Russia’s war on Ukraine at critical moment as Trump and Putin push to end conflict

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President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’d like to see Russia rejoin the Group of 7 nations it was ejected from a decade ago after its incursion into Ukraine.

The viewpoint is one Trump espoused frequently during his first term, including during an argumentative dinner in 2019 with fellow G7 leaders convening on the French Atlantic coast.

Since then, however, Russia has launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor, deepening Moscow’s global isolation and turning the G7 into a steering committee of western support for Kyiv.

Trump appears intent on changing that. He spoke by phone with Putin on Wednesday, breaking a three-year period of silence between US and Russian leaders.

And he is reviving his idea to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin back into the G7 club, returning it to the G8, in comments he made from the White House on Thursday.

“I think Putin would love to be back,” Trump went on. “Obama and a couple of other people made a mistake, and they got Russia out. It’s very possible that if that was the G8, you wouldn’t have had the problem with Ukraine.”

Any change to the G7 configuration would require consensus by the group’s leaders, making a change in the makeup unlikely in the near term.

President Donald Trump indicated Thursday that Ukraine will be included in negotiations to end Russia’s war, comments that come after he unilaterally spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin this week on a potential deal to end the conflict.

Asked by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins whether Ukraine would have a seat at the table, Trump said, “Of course they would, I mean they’re part of it. We would have Ukraine, and we’d have Russia, and we’ll have other people involved too. … A lot of forks in this game, I’ll tell you what. This is a very interesting situation, but the Ukraine war has to end.”

Those comments also come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine will not accept a peace deal struck between the US and Russia without Kyiv’s involvement. During the Biden administration, top US officials, including then-President Joe Biden, repeatedly emphasized that there would be “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

Trump said he had a “good talk” with both Putin and Zelensky, and pushed back on criticism that he should have first spoken with the Ukrainian leader.

“Somebody said, oh, I should’ve called Zelensky first. I don’t think so. I mean, we have to find out whether Russia wants to make a deal. I know that Zelensky wants to make a deal, because he told me that. But I now know that Russia wants to make a deal,” he said.

Trump was also pressed by Collins on hedged comments on Thursday from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said that “everything is on the table” in negotiations between Ukraine and Russia after saying Wednesday that it’s not realistic for Ukraine to join NATO.

Asked whether he asked Hegseth to walk back those initial comments, the president said no. “No, I didn’t,” Trump said.

He continued, “I thought his comments were good yesterday and they’re probably good today, they’re a little bit softer perhaps. I thought his comments yesterday were pretty accurate. I don’t see any way that a country in Russia’s position could allow them, just in their position, could allow them to join NATO,” going on to criticize his predecessor.

Russia is not a member of NATO, and NATO policy states that “Russia is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.”

Volodymyr Sablyn, battalion commander in the 66th mechanized brigade.

Ukrainian soldiers, exhausted but resolute after defending their country for nearly three years, have responded bleakly to US President Donald Trump’s call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, which risks leaving Ukraine in the dark as the two larger countries decide its future.

CNN spoke to three Ukrainian military personnel over the phone Thursday, as President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine would not agree to a peace deal negotiated without Ukrainian involvement.

“No one and nothing will stop Putin from attacking us again and occupying another region or several more,” Volodymyr Sablyn, a battalion commander in the 66th mechanized brigade, fighting in the direction of Lyman in Donetsk region.

“If Europe and America don’t help us, then making peace now will most likely lead to war in a few years,” said Sablyn, 36.

“If we win the war, Russia will not be able to attack anyone for decades. If we lose and are forced to make peace with the loss of the occupied territories, Russia will start wars one after another, occupy territories, assimilate civilians who will then fight in the following wars on the side of Russia.”

A 32-year-old officer who goes by the call sign Bankir.

A senior officer for Ukraine’s intelligence agency, the SBU, was more optimistic, praising Trump’s “sharp temperament.”

