Trump announces negotiations to end Ukraine war will start 'immediately'

Newshour

BBC

News, Daily News

4.4 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Donald Trump has announced that talks to end the war in Ukraine will start immediately. The US President had 'a lengthy and highly productive' phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, followed by a call to Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky. We hear from a former NATO Deputy Secretary General and a Ukrainian MP about the path going forward.

Also in our programme: is the United States in the midst of a constitutional crisis? And we hear about a historic raid targetting the Sicilian mafia.

(Photo: US President Trump Welcomes Released Russian Prisoner Mark Fogel. Credit: Shutterstock)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London.
0:09.1	I'm Tim Franks. And we're beginning with the latest neck-wrenching change of scenery from the Trump administration.
0:16.4	This time, it's over the war in Ukraine. President Trump has said that negotiations to end the conflict
0:22.4	will start immediately after what he described as a lengthy and highly productive phone call
0:27.7	with President Putin. Indeed, within the last few minutes, he said that that phone call lasted
0:32.9	more than an hour. The White House press secretary, Caroline Leavitt, told reporters that the president had
0:38.1	followed his call to Vladimir Putin by one to the Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky,
0:43.1	and that diplomatic work would start in just two days when the U.S. Secretary's State visits
0:47.2	a major Western security conference in Germany. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will lead the
0:53.0	delegation. I am hopeful that the results of that meeting will be positive.
0:57.2	It is time to stop this ridiculous war where there has been massive and totally unnecessary death and destruction.
1:04.4	God bless the people of Russia and Ukraine. I myself just spoke to the president about these calls, and he told me to tell all of you.
1:11.8	They were very good calls. They were very positive. And the administration is wholeheartedly committed to a peace deal to end once and for all the Russia-Ukraine war.
1:21.6	And as for the contours of any possible deal, well, it was interesting to hear what the U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth told a meeting of Kiev's allies earlier in the day that hopes of restoring Ukraine's borders to the way they were before 2014 were unrealistic.
1:35.6	We will only end this devastating war and establish a durable peace by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield.
1:48.3	We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that
1:55.9	returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only
2:04.7	prolong the war and cause more suffering. Just to be clear, when the Defense Secretary talks
2:10.1	about the pre-2014, Russia annexed the Black Sea Peninsula of Crimea from Ukraine back in March
2:16.1	2014. And following its full-scale invasion, three years ago, it currently controls about a fifth of
2:23.4	Ukrainian territory, mainly in the east and the south.
2:27.2	The BBC's Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, is in Moscow.
	...

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