President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have clashed again on efforts to end the three-year-old war in Ukraine, with the US leader chiding Zelenskiy for refusing to recognise Russia's occupation of Crimea.
Trump's Vice President JD Vance said it was time for Russia and Ukraine to either agree to a US peace proposal "or for the United States to walk away from this process", echoing a warning from Trump last week.
Speaking to reporters in India on Wednesday, Vance said the proposal called for freezing territorial lines "at some level close to where they are today" and a "long-term diplomatic settlement that hopefully will lead to long-term peace".
"The only way to really stop the killing is for the armies to both put down their weapons, to freeze this thing," he said.
A former Western official familiar with the US proposal said it also called for the recognition of Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Since taking office in January, Trump has upended US policy toward the war in Ukraine, pressing Ukraine to agree to a ceasefire while easing pressure on Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022.
Zelenskyy on Tuesday reiterated that Ukraine would never cede Crimea to Russia, which seized control of the peninsula in 2014 in a move that was condemned internationally. "There's nothing to talk about here. This is against our constitution," he said.
Trump, who argued with Zelenskyy in a disastrous Oval Office meeting in March, called this an inflammatory statement that made peace harder to achieve. He said in a social media post that Crimea was lost years ago "and is not even a point of discussion".
Zelenskyy acknowledged later in an X post that the London talks among US, Ukrainian and European officials were marked by high emotions but expressed hope that future joint work would lead to peace.
He pledged again that Ukraine would abide by its constitution and said he was sure Kyiv's partners, particularly the United States, "will act in line with its strong decisions".
With AAP.
