The US president hopes he can secure a peace deal without a Kiev visit but could go there to push it through<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump says he has no desire to travel to Ukraine but may agree to do so if it helps end Kiev\u2019s conflict with Russia.
\nUkrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has been urging the US president to visit for months, suggesting that Trump\u2019s sympathies could be swayed if he personally witnessed the conflict\u2019s toll. Trump was asked whether he \u201canticipated\u201d a trip to Ukraine during a joint press conference with Zelensky in Miami on Sunday.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t anticipate it. I would like to get the deal done and not necessarily have to go,\u201d he replied. Trump added that, despite his reluctance, he has \u201cno problem\u201d with travelling to Kiev and had offered to address the Ukrainian parliament to facilitate a resolution.
\n\u201cI\u2019m not sure that it would be really necessary. But if it would help save 25,000 lives a month or whatever it may be, I would certainly be willing to do that,\u201d he concluded.
\nWestern leaders have been making regular trips to Kiev in gestures of solidarity with Zelensky\u2019s government for years. Some visits have been interrupted by air raid sirens, though skeptics have noted there was no evidence of actual Russian attacks on those occasions.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: EU \u2018main obstacle\u2019 to Ukraine peace \u2013 Lavrov<\/p>\n
Zelensky attempted to appeal to Trump\u2019s emotions during their February meeting in the Oval Office, presenting him a folder of before-and-after images of Ukrainian prisoners of war released by Russia. The selection featured emaciated and disabled individuals, implying their condition resulted from captivity.
\nHowever, according to TIME magazine, those images \u201cmarked the point when the meeting went wrong,\u201d as Trump felt he was being blamed. Zelensky told the outlet he did not regret the diplomatic gamble, stating, \u201cWhat I wanted to show were my values.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The US president hopes he can secure a peace deal without a Kiev visit but could go there to push it through US President Donald Trump says he has no…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t