GENERAL KILLED
The United States has not revealed details of its peace plan, but has suggested freezing the front line and accepting Russian control of Crimea in exchange for peace.
Trump was quoted as saying in a TIME magazine interview released Friday that “Crimea will stay with Russia. And Zelenskyy understands that.”
With Ukraine fearful Trump could force it to cede Crimea – a strategic Black Sea peninsula seized by Russia in 2014 – Zelenskyy insisted the territory is “the property of the Ukrainian people”.
“Our position is unchanged,” he told reporters in Kyiv. “The constitution of Ukraine says that all the temporarily occupied territories … belong to Ukraine.”
Zelenskyy has, however, conceded that Ukraine might have to try to return some land captured by Russia through diplomacy once a ceasefire is in place.
“I agree with President Trump that Ukraine does not have enough weapons to regain control of the Crimean peninsula with weapons,” he said Friday.
Zelenskyy cited the Russian strike on Kyiv, which left at least 12 dead, as one of the reasons he might miss Pope Francis’s funeral Saturday.
He could potentially have met Trump for the first time since their explosive White House confrontation in February.
Just before Witkoff met Putin, Russia reported that General Yaroslav Moskalik, one of the deputy heads of the general staff, was killed by a bomb in a parked car just outside Moscow.
“There are reasons to believe that Ukraine’s special services were involved in the murder,” Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement. Ukraine did not immediately comment.
