President Donald Trump remained optimistic about a peace deal to resolve the Russia-Ukraine war in a Wednesday night interview, though he conceded that Moscow and Kyiv are “not ready” for peace yet.
After reaching a peak of optimism last month, Trump’s efforts to conclude the war in Ukraine have once again hit an impasse over competing war goals from both sides. Despite this, Trump expressed optimism in an interview with CBS News late Wednesday, hinting that he expected progress in the near future.
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“I’ve been watching it, I’ve been seeing it, and I’ve been talking about it with President Putin and President Zelensky,” Trump said. “Something is going to happen, but they are not ready yet. But something is going to happen. We are going to get it done.”
“I think we’re going to get it all straightened out,” he added.
Trump maintained that he was being realistic in his push for a peace deal but admitted once again that solving the conflict was much more difficult than he expected. However, he still has confidence in his approach of getting the leaders in a room together, which he thinks is the most effective way to resolve conflicts.
“A lot of times, they’re fighting each other for so long,” he said. “They’re fighting each other so long, they don’t even think in terms of peace. It just becomes a way of life. And when I get them together, I get the people in the room, I’m able to convince them. ‘Let’s go. Let’s make peace. It’s enough, already. You’ve lost enough lives.'”
The president said that at this point in negotiations, he will just have to wait things out.
“We’ve had some very good days, fortunately, and once I get them in a room together, or get them at least speaking together, they seem to work out. We’ve saved millions of lives,” he said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump had cleared up speculation that he could be shifting toward a more hard-line stance against Russia after a fiery Truth Social post on Tuesday, in which he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un of “conspiring” against the United States.
“I understand the reason they were doing it, and they were hoping I was watching, and I was watching,” he told reporters. “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.”
Progress on relations has stalled since Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visits to Washington, D.C., last month.
The key sticking points of Putin’s latest peace deal remain unresolved, especially Ukraine ceding the Donbas and the occupied territory in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
Zelensky has repeatedly ruled out ceding any territory, and his European allies have stressed that Russia cannot be allowed to take any territory by force.
Russia insists that Ukraine’s military must be downsized after the war, another nonstarter for Kyiv. Domestic demands to make Russian a second official language of Ukraine and the protection of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are viewed as impeding on Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Ukraine also insists on a ceasefire before a peace deal, while Russia views a ceasefire as simply a measure to allow Kyiv’s forces to regroup.
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Despite these barriers, Trump remains focused on bringing the war in Ukraine to a swift conclusion. When asked about a Nobel Peace Prize, the president insisted to CBS News that he wasn’t seeking it.
“I have nothing to say about it,” Trump said. “All I can do is put out wars.” He added, “I don’t seek attention. I just want to save lives.”