Trump may force Ukraine into a peace deal by December — the Washington Post

According to The Washington Post, U.S. President Donald Trump may attempt to pressure Ukraine into a peace deal with Russia by December — when he could meet Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Miami.

That assessment was given to the newspaper by Andrew Weiss, a Russia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

“The only explanation I can offer is a connection to key events leading up to the G20 meeting in December. It seems to me that what’s really happening here has nothing to do with diesel fuel or long-range strikes on oil refineries. It’s really about Trump believing he can push the Ukrainians toward some kind of political settlement,” Weiss said.

The publication also cites statements from Kremlin representatives. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “There are some latest signs of agony. The Kyiv regime is resisting. But this cannot change the course of events.” Kremlin special envoy Kirill Dmitriev offered a single word: “Checkmate.”

The Washington Post notes that “Kremlin officials are proudly declaring that Western support for Ukraine is about to collapse.”

An unnamed Russian scholar with close ties to senior Russian diplomats said that “the Russian leadership has achieved a certain political victory.”

“All of this happened after their phone call. Putin probably managed to convince Trump, conducted that conversation very professionally and prepared his arguments well,” he said.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had raised the possibility of a three-way meeting with Trump and Putin in Miami. However, Putin soon proposed that Trump and Xi Jinping meet in November on the sidelines of another summit to discuss ending the war in Ukraine without Zelensky’s participation. The U.S. president expressed his readiness for such a meeting, while Zelensky said he feared new surprises if Putin, Trump, and Xi were to meet.