Ukraine may be Russia’s someday, Trump says
US President Donald Trump has said Ukraine may belong to Russia someday as Russian troops continue to make advancements on the eastern Ukrainian frontline.
“They (Ukraine) may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News aired on Monday.
Trump said he also wanted Ukraine to recompense Americans for the immeasurable aid the States has provided to Ukraine in the past years.
“They have tremendously valuable land in terms of rare earth, in terms of oil and gas, in terms of other things. I want to have our money secured.”
“We are going to have all this money in there, and I say I want it back. And I told them that I want the equivalent, like $500bn worth of rare earth,” Trump said.
“And they have essentially agreed to do that, so at least we don’t feel stupid.”
The comments come ahead of a meeting this week scheduled between US Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump said his administration had made “tremendous progress” in the arrangements for possible peace talks between Kiev and Moscow.
In response to the comments, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that a significant part of the Russian-speaking Donbas region in eastern Ukraine had already joined the Russian Federation.
“A significant part of Ukraine wants to become Russia, and the fact that it has already become Russia is (undeniable),” Peskov said, referring to the four regions that held referendums and joined Russian, namely, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
“[D]espite many dangers,” Peskov said, “people had stood in line and voted” to join Russia in separate referendums.
“This largely corresponds to President Trump’s words.”
Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak has confirmed that Kiev is “interested to work” with the Trump administration to reach a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
However, Kiev is reportedly concerned that any peace deal with Russia which does not include hard military commitments, such as NATO membership or the deployment of peacekeeping troops, is doomed to failure.
During his re-election campaign speeches, Trump repeatedly promised his supporters to swiftly clinch a peace deal with Russia and stop the flow of much-needed US taxpayer money to Kiev, wasting it on weapons, munitions and provisions to support Kiev's forces in the war against Russia.
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