Trump Urges End to Ukraine War, Proposes Armistice Along Current Battle Lines

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - The United States President Donald Trump on Friday called on Ukraine and Russia to "stop where they are" and end their brutal, nearly three-year-long war, a proposal that would effectively freeze the current battle lines and, by extension, allow Moscow to keep the territory it has seized.

The president's dramatic pivot, which came in a social media post just hours after a lengthy and seemingly cordial White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, marks a sharp retreat from his own recent, more hawkish stance and signals a renewed push for a diplomatic settlement, even at the cost of Ukraine's territorial integrity.

The move, which followed a lengthy phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin a day earlier, has poured cold water on Kyiv's hopes of receiving powerful, long-range Tomahawk missiles and has once again thrown the future of U.S. policy on the conflict into a state of profound and unpredictable flux.

"Enough blood has been shed, with property lines being defined by War and Guts,” President Trump declared in a post on his Truth Social platform, as reported by the Associated Press, shortly after hosting President Zelensky and his team for more than two hours of talks.

“They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide!” Later, after arriving in Florida for the weekend, he doubled down on this position, telling reporters that the two sides should "stop the war immediately" and that the simplest solution was to formalize the current front lines.

“You go by the battle line wherever it is — otherwise it's too complicated,” he said, according to the AP. "You stop at the battle line and both sides should go home, go to their families, stop the killing, and that should be it.”

This call for an armistice at the current battle lines represents another dramatic shift in President Trump's notoriously fluid position on the war.

As recently as last month, after a meeting with President Zelensky on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Mr. Trump had expressed a belief that the Ukrainians could win back all the territory they had lost since the February 2022 invasion, a stark departure from his previous insistence that Kyiv would have to concede land to end the war.

This more muscular posture was further amplified in recent weeks by his public threats to send long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, a move designed to increase pressure on President Putin.

The Ukrainian delegation arrived in Washington this week with the primary objective of securing those very missiles. President Zelensky has been lobbying for months for the Tomahawks, which, with a range of nearly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers), would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deep into Russian territory and target key military sites, energy facilities, and critical infrastructure.

He has consistently argued that the credible threat of such strikes is the only thing that will compel President Putin to engage in serious negotiations. At the start of their White House talks on Friday, President Zelensky even came with a creative "proposition," suggesting that Ukraine could provide the United States with its own advanced drones in exchange for the Tomahawk cruise missiles, as reported by the AP.

However, the president's tone had already changed. Following his lengthy phone call with President Putin on Thursday, in which the two leaders agreed to a new summit in Budapest in the coming weeks, President Trump began to publicly downplay the prospect of Ukraine receiving the missiles.

In the Oval Office on Friday, before his private lunch with President Zelensky, he signaled his new-found hesitancy. “I have an obligation also to make sure that we’re completely stocked up as a country, because you never know what’s going to happen in war and peace,” President Trump said, according to the AP. 

“We'd much rather have them not need Tomahawks. We'd much rather have the war be over to be honest,” the U.S. President added. 

A Putin adviser, Yuri Ushakov, had previously stated that the Russian leader had warned President Trump during their call that supplying the Tomahawks "won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but would cause substantial damage to the relationship between our countries," according to The Washington Post.

President Zelensky, for his part, put a brave face on the apparent setback. 

In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" after the White House meeting, he noted, “It’s good that President Trump didn’t say ‘no,’ but for today, (he) didn’t say ‘yes,’” according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). However, he also reiterated the urgent need for the weapons, stating, "we need Tomahawks" because “it’s very difficult just to operate only with Ukrainian drones.”

In his public comments after the meeting, President Zelensky appeared to accept President Trump's proposal for a ceasefire at the current lines as a potential starting point for broader talks, while carefully sidestepping the explosive issue of ceding territory.

"The president is right we have to stop where we are, and then to speak,” he told reporters outside the White House, according to the AP, after being shown President Trump's social media post, which he had not yet seen.

He framed the proposal as a path to a "just and lasting peace," but also made it clear that the ultimate obstacle to peace was not in Kyiv, but in Moscow. "It's about Putin, because we didn’t start this war," he said, as reported by The Washington Post. "We want peace. Putin doesn’t want."

President Trump's latest diplomatic push comes as he is riding high from his recent success in brokering a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza. As reported by The Washington Post, he is "freshly determined" to deliver on his long-standing campaign promise to end the war in Ukraine.

"I thought this would be very quick,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. “Who would think I did Middle East before I did this?”

However, critics have accused the president of repeatedly falling into a familiar and unproductive cycle with the Russian leader.

As detailed by The New York Times, on multiple occasions this year, Mr. Trump has come to the brink of imposing new penalties on Russia or providing significant new military aid to Ukraine, only to back off after a phone call with President Putin that raises the prospect of a diplomatic solution.

A previous summit between the two leaders in Alaska in August failed to produce any tangible results, with Mr. Putin continuing his assault on Ukraine unabated.

When asked on Friday if he was concerned that President Putin might be playing him for time, President Trump was characteristically self-assured.

“I’ve been played all my life by the best of them, and I came out really well," he said, according to the AP. “I’m pretty good at this stuff. I think that he wants to make a deal.”

For President Zelensky, the meeting in Washington was the latest chapter in a fraught and often tumultuous relationship with his American counterpart. 

As noted by The Washington Post, their first Oval Office meeting this year led to President Trump expelling the Ukrainian leader from the White House, with Vice President JD Vance deriding him as "ungrateful."

This time, however, the reception was warmer, with President Trump greeting President Zelensky as a "very strong leader" and hosting him overnight at Blair House, the White House’s official residence for guests of honor.

President Zelensky's visit was not limited to the White House.

He also met with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and U.S. energy companies about expanding U.S. access to European gas markets by storing American liquefied natural gas in Ukrainian facilities, and with U.S. defense companies about acquiring "powerful weapons," according to The Washington Post. 

This multi-pronged diplomatic and economic push demonstrates a sophisticated strategy by the Ukrainian leader to secure support on multiple fronts, even as the president's position on military aid remains unpredictable.

As President Zelensky leaves Washington empty-handed on his primary request for Tomahawks, the future of the conflict is once again shrouded in uncertainty. President Trump's call for an armistice at the current battle lines is a proposal that will be seen in Moscow as a significant victory and in many European capitals as a deeply troubling concession.

As the world awaits the upcoming Trump-Putin summit in Budapest, the people of Ukraine are left to wonder whether the "just and lasting peace" they so desperately seek is any closer, or if they are once again caught in the unpredictable crosscurrents of a great power diplomacy that has yet to deliver them from their long and brutal war.