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DONALD TRUMP HAS said he believed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was ready to concede Crimea to Russia as part of any ceasefire deal, as talks on a truce entered what Washington called a critical week.
The US President also stepped up pressure on Vladimir Putin, saying he should “stop shooting” and sign an agreement to end the grinding war that started with Moscow’s February 2022 invasion.
Trump’s comments came a day after he met Zelensky during the funeral of Pope Francis, breaking the ice after a major row between the US and Ukrainian leaders at the White House in February.
“Oh, I think so,” Trump told reporters in Bedminster, New Jersey, when asked whether he thought Zelensky was ready to “give up” Crimea – despite the Ukrainian president repeatedly saying he never would.
Trump added that during their talks in the Vatican they had “briefly” discussed the fate of the Black Sea peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
The 78-year-old US president, who boasted before his inauguration that he could halt Russia’s invasion of Ukraine within one day, launched a diplomatic offensive to stop the fighting after taking office in January.
Kyiv and western allies have feared that Trump was pivoting towards Moscow’s position.
But the US leader has appeared increasingly impatient with Putin in recent days.
Russia launched drone and missile attacks the night after the Vatican talks, killing four people in regions across eastern Ukraine and wounding more than a dozen.
“I want him to stop shooting, sit down, and sign a deal,” Trump said yesterday when asked what he wanted from Putin.
“We have the confines of a deal, I believe, and I want him to sign it.”
The White House has said that without rapid progress, it could walk away from its role as a broker. Trump indicated that he would give the process “two weeks.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed the importance of the week ahead.
“We’re close, but we’re not close enough” to a deal to halt the fighting, Rubio told NBC News yesterday. “I think this is going to be a very critical week.”
But there is still US frustration with both sides, as the war, which has devastated swaths of eastern Ukraine and killed tens of thousands of people, drags on.
Ukraine launched a “massive” drone attack on Russia’s Bryansk region on Sunday, killing one civilian and injuring another, the regional governor said.
Washington has not revealed details of its peace plan, but has suggested freezing the front line and accepting Russian control of Crimea in exchange for an end to hostilities.
Russia claims to have annexed four eastern and southern territories of war-battered Ukraine since its full-scale invasion three years ago, despite not having full military control over them.
Russia holds about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea.
Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that Ukraine should not agree to all the steps reportedly set out in the deal proposed by Trump.
Kyiv knew a ceasefire “may involve territorial concessions,” Pistorius told broadcaster ARD.
“But these will certainly not go… as far as they do in the latest proposal from the US president.”
Europe has pushed for a bigger role in the Ukraine talks, with French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer joining Trump and Zelensky briefly for the meeting in Saint Peter’s Basilica.
Rubio meanwhile had a phone call Sunday with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the foreign ministry in Moscow said.
The pair said there were “emerging prerequisites” for starting negotiations towards a long term peace, a statement said.
Russia insists on keeping the territory it has taken and demands the demilitarization of Kyiv, plus an end to western support.
In a sign of the war’s global dimensions, North Korea on Monday confirmed for the first time that it had deployed troops to Russia’s Kursk region and said its soldiers had helped Moscow reclaim territory there.
Moscow over the weekend claimed the “liberation” of Kursk, where Kyiv launched a shock cross-border offensive in August 2024, hoping to use land there as a bargaining chip in any peace talks.
But Zelensky said Sunday that Ukraine’s army was “maintaining our presence on Russian territory.”
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Nobody thought it was. It contributes, sure, but it’s the bulk commercialisation of rental properties and buy-to-let incentives that are the bigger issue. Plenty of apartment blocks with a single owner (vulture fund or investment) and run by management companies driving rent prices up.
Living spaces shouldn’t be a profitable venture.
@Rob Hunt: why shouldn’t living spaces be a profitable venture? Should people and companies risk their capital just for the potential reward of head pats from economically illiterate socialists? Or is the aim to have the state provide all “living spaces” at a loss to taxpayers so we can live in a country as well designed and thought out as Darndale?
Of course it should be and must be a profitable venture. As a general rule of thumb, if your opinions wouldn’t be out of place on a placard at a PBP protest then you probably need to read more.
