Russia-Ukraine war: Volodymyr Zelenskyy pushes for 30–50 year US security guarantees; what he said

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the United States has offered Kyiv “strong” security guarantees for an extendable period of 15 years, but added that Ukraine is seeking a longer commitment, a day after his talks with President Donald Trump on efforts to end the war with Russia."I told him (Trump) that we already have a war going on and it has been going on for almost 15 years. And so I really wanted the guarantees to be longer," Zelenskyy said, as cited by AFP. "I told him that we really want to consider the possibility of 30, 40, 50 years," he added. "The president said he would think about it." Ukraine will lift martial law once the war ends and the country has secured security guarantees, Zelenskyy added. The remarks followed the Ukrainian president’s meeting with Trump at the US president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Sunday afternoon, after which the two leaders addressed a joint news conference. Trump said that he and Zelenskyy were “getting a lot closer, maybe very close” to an agreement to end the war in Ukraine,Both said progress had been made on two of the most contentious issues in the peace talks: security guarantees for Ukraine and the future of the eastern Donbas region, which Russia has sought to seize.Both Trump and Zelenskyy offered few details and set no deadline for finalising a peace deal, though Trump said it would become clear “in a few weeks” whether negotiations to end the war would succeed, noting that several “thorny issues” related to territory still need to be resolved.Zelenskyy said an agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine had been reached. Trump struck a more cautious note, saying the sides were about 95 per cent of the way to such an agreement and that he expected European countries to “take over a big part” of the effort, with support from the United States.Zelenskyy’s visit followed what Trump described as an “excellent” call with Putin earlier the same day. The Kremlin later said the conversation was “friendly, benevolent and businesslike,” adding that Trump and Putin agreed to speak again soon after Trump’s talks with the Ukrainian leader.Trump insisted that Putin still wants peace, despite Russia launching fresh attacks on Ukraine as Zelenskyy travelled to the United States. “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed,” Trump said, adding that Putin had been “very generous in his feelings toward Ukraine succeeding.”