President Trump on Tuesday said Russian officials questioning the legitimacy of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were just “posturing” as part of peace negotiations.
“It doesn’t matter what they say,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting. “Everybody’s posturing. It’s all bulls‑‑‑-.”
Asked for his assessment, special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said he agreed.
Trump and Witkoff were asked about comments from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who in recent days suggested Zelensky’s legitimacy could be a hurdle to any final peace agreement.
“Irrespective of when this meeting might take place, and that must be very well-prepared, the issue of who is going to sign the deal on Ukrainian side is a very serious issue,” Lavrov said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” referring to Zelensky as “the de facto head of the regime.”
Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine in 2019.
Trump has been pushing for an end to the war in Ukraine, which has been raging since Russian forces invaded in 2022 after amassing forces near the border. The president met with Putin earlier this month in Alaska, followed by a meeting at the White House with Zelensky and European leaders.
Trump has said the next step should be for Putin and Zelensky to meet, but neither side appears close to agreeing on the parameters of such a summit.
The president on Tuesday was noncommittal about whether he was restarting a clock for Putin to agree to some kind of ceasefire or face economic consequences.
“I want to see that deal end. It’s very serious, what I have in mind, if I have to do it. But I want to see it end,” Trump said of the war.
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