Trump Says Putin, Zelenskyy Both Want End to Ukraine War
Trump said Tuesday that Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy each want to end Russia's war on Ukraine, a softer framing than his claim a day earlier that Putin wants a deal more than Zelenskyy does.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy want to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, according to Al Jazeera. The comment marks a shift in tone from a day earlier, when Trump said Putin wants a deal more than Zelenskyy does and claimed a ceasefire had already been agreed.
Trump’s latest remarks come as both sides continue to dispute basic facts about the state of the fighting. Zelenskyy told NPR that Ukraine wants peace but will continue striking Russia until Moscow follows through on any ceasefire proposal, according to NPR, a position consistent with Kyiv’s earlier statement that Russia has already violated the ceasefire terms Trump has described.
A pattern of competing narratives
Trump also said Tuesday that the United States is still sharing intelligence with Ukraine, and he defended a separate U.S.-Russia diesel arrangement that has drawn criticism from both Kyiv and members of his own party, according to Reuters. The intelligence-sharing confirmation is notable given Kyiv’s earlier complaint that it received no U.S. intelligence warning ahead of a missile strike on the capital.
The diesel deal has become a flashpoint inside Trump’s own party. A growing number of Republicans have objected to the arrangement, with some calling it a “gift to our adversary,” according to Reuters. That internal criticism complicates Trump’s broader message that Washington is pushing both Moscow and Kyiv toward the same outcome, since the diesel arrangement is widely read in Kyiv as easing economic pressure on Russia rather than increasing it.
Why the framing shift matters
Monday’s framing — that Putin wants a deal more than Zelenskyy — implied a negotiating asymmetry favorable to Moscow and drew pushback from Ukrainian officials, who have said Russian strikes on energy infrastructure continued even after Trump described a ceasefire as settled. Tuesday’s statement that both leaders want the war to end is a more neutral framing, but it does not resolve the dispute over what, if anything, Moscow and Kyiv have actually agreed to.
Trump has not published written ceasefire terms or described a verification mechanism for either side’s compliance, a gap that has persisted through several days of conflicting statements from the White House, the Kremlin and Zelenskyy’s office. Zelenskyy’s comment to NPR that Ukraine will keep striking Russia until Moscow follows through on any proposal suggests Kyiv does not consider a ceasefire to be in effect, regardless of how Trump characterizes Putin’s willingness to negotiate.
The diesel deal and the intelligence-sharing question are likely to remain the two concrete points of friction as the diplomatic track continues. Both touch on material support — fuel revenue for Russia, targeting and early-warning data for Ukraine — in ways that go beyond rhetorical statements about who wants peace more. Until Washington, Moscow and Kyiv converge on a shared account of what has been agreed and what is being enforced, each side’s public statements are likely to keep describing different versions of the same war.
What to watch next
Republican objections to the diesel arrangement, described by critics as a “gift to our adversary” in the Reuters report, give Trump a domestic political incentive to show the deal is producing diplomatic results rather than simply easing pressure on Moscow. If Trump’s “both sides want peace” framing is meant to lay groundwork for a formal proposal, the next test will be whether the White House publishes concrete terms — on energy-site strikes, territorial lines or a verification mechanism — rather than relying on public statements alone.
For Kyiv, the test is narrower but just as concrete: whether intelligence-sharing continues in practice after the capital missile strike that officials said arrived without a U.S. warning, and whether Russian strikes on energy infrastructure actually stop rather than continue under a disputed truce. Zelenskyy’s NPR comment that Ukraine will keep striking Russia until Moscow follows through suggests Kyiv is treating continued pressure, not Trump’s framing, as the operative strategy for now.
AmericaStrikes will continue tracking statements from the White House, the Kremlin and Zelenskyy’s office as the ceasefire dispute develops.
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