From The Telegraph this morning:
(Cut & pasted as it’s behind a paywall, for those who might be interested to read):
“Donald Trump is demanding Volodymyr Zelensky hold elections that could oust him from office as the price of peace.
His comments came after Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, met in Saudi Arabia for the first time on Tuesday to discuss terms to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
After more than four hours of talks, it emerged that both sides had agreed elections should be held in Ukraine before a final peace settlement is reached.
The proposal raises concerns that Russia will use the ballot to oust Ukraine’s wartime leader from office and install a pro-Putin candidate who would agree to peace terms favourable to Moscow.
Later on Tuesday, Mr Trump said the demand for a Ukrainian presidential election “came from me”.
Speaking from Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach he said: “We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4 per cent approval rating, and where a country has been blown to smithereens...
“If Ukraine wants a seat at the table, wouldn’t the people have to say it has been a long time since they had an election?
“That’s not a Russian thing, that’s something coming from me and coming from many other countries also.”
It represents a particular setback for Sir Keir Starmer, who on Sunday called for Britain and other Nato members to send troops to Ukraine to act as peacekeepers. He also said after a meeting with other Nato leaders in Paris on Monday that he would tell Mr Trump when he visits Washington that the US needed to offer security guarantees.
Mr Trump said that allowing Europe to have troops in Ukraine “would be fine”.
He added: “I wouldn’t object to it at all.”
Britain is prepared to send Typhoon fighter jets to police the skies above Ukraine as part of any peace deal, The Times reported.
On Wednesday, France will host a second meeting to discuss Ukraine and European security.
Mr Lavrov said diplomats from the US team also proposed a moratorium on attacks on the energy infrastructure of Russia and Ukraine.
A similar moratorium was discussed last year during negotiations to restore the Black Sea grain deal, but Kyiv refused to engage in dialogue, he said.
Mr Zelensky was not invited to attend the talks and cancelled a pre-planned visit to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday because he had not received clarity on whether the United States or any Russian delegates would still be there for meaningful meetings.
I don’t know who will stay there and who will go and to be honest I don’t care,” he said.
He reacted furiously to the Saudi Arabia gathering, saying that any talks aimed at ending the war should be “fair” and involve European countries, including Turkey – which offered to host negotiations.
“Ukraine, Europe in a broad sense – and this includes the European Union, Turkey, and the UK – should be involved in conversations and the development of the necessary security guarantees with America regarding the fate of our part of the world,” Mr Zelensky said at a press conference with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president.
Negotiations “should not take place behind our backs”, he added.
Mr Trump defended his decision not to invite Ukraine to the Saudi Arabia talks, saying “they had three years” to end the war.
“I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat. Well, they’ve had a seat for three years and a long time before that, this could have been settled very easily,” he said.
“Just a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago without the loss of much land, very little land, without the loss of any lives, and without the loss of cities that are just laying on their sides.”
Tuesday’s talks represented a consequential reset in relations between Russia and the US, with both countries agreeing to re-establish missions in their respective countries and to begin geopolitical and economic negotiations.
The first phase of the peace deal proposed during Tuesday’s meeting would involve a ceasefire, followed by presidential elections in Ukraine, which were postponed during the war under martial law.
The final stage would involve Kyiv and Moscow signing an agreement to end the conflict after an election, The Telegraph understands.
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Yes, a long read but quite informative I found. Always interest to hear from “both sides”.
