US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he remained committed to brokering a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, though he acknowledged
that the moment for direct talks between Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine had not yet arrived. “I’ve been watching it, I’ve been seeing it, and I’ve been talking about it with President Putin and President Zelenskyy,” Trump told CBS News in an interview. “Something is going to happen, but they are not ready yet. But something is going to happen. We are going to get it done.” Trump said that his approach to a ceasefire between the two countries is both realistic and optimistic, even as Russia continued to pound Ukrainian cities with missile and drone strikes. Late last month, a Russian barrage on Kyiv killed at least 15 people, including four children. The US President said he was disturbed by the bloodshed but argued that patience was necessary. “I think we’re going to get it all straightened out,” he said. “Frankly, the Russia one, I thought, would have been on the easier side of the ones I’ve stopped, but it seems to be something that’s a little bit more difficult than some of the others.”
Trump’s comments came hours after Putin joined Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un at a military parade in Beijing. “I understand the reason they were doing it, and they were hoping I was watching, and I was watching,” he said. “My relationship with all of them is very good. We’re going to find out how good it is over the next week or two.”
Throughout the interview, Trump described his diplomatic method as one centered on direct, transactional negotiations, insisting that progress comes from physically bringing adversaries into the same room. “Once I get them in a room together, or get them at least speaking together, they seem to work out,” he said. “We’ve saved millions of lives.”
Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for what he says are the resolutions of six or seven international conflicts, citing disputes involving Israel and Iran, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Serbia and Kosovo, among others. He has also argued that his administration deserves recognition from the Nobel Committee for those efforts. However, when asked about the Nobel Peace Prize during the interview, he told CBS: “I have nothing to say about it. All I can do is put out wars. I don’t seek attention. I just want to save lives.”
