Ukraine has every reason to be worried after Trump’s comments

Published

3 months ago

February 13, 2025

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You should always give peace a chance. That US President Donald Trump “thinks out of the box” is already the cliche of the moment.

And he may bring a fresh way of thinking and a new energy to ending Russia’s war in Ukraine where others have failed.

But there are some ominous signs already, bolstering fears Ukraine has been betrayed before the talks have even started.

Mr Trump could not bring himself on Wednesday even to say Ukraine and Russia were equal partners in any future negotiations.

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Asked if they were, he said: “Hmm, that’s an interesting question.”

The Ukrainians, he said, “will have to make peace”.

“Their people are being killed, and I think they should make peace,” he added.

More worryingly, he seems as prepared as ever to trust Vladimir Putin.

He seems happy to take the word of a man who sent agents to Britain to kill with chemical weapons, who lied repeatedly about his plans to invade Ukraine, and who has murdered in cold blood every rival who dared to challenge him.

“He insisted that if it (the conflict) ends, he wants it to end,” Mr Trump said, as if that was all there is to it.

“He does not want to end it and then go back to war in six months.”

In the same way, Neville Chamberlain returned from Munich in 1938 waving a piece of paper declaring “peace in our time” after winning what he thought were similar assurances from Adolf Hitler.

For Ukrainians, the parallels with 1938 do not end there.

They are being told even before negotiations start that they will have to give up some of their land that has been taken by brutal force.

Ukrainians compare that with Czechoslovakia being forced to hand over the Sudetenland to Hitler. Chamberlain believed that would be enough to appease Hitler. We all know what followed.

They have every reason to be worried.

There is nothing in what the Russian president has said to make anyone believe giving him a fifth of Ukraine will be enough to appease him either.

In fact, in speeches, he has been emphatically and explicitly clear time and time again. He wants all of Ukraine because he believes it is part of Russia.

And then he wants the security architecture of Europe refashioned.

And Mr Trump seems to be caving into Mr Putin on that as well, giving into one of the key pre-war demands he made in 2021 before invading his neighbour, the reduction of America’s footprint in NATO in Europe that was declared by US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth in Brussels yesterday.

Trump is surrendering much of the leverage he had over the Russians before talks have even begun. This is from a man who declared in his book The Art of the Deal that leverage is everything in negotiations.

“Don’t make deals without it.”

It is curious and inexplicable. Except that Mr Putin has always appeared to have some kind of hold over Mr Trump.

When they last met in Helsinki, the president sided with Mr Putin over his own spies on the question of Russian election interference.

As a spy in east Germany, Mr Putin was trained in KGB techniques of understanding your enemy and deceiving them.

He has used those skills all his career, not least with George W Bush who famously naively said: “I looked into his eyes and I saw a soul. I trusted him.”

If Mr Trump is persuaded to side with Mr Putin over Ukraine, a dictator will have been rewarded for invading his neighbour. Aggression will have prevailed.

A precedent will have been set that has alarming implications for other countries neighbouring Russia and further afield.

In the east, as he ponders how to seize Taiwan by force, China’s Xi Jinping will be learning lessons too.

The outcome of all this may well not be peace in our time. Quite the opposite.

World

Nine killed in Russian attack on civilian bus, Ukraine’s military says

Published

16 hours ago

May 17, 2025

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Nine killed in Russian attack on civilian bus, Ukraine's military says

A Russian attack on a civilian bus in Ukraine’s northeast Sumy region has killed nine people and injured four others, the Ukrainian military has said.

“Medics and rescuers have been urgently sent to the scene,” Ihor Tkachenko, head of Sumy’s military administration, said on Telegram.

Russia’s TASS state news agency said the defence ministry had claimed Russian forces struck a Ukrainian military equipment staging area in the Sumy region with drones.

The deaths prompted a strong response from Ukraine’s National Police on the Telegram messaging app: “This is not just another shelling – it is a cynical war crime”.

Ukraine’s police posted photos of a dark blue passenger van nearly destroyed, with the roof torn off and the windows blown out.

The attack comes hours after Russia and Ukraine held their first direct peace talks in three years.

The meeting of Russian and Ukrainian officials in Turkey on Friday failed to broker a temporary ceasefire.

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World

Up to a million Palestinians could be ‘permanently relocated’ to war-torn Libya under US plans

Published

20 hours ago

May 17, 2025

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Up to a million Palestinians could be 'permanently relocated' to war-torn Libya under US plans

Up to a million Palestinians could be permanently relocated from devastated Gaza to war-torn Libya under plans being worked on by Donald Trump’s administration, NBC News reports.

The idea has been discussed with Libya’s leadership, sources told Sky’s US partner network, and would potentially see billions of dollars in frozen Libyan funds released.

The North African country remains divided in two – nearly 14 years after the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi sparked a civil war – with two rival governments fighting for control.

It comes as Israel continues a campaign of airstrikes on Gaza, with 93 people killed and hundreds injured on Friday, according to local medics.

No final agreement on any Libya plans have been reached, sources told NBC News, and US government agencies did not respond to requests for comment from the news outlet.

Previous suggestions to resettle Palestinians from Gaza – voluntarily or otherwise – have provoked international outcry, particularly from Arab states who likely will play a role in rebuilding the enclave after any permanent ceasefire deal.

