Washington - Saba:
US President Donald Trump on Monday said Volodymyr Zelensky's statements are causing him problems and are not serving Ukraine.
Trump said in a post on the Truth Social platform, as reported by the Russian news agency Sputnik, that "Zelensky is doing his country no favors by speaking the way he does. Everything that comes out of his mouth is causing problems. I don't like it, and he'd better stop. This is a war that would never have started if I were president."
Trump added, "This is Zelensky's war," emphasizing that "it's not Trump's war. I'm just helping put out the big, ugly fires that were started by incompetence and gross hatred," referring to the term of his predecessor, former President Joe Biden.
Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Istanbul, Turkey, on May 16, following Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal to hold "direct negotiations without preconditions" with Ukraine. Putin emphasized that Russia had never rejected dialogue with the Ukrainian side.
President Putin did not rule out the possibility that the two sides could reach a ceasefire agreement through negotiations.
For his part, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained that the goals of the negotiations with Ukraine are to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and safeguard Russia's interests. He added that Russia is determined to seriously explore ways to achieve a long-term peace settlement.
During the meeting, an agreement was reached on a prisoner exchange of 1,000 prisoners from each side, in addition to an agreement stipulating that Moscow and Kyiv present their vision for a ceasefire in detail and to continue meetings at a later date.