never was a friend of the United States, is not a friend today and will never be in the future. That is the reality. I think everybody responsible for American foreign policy, including President Trump, clearly understands.".
In posts shared to his social media platform TruthSocial, Trump said he had also spoken to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. "He, like President Putin, wants to make peace," Trump said of Zelensky. Zelensky said in a statement shared to Telegram: "I am grateful to President Trump for his interest in what we can do together. We discussed our conversation with Scott Bessant and the preparation of our new agreement on security and economic and resource cooperation. President Trump informed me of the details of his conversation with Putin. Ukraine wants peace more than anyone.".
The leaders' comments come as US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth today said it was "unrealistic" to expect Ukraine to return to its pre-2014 borders and also ruled out the country from entering NATO. Eastern Ukraine and Crimea are currently under Russian occupation after Putin ordered a full-scale and invasion of the country in February 2022, which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Defence and Security analyst Professor Michael Clarke comments made by the Defence Secretary were "exactly what the Kremlin most wanted to hear." He told The Mirror: "Reactions from Moscow show that he has parroted the Russian narrative almost word for word. We can only wonder why this might be so.
"If Ukraine loses close to 20 per cent of its territory with a betrayal like this, then the western world will lose close to 100 per cent of its political credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world - which has been standing back from this conflict to see which way it would go. If Hegseth really does represent the Trump Administration's policy - and that is not entirely clear yet -, then the rest of the world has its answer: the future belongs to Russia, China and is growing posse of dictators and warlords.".
