Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he wants to “make things right” with President Donald Trump to secure a lasting peace in Ukraine after the US leader suspended military aid to Kyiv.
Zelenskyy on Tuesday said his clash with the US president last week was “regrettable” and called for a partial truce as a first step to securing an end to Russia’s three-year-long war.
“Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X.
He said Ukraine was ready to agree to a “truce in the sky – ban on missiles, long-ranged drones, bombs on energy and other civilian infrastructure – and truce in the sea immediately, if Russia will do the same.”
The statement came after Washington paused military aid to Kyiv in a stunning move overnight, days after Zelenskyy’s talks with Trump in the White House descended into acrimony, prompting the US secretary of state to call on the Ukrainian leader to apologise.
“Our meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it was supposed to be. It is regrettable that it happened this way. It is time to make things right,” Zelenskyy posted on X.
“We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence,” he said.
Trump had suggested on Monday that a deal to open up Ukraine’s minerals to US investment could still be agreed. The deal was meant to be signed in Washington on Friday before Zelenskyy departed after the Oval Office bust-up.
In an interview on Fox News on Monday, Vice President JD Vance also called on Zelenskyy to accept it.
“If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine,” Vance said.
Ukraine has relied on US and European military aid to hold off a bigger and better-armed foe throughout three years of warfare that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides and flattened some Ukrainian cities.
Military experts say it could take time for the impact of missing US aid to be felt. When US assistance was held up for several months last year by Republicans in Congress, the most notable initial impact was shortages of air defences to shoot down Russian missiles and drones, though later Ukrainian forces complained of ammunition running low at the front.
“It’s pretty significant, but not nearly as impactful as it would have been earlier in the war because Ukraine is far less dependent on direct US military assistance now,” Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at Carnegie Endowment told the Reuters news agency.
The pause also puts more pressure on European allies who have publicly embraced Zelenskyy since the Oval Office blow-up, led by the United Kingdom and France whose leaders both visited the White House last week.
Europeans are now racing to boost their own military spending and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday unveiled proposals to boost spending on defence in the EU, which she said could mobilise up to 800 billion euros ($840bn). The EU is also holding an emergency summit on Thursday to discuss the defence package.
Reporting from London, Al Jazeera’s James Bays said that even if Europe can agree to this, it is unclear whether it can replicate everything that the US used to supply, including the Predator air defence systems and ammunition.
“Ukraine has made a formidable progress on its drone force, but they rely on Starlink, the commercial satellite operation run by Trump’s ally Elon Musk,” he said.
“If that satellite operation stops providing internet, that’s going to be a serious problem,” he added.
The Kremlin, for its part, has said cutting off military aid to Ukraine was the best possible step towards peace, although it was still waiting to confirm Trump’s move.
Military experts say Russia will also likely try to use the halt in supplies to extend its territorial gains and strengthen its position in prospective peace talks.
Russia’s state RIA Novosti news agency quoted Andrei Kartapolov, a retired general who chairs the defence committee in the lower house of parliament, as saying Ukraine would exhaust its current ammunition reserves within months.
“We need to keep up the pressure and continue to target their bases and depots with long-range precision weapons to destroy the stockpiles,” he said.
