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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
World
Holly Patrick

Watch live: Trump and Zelensky meet at White House for crucial Ukraine talks

Watch live as Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky meet at the White House for crucial Ukraine talks on Monday, 18 August.

It comes after the US president ruled out Ukrainian membership of Nato and sovereignty over Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.

Mr Trump has previously pressed the Ukrainian president to acknowledge Russia's claim to Crimea as part of a US-brokered peace agreement to resolve the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

However, Mr Zelensky has asserted that Ukraine will never relinquish control of the peninsula.

"President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight," Mr Trump said on his Truth Social platform. "No getting back Obama given Crimea...and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. Some things never change!!!"

In a statement, Mr Zelensky said he was grateful to Mr Trump for the invitation to the White House.

"We all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably. And peace must be lasting. Not like it was years ago, when Ukraine was forced to give up Crimea and part of our East — part of Donbas — and Putin simply used it as a springboard for a new attack... Of course, Crimea should not have been given up then, just as Ukrainians did not give up Kyiv, Odesa, or Kharkiv after 2022," Mr Zelensky added in a post on X.

Monday's meeting follows talks between Mr Trump and Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, 15 August, which ended with no peace deal after nearly three hours of discussions.

Despite launching an illegal invasion, the Russian president is understood to have demanded that Kyiv surrender the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk provinces as a condition for ending the war.

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