Ukraine-Russia war: Trump says Putin open to peacekeepers in Ukraine

The United Nations Security Council has adopted a US-sponsored resolution on ending the war in Ukraine which does not mention Russia’s role in invading the country.

The meeting between Donald Trump and France’s Emmanuel Macron came shortly after the US voted against a UN General Assembly resolution in New York demanding an immediate withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine.

The non-binding resolution passed with 93 votes in favour.

The US was one of 18 countries to vote against it, including North Korea, Burundi and Nicaragua, as well as Russia and close ally Belarus.

Opening his press conference alongside France’s Emmanuel Macron, US president Donald Trump described the war in Ukraine as a “horrible, bloody mess” and insisted that discussions with Russia for peace were moving “pretty quickly”.

Mr Macron told reporters that it was “good to have discussion” between the US and Russia, but warned that “peace must not be a surrender of Ukraine” and that there cannot be a “ceasefire without guarantees” of security for Kyiv.

Mr Macron also suggested that other European nations could assist in that process going forward, and need to contribute more to maintaining the defence and security of the continent – warning that Ukrainian sovereignty is an “existential issue” for stability in Europe.

And after a week in which Mr Trump and his domestic allies launched a series of vitriolic tirades against Ukraine’s leadership, the French president said: “We admire greatly the courage of the Ukrainian people”, adding: “I think that no one in this room wants to live in a world where it’s the law of the strongest.”

For his part, Mr Trump once again claimed the war “would never have happened if I was president” and, in a nod to his attempts to secure a rare minerals deal with Ukraine, said: “I believe taxpayers in the United States also deserve to recoup the colossal amounts of money that we’ve sent.”

He added: “Our focus is on achieving a ceasefire as soon as possible, and ultimately permanent peace. My meeting with President Macron was a very important step forward.”

Vladimir Putin has offered the US the opportunity for joint exploration of Russia’s rare earth metals deposits, of which the Russian president said Moscow “undoubtedly” has more of than Ukraine.

Within hours of Donald Trump touting “major economic development transactions with Russia”, Mr Putin chaired a meeting with his ministers and aides on rare earth metals.

Outlining a future economic deal with Washington, which would include the supply of aluminium to the US domestic market, Mr Putin later told state TV: “We, by the way, would be ready to offer our American partners, and when I say ‘partners’, I mean not only administrative and governmental structures but also companies, if they showed interest in joint work.”

“We undoubtedly have, I want to emphasise, significantly more resources of this kind than Ukraine,” Mr Putin added. He insisted that the potential US-Ukraine deal involving rare earth metals is not a concern for Russia.

Mr Putin claimed that Russian companies could supply up to 2 million tonnes of aluminium to the US market if it were to reopen, and suggested that Russia and the US could work jointly on hydropower generation and aluminium production in Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia.

“What is most important, in my opinion, is that we could consider working together with American companies in this area,” Mr Putin said.

French president Emmanuel Macron has praised Donald Trump’s decision to re-engage with Vladimir Putin.

“I stopped my discussion with President Putin after Bucha and the war crimes. We had nothing to get from him in the time,” he said.

“Now this is a chance because there is a new US administration. This is a new context.

“So there is good reason for President Trump to re-engage with President Putin.”

Europe is “clear-eyed” about the need to spend more on defence, Mr Macron said.

The French president said Europe was “well aware” about having to “shoulder more of the security burden that your country has carried for so many years”.

“Europe is very clear eyed about this, we know what we must do given the threats we face.”

“We fully share your vision of peace through strength,” he said.