@Rob Hunt: you’ll be delighted to hear that these investment funds aren’t investing in property development any more. So with the reduction in supply and the ever increasing demand I’m sure we’ll see lower rents very soon. Well according to your logic anyways.
Lefties don’t realise that years of demonising landlords will reduce supply.
@Paul: why ?, do the landlords take the house with them when they pack up ?
@Paul: I’m a “leftie” and a landlord. Am I demonising myself?
@John Darker: Future potential landlords put their money into something else and less properties get built
@Mick Duvanny: yeah, I’m sure the big companies with hundreds of houses and apartments care and are really upset about what a couple of Lefty’s think of them, just as well they have bundles and bundles of cash they’re fleecing from desperate people to soothe their hurt feelings.
There will never be a shortage of gougers hoping to fleece the ordinary joe, they couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of them,
Just like the banks
@John Darker: What exactly do landlords supply ? Unless they actually build houses instead of hoovering up and sweating assets you are talking ****
@John Darker: you do realize this is EXACTLY what has happened and most property investors won’t invest/build here now and has made the problem worse
@Jay: the €€€ to build houses
@David Plant: source?
‘An in-depth investigation by the Irish Times, led by reporter Isabela Boechat, has laid bare the mechanics of this scam. The investigation revealed how foreign students from outside the EU, with a significant number from Brazil, are resorting to forged documents to secure study visas. These documents include fake enrolment letters, medical insurance, and attendance certificates, which are essential for the visa application process. The scammers, operating through social media platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, charge between €600 and €1,800 for these fraudulent services. The students involved in this scam typically do not attend the schools they are supposedly enrolled in, hence the term ‘ghost students’
How many of these scammers are in Ireland taking up housing?
This foreign student scam needs to be stopped and all these illegal chancers deported.
Something for ‘Journal Investigates’ perhaps??
@Finn Barr: Not a hope of that.
As a single property landlord we rented to the council for below market rent for ten years. Got the property back with 58k worth of damage and never made a profit in the ten years. I am leaving it vacant rather than go through that again.
Close the English Language Schools that are fronts for student Visa scams. All of them. Cancel the visas and send them packing.
@RP McGuinness: you are jumping on the first explanation that sounds good and doesn’t require understanding nor blaming the actual economic system that has caused this situation and instead it alienates you from people who could be your allies and are the most vulnerable, and potentially could help our economy and actually fixing the dang issue.
Can someone please talk about how the Fair Deal scheme is forcing sales and overriding and making families homeless, removing generations from communities and with nothing left to help buy another house.
Over regulation and constant populist knee jerk change to regulation has made investment in property in Ireland impossible, these ‘vulture funds’ are pension funds which a most of the population are invested in in some small way, we actually need their money to build housing , the government doest have the financial firepower to solve the problem, without certainty the market will not attract investment because there’s no certainty surrounding rates of return, rent increases have to be at minimum linked to the rate of inflation, with that kind of certainty rents would rise somewhat faster but would fall in the medium turn as supply ramps up, ultimately government and opposition have destroyed the free market in relation to housing with populist changes, it can’t reach it’s equilibrium
@DB b: 100% correct
This is complete nonsense for Dublin anyway. Airbnb listings are a joke. Tax evasion, short term letting, non-declaration is rife. The methodology is assways. Typical Govt / State agency manipulation of data whenever legislation is mooted. Superglue lockboxes, shut Airbnb, and and those foreign employees home. Ley tourists pay for proper hotels and tax them. Nothing to do with asylum seekers.
how about ringing your local TD or county coucil office and ask the hard questions about local issues of concern ,in tipp the phone lines always engaged!!
@jn: you know what yes. I think everyone needs to be more involved in their politics.
It’s a simple maths issue. The Irish state doesn’t have the money to fund all the houses required each yr, it needs private equity to build them.
The issue is a lot of ppl don’t want private equity involved and want the government to build them. They cant and don’t have the funding.
Also these private equity and pension funds are funding and building the apts / houses. Without them they don’t get built!!
Airbnb is NOT the only short let agency in ireland, plenty others out there but if they included those it would prove short term lets are affecting the shortage of property
@charlie brown: airbnb makes up 85% of the market for those kindsa platfroms. I think it makes for a good case study.
Noooooooooo…Neverrrrrrrrrr!
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