And Libya is far from a safe nation, according to the US State Department’s own travel advice, which says Americans should not travel to the country “due to crime, terrorism, unexploded landmines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict”.

President Trump, speaking on the final day of his Middle East trip, said he was looking to resolve a range of global crises, including Gaza.

“We’re looking at Gaza,” he said. “And we’ve got to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving. A lot of people are – there’s a lot of bad things going on.”

There had been hopes that his tour of the region could increase the chances of a ceasefire deal or prompt Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza that is preventing humanitarian aid from getting in.

But instead Israel has continued to launch airstrikes on the territory, killing more than 250 people in the last two days, according to Hamas-run health authorities.

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The Israeli military, which had dropped leaflets on the northern town of Beit Lahia ordering residents to leave, said their airforce had struck more than 150 military targets across Gaza in recent days.

This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but Sky News analysis has cast doubt on its evidence.

Israeli officials said the latest strikes were a prelude to a larger military campaign in Gaza aimed at pressuring Hamas to release hostages.

Ahmed Abu Riziq, founder of the Gaza Great Minds Foundation, which seeks to give children access to education in Gaza, said “the hell doors opened” in the last few days.

Speaking to Sky News from Gaza City, he said: “Myself with my family, we had to flee today from some certain areas in northern Gaza City… people are running in the streets. They don’t know where to go or where to sleep at night. So it’s really catastrophic.”

“No food is entering Gaza,” he added, saying that people are dying from hunger.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this month that Israel plans to seize all of Gaza and hold it indefinitely.

Tom Fletcher, head of the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, warned the Security Council this week it must “act now” to “prevent genocide” – a claim Israel vehemently denies.

World

First Russia-Ukraine talks since 2022 agree POW swap – but last less than two hours

Published

20 hours ago

May 17, 2025

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First Russia-Ukraine talks since 2022 agree POW swap - but last less than two hours

Russia and Ukraine failed to agree to a ceasefire in their first direct talks since 2022 – as European leaders called Moscow’s approach “unacceptable” after the discussions lasted less than two hours and Vladimir Putin stayed away.

The meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, was set up at short notice on President Putin‘s behest, but he declined a challenge from Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet him in person and instead sent relatively junior representatives.

A source in the Ukrainian team told Sky News that Russia had threatened “eternal war” during the talks.

They said the Russians were not ready to talk about technical details of a ceasefire and were waiting for superiors to approve them.

Latest updates on Istanbul talks

Both countries said they had agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war each in what would be the biggest such exchange yet of the conflict.

But Kyiv wants the West to impose tighter sanctions unless Moscow accepts a proposal from Donald Trump for a 30-day ceasefire.

President Zelenskyy said after the meeting that he had spoken to Mr Trump by phone – alongside Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France, Germany and Poland – who all met in Albania on Friday.

In a post on X, he said Ukraine was “ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace” and that “tough sanctions must follow” if Russia continues to resist a month-long truce.

Frustration over Russia‘s perceived stalling in holding serious negotiations was also clear from the European leaders gathered in Tirana.

“The Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time,” said Sir Keir.

“So as a result of that meeting with President Zelenskyy and that call with President Trump we are now closely aligning our responses and will continue to do so.”

The UK prime minister said the no-show by Russia’s leader was “more evidence that Putin is not serious about peace” and has “been dragging his heels”.

NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte, who was also in Albania, said President Putin had made a “big mistake” by sending low-level delegates to Istanbul.

A list of representatives ahead of the meeting listed presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, deputy foreign minister Galuzin Mikhail Yuryevich and deputy defence chief Alexander Fomin.

Ukraine’s delegation was led by defence minister Rustem Umerov.

President Zelenskyy had called the Russian team “a theatre prop” ahead of the summit in the Dolmabahce Palace.

However, Turkey’s foreign minister heralded it as “an important day for world peace” and said Russia and Ukraine had agreed to swap 1,000 POWs each as a “confidence-building measure”.

Hakan Fidan shared a picture of the delegations and said they had “agreed to share with the other side in writing the conditions that would make it possible to reach a ceasefire”.

Russia’s Vladimir Medinsky said his team had “taken note” of the Ukrainian request for direct talks between Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskyy.

“We have agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future ceasefire and spell it out in detail,” said Mr Medinsky.

Hopes ahead of the meeting were low after Mr Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, played down the prospect of meaningful progress.

The US president told reporters on Air Force One on Thursday “nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together”, while Mr Rubio said a “breakthrough” was unlikely until the US and Russian presidents meet.

No date for such a meeting has been proposed, but Mr Trump has said it will happen “as soon as we can set it up”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that top-level talks were “certainly needed” but arranging it would take time.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was a notable absentee, despite attending Ukraine-focused talks with the US in Saudi Arabia in February.

Russia has so far failed to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire – proposed by European leaders who have threatened Moscow with “massive” sanctions if it doesn’t sign up. The US also supports the plan.

The Kremlin has ambitions to keep swathes of Ukrainian land as part of any long-term truce, an idea that Kyiv firmly rejects.

Russia also wants an end to Ukraine’s NATO ambitions and a promise it will stay neutral.