On Tuesday, 20 October 2026, US President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that Ukraine must want to end the war, or the outcome for Kyiv would be very bad. He said Russia keeps advancing and has taken a very large area of land, describing Moscow as holding the upper hand. Trump spoke while US envoy Steve Witkoff was preparing to travel to Russia for further talks on Ukraine. Witkoff had met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo that day, and Rzeczpospolita reports he is due in Russia on Wednesday, 21 October. According to AFP, Trump is now pressing Zelensky far harder than Putin to accept a deal, and in recent days his statements and decisions have favoured the Kremlin.
Trump argued that Washington had given Ukraine an enormous amount of assistance and received nothing in return, apart from expensive diesel. He said the war had brought only suffering, deaths and huge financial losses, and repeated his call for Ukrainian forces to stop attacking Russian refineries. He also faulted his predecessor Joe Biden for not routing aid through the European Union, which he said should have paid for it, and added that Europeans are growing tired of funding Kyiv. Ukrainian authorities say the administration temporarily cut off Ukraine's access to early-warning systems for Russian attacks in recent days. Trump also announced an agreement with Putin to supply Russian diesel to world markets, including the United States.
On 20 October Zelensky met Norway's prime minister, Finland's president and Witkoff in Oslo to discuss ways to end the war Russia is waging against Ukraine. At the press conference after the talks he said Ukraine is not losing the war, but it is losing people to Russian attacks, so it wants a peaceful settlement. He said he is ready for negotiations and for a trilateral peace meeting with the United States and Russia. He was responding to Putin's proposal of a three-way meeting with the United States, Russia and China, and insisted that no discussion about Ukraine can take place without Ukraine. He also described a very good conversation with US Secretary of State Rubio and thanked Washington for restoring intelligence and early-warning data on incoming Russian missiles.
Trump said he had discussed the case of Stephen Hubbard with Putin and asked him to release the American, suggesting a development could come soon. He said others had pursued the case for a long time, well before he took office. Hubbard, 74, a former teacher, is serving a sentence of nearly seven years in a Russian prison for alleged mercenary activity in support of Ukraine, which he denies. Russian forces captured him in early April 2022, a few weeks after the invasion, and according to Russian state media he confessed. He was convicted in October 2024 in a closed-door trial. Another account in Polish coverage gives a sentence of six years and 10 months for serving in a Ukrainian defence unit in Izium. In August this year, the Trump administration secured the release of another jailed American, former Marine Robert Gilman.
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Trump said Ukraine must want to end the war or face a very bad outcome, as US envoy Steve Witkoff prepares further talks in Russia and Trump says he raised the case of jailed American Stephen Hubbard with Putin.
AI text based on reports by novinky.cz, seznamzpravy.cz, Rzeczpospolita and other publishers. Published .