US President Donald Trump said that he does not consider it practical for Ukraine to join NATO and that it is unlikely to regain all its territory, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
Trump discussed the war in Ukraine in phone calls today with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the agency said, defining this as the US president's first major step towards diplomacy in the conflict, which he has promised to end.
Trump told reporters at the White House that he expects the two of them to meet in the future, possibly in Saudi Arabia, Agence France-Presse reported. He described his conversation with Putin as good and noted that the two spoke for more than an hour.
Zelensky's office said that he and Trump spoke on the phone for about an hour, while the Kremlin said the conversation between Putin and Trump lasted nearly an hour and a half.
The Kremlin said that the two leaders had agreed to meet and that Putin had invited Trump to visit Moscow.
According to Russian sources, there had been speculation that the two presidents would meet in a third country, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Earlier today, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that returning Ukraine to its pre-2014 borders is unrealistic and that the administration of US President Donald Trump does not believe that NATO membership for Kiev can be part of the solution in the war triggered by the Russian invasion.
Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In 2014, it annexed Crimea, Reuters recalls.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Europe and the Middle East in the coming days, the State Department announced, quoted by Reuters and BTA.
From February 13 to 18, Rubio will visit Germany, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the US State Department specified.
The Secretary of State will be in Munich on February 13 for the annual security conference, where he will discuss a number of US priorities with international partners. In Munich, he will also participate in the G7 Foreign Ministers' meeting.
From February 15 to 18, Rubio will visit Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. The Secretary of State's talks with senior representatives of these countries will confirm the United States' interest in developing regional cooperation, stability, and peace. The focus of this leg of his tour will be the release of the American and all other Hamas hostages, progress on the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, and countering the destabilizing actions of the Iranian regime and its proxies, the State Department said on its website.