Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would accept a peace deal in the Russia-Ukraine War that would freeze fighting along its current front lines.
In an interview with Fox & Friends on Fox News on Wednesday, Zelensky spoke on current efforts to end the war, subtly looking to warm relations with President Donald Trump after their recent falling out. When asked by host Brian Kilmeade whether he would accept a peace deal that freezes territory along its current front lines, Zelensky said he would.
“Yes. Right now we have to freeze, and I think this is real way to end this war,” he said, adding that they could call it a ceasefire or stopping the killing, as Trump likes to say.
“And of course, this is the minimum what we need from Russia today. Then, of course, we will go to President Trump and to the Europeans, and will ask for security guarantees. The most important is peace, and also security peace (sic),” Zelensky added.
He pointed out that he had supported such a measure earlier in Trump’s term. He signed a joint statement in October 2025 saying that freezing the war along the current front lines would be a good starting point for negotiations, but has consistently doubted that Russia would accept this.
Talks have stalled over Russia and Ukraine’s mutually exclusive goals, with Zelensky ruling out any ceding of the Donbas to Russia as part of a peace deal. Frustrations between Washington and Kyiv reached a boiling point this month after Trump’s diesel deal, triggering an unprecedented rupture in relations. Trump has called for Ukraine to choose a new leader, and publicly suggested that Zelensky wasn’t interested in peace.
“Ukraine has to want to settle this war. Zelensky has to want to settle this war. And if he doesn’t, I think it’s going to be a very bad thing,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
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“We’ve got nothing back other than high diesel. … We have given probably, possibly more money to Ukraine than almost anybody over the years, hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump added.
The president has argued that Russia is in the far better negotiating position, given the damage Ukraine has sustained to its economy, manpower pool, and energy grid. Zelensky has portrayed the conflict as either a stalemate or a winning calculus for Ukraine, especially after the intensification of its strikes against Russian refineries. In his Wednesday interview, Zelensky said Russia was unable to win on the battlefield, so it was trying to accomplish the Kremlin’s goals by other means.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