“The best solution in this case would be to bring the aggressor country to the negotiating table from a position of strength, providing Ukrainian soldiers with real American weapons and allowing them to demonstrate that these guys are not to be trifled with,” said the 32-year-old officer who asked to be identified by his call sign Bankir.

Despite three years of grueling war, Bankir said: “Our desire to defend our land has not diminished, and it is not affected by any backroom agreements.”

A soldier who asked to be identified by his call sign Musician said, “I don’t think there will be a quick end to the war,” despite the rapid pace with which events are moving.

Musician, a member 38th separate marine brigade.

“Until Russia achieves the goal of at least capturing the Donetsk region, it seems to me that they will not stop even to take some operational pause to accumulate more forces,” said Musician, who is in the 38th separate marine brigade, currently fighting near Pokrovsk in Donetsk.

He said a pause in fighting would come as a “relief, because everyone has been very tired for three years.”

“It will matter more what happens next. How the army and military affairs will continue to develop and what we will do to strengthen the borders we have now. And then it will be seen how it will end.”

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said President Donald Trump believes that an “investment relationship” with Ukraine is more “tangible” than one based on shared values.

“President Trump as a dealmaker and a businessman recognizes that an investment relationship with Ukraine ultimately in the long term for the United States is a lot more tangible than any promises or shared values we might have – even though we have them,” Hegseth said Thursday at a press conference in Brussels.

The Trump administration has repeatedly expressed its interest in Ukraine’s vast rare earth minerals, although Hegseth did not mention this explicitly.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky during a meeting with the US Secretary of Treasury in Kyiv on Tuesday.

US President Donald Trump’s “lengthy and highly productive” phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin has sparked fears in Europe of a “dirty deal” being struck to end the war in Ukraine on terms favorable to Moscow without Kyiv’s involvement.

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday said Ukraine would not accept a peace deal negotiated by the United States and Russia alone. He conceded it was “not pleasant” that Trump spoke with Putin before calling Kyiv, calling into doubt the West’s policy of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” that has largely held over three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, warned against a “quick fix” and a “dirty deal” to end the war, saying that Europe and Ukraine must be at the table for talks because no peace deal can be implemented without their involvement.

For European members of NATO the future suddenly looks a whole lot more uncertain. Since the foundation of the alliance, Europe has relied on the American nuclear umbrella, the deployment of sizable US military contingents in Europe and the vast US defense budget and weapons pipeline.

Trump’s call with Putin, and his subsequent announcement that negotiations would begin immediately on reaching a deal in Ukraine, blindsided European leaders and threatened to leave them with the grunt work of funding and overseeing any settlement.

In other words: Washington will do the deal (and may get paid in rare earth minerals by Ukraine as Trump has demanded), and Europe will pick up the tab.

Newly minted US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told NATO allies in Brussels that European and non-European troops – but not Americans – would have to police any agreement between Ukraine and Russia. There was also a brutal denial of Ukraine’s aspirations to join the alliance. Hegseth said Washington did “not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome.”

A NATO official subsequently briefed that “NATO membership is not necessarily something that needs to be negotiated with Russia. It’s something that’s a decision for allies and that decision has been linked to when the time is right.”

The official insisted that “the alliance’s position has not changed and Ukraine is still on a path to membership.”

CNN’s Christian Edwards, Sophie Tanno, James Frater and Svitlana Vlasova contributed reporting.

To read the rest of this analysis, click here.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared to tie future aid for Ukraine’s defense to their willingness to negotiate with Russia, saying on Thursday that President Donald Trump would determine “the most robust carrot or stick on either side to induce a durable peace.”

“[S]ecurity assistance — we have continued to provide what has been allocated,” Hegseth said at a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “I think it would be fair to say that things like future funding, either less or more, could be on the table in negotiations as well.”

“Whatever the president determines is the most robust carrot or stick on either side to induce a durable peace, understanding, obviously, the motivations that