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On Thursday President Donald Trump did an interview with The New York Times in which he commented on the ongoing Ukraine war peace plan process. The President has worked tirelessly during 2025 to try and end the war, yet peace was repeatedly postponed. While Ukraine’s Dictator Vladimir Zelensky made good on his orders to submit a peace plan to Washington, the plan did not satisfy Moscow’s stipulations. The President does however believe Russian President Vladimir Putin still wants to make a deal.
“I’ve had cases where I had Putin all done and Zelensky wouldn’t make the deal, which shocked me,” Trump told The Times. “Then I’ve had cases where it was the reverse. I think now they both want to make a deal, but we’ll find out.”
Both Ukraine and Russia have been involved in U.S.-brokered peace negotiations for nearly a year now, part of an agenda put forth by then-candidate Trump to end the war by bringing the two sides to a common understanding.
“I think he wants to make a deal,” Trump said of Putin. “But I’ve thought about that — I’ve thought that for a long time.”
The reporter asked the President about a possible timeframe for an end to the war, an action Trump had assumed would have happened almost a year ago, but the President was unsure.
“We’re doing the best we can. I don’t have a timeline,” Trump replied.
Trump told talkshow host Patrick Bet-David on October 17, 2024 that he thinks he can end the Ukraine war even before taking office, assuming he became President Elect. While Trump ended up becoming President Elect weeks after the interview, he has yet to be successful on ending the war.
“I think I will settle Russia/Ukraine while I’m President Elect,” Trump said in 2024 while on the PBD podcast at 1:02:26.
The New York Times interview Thursday touched on this:
Mr. Trump declined to detail how quickly he hoped to end the war, a departure from his practice last year, when he set out numerous deadlines for achieving a deal that went unmet. He also said he was not prepared to promise an increase to U.S. support for Ukraine if Mr. Putin continued to balk at a cease-fire.
“I just don’t want to be in a position to say that, because I have an obligation to see if I can save lives,” Trump said Thursday.
RT detailed Russia’s current stance on the peace process in an article Friday:
Russian officials, including Putin, have repeatedly stated that Moscow would prefer to resolve the Ukraine conflict through diplomatic means but will have to continue using force if its key objectives cannot be achieved through diplomacy alone.
U.S.-mediated negotiations involving Russian and Ukrainian representatives have intensified in recent months, after Trump’s initial 28-point peace plan was leaked to the media in November 2025.
The roadmap reportedly envisaged Kiev ceding the remainder of Donbass to Moscow as well as renouncing its NATO membership aspirations and capping the size of its military, among other points.
Since then, the US plan has undergone several changes, with input from both Russia and Ukraine.
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