WASHINGTON, Aug 18, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky 
said it was up to Russia to end its invasion, ahead of high-stakes talks on 
Monday with US counterpart Donald Trump, who is pressuring Ukraine to give up 
Crimea and abandon its NATO ambitions.

The comments came hours before Zelensky and European leaders were scheduled 
to meet Trump in Washington, a follow-up to a summit between Trump and Putin 
in Alaska on Friday that failed to produce a ceasefire.

Trump, who dropped his insistence on a ceasefire in favor of a final peace 
deal after meeting Putin, said late Sunday that Zelensky could end the three-
and-a-half-year war "almost immediately, if he wants to."

"Remember how it started. No getting back Obama given Crimea (12 years ago, 
without a shot being fired!), and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things 
never change!!!", Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Announcing that he had landed in Washington, Zelensky wrote later: "Russia 
must end this war, which it itself started."

"Ukrainians are fighting for their land, their independence," he said, adding 
that he hoped "that our joint strength with America, with our European 
friends, will force Russia into a real peace."

Trump and Zelensky are expected to meet one-on-one before being joined by the 
leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Finland, as well as NATO chief 
Mark Rutte and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, according to 
the White House.

Ahead of Monday's meeting, China called for "all parties" to agree to peace 
"as soon as possible."

It will be the first time Zelensky visits Washington since a bust-up with 
Trump and Vice President JD Vance in February, when the two men berated the 
Ukrainian leader for being "ungrateful."

Russia kept up its attacks on Ukraine ahead of the new talks, firing at least 
140 drones and four ballistic missiles at the country between late Sunday and 
early Monday, the Ukrainian air force said.

A Russian drone attack on a five-story apartment block in the Ukrainian city 
of Kharkiv just before dawn killed at least seven people, authorities said.

Ukrainian shelling attacks in the Russian-occupied parts of the Kherson and 
Donetsk regions meanwhile killed two people, Moscow-installed authorities 
said.

- Security guarantees -

Since the Oval Office row with Zelensky in February, Trump has grown more 
critical of Putin and shown some signs of frustration as Russia repeatedly 
stalled on peace talks. 

But Washington has not placed extra sanctions on Moscow, and the lavish 
welcome offered to Putin in Alaska on his first visit to the West since he 
invaded Ukraine in 2022 was seen as a diplomatic coup for Russia.

Speaking in Brussels on the eve of his visit to the United States, Zelensky 
said he was keen to hear more about what Putin and Trump discussed in Alaska.

He also hailed Washington's offer of security guarantees to Ukraine as 
"historic."

Trump said he spoke to Putin about the possibility of a collective defense 
guarantee for Ukraine similar to the one in place for NATO members.

The promise would be outside of the framework of the Western military 
alliance that Ukraine wants to join and which is seen as an existential 
threat by Russia.

- Discussion on land -

Trump envoy Steve Witkoff said Moscow had made "some concessions" regarding 
five Ukrainian regions that Russia now fully or partially controls, and that 
there was an "important discussion with regard to Donetsk and what would 
happen there."

"That discussion is going to specifically be detailed on Monday," he told 
CNN, without giving details.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 following a referendum denounced as a sham by 
Kyiv and the West, and did the same in 2022 in four Ukrainian regions -- 
Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia -- even though its forces have not 
fully captured them.

A source briefed on a phone call between Trump and European leaders on 
Saturday told AFP that the US leader was "inclined to support" a Russian 
demand to be given territory it had not yet captured in the Donbas, an area 
that includes the Donetsk and Lugansk regions and that has seen the deadliest 
battles of the war.

In exchange, Moscow would agree to "freeze" the front line in Kherson and 
Zaporizhzhia, regions where Russian forces hold swathes of territory but not 
the regional capitals, the source cited Trump as saying.

Russia had until now insisted that Ukraine pull its forces from all four 
regions as a precondition to any deal.

Zelensky has said he is constitutionally bound not to give away any Ukrainian 
territory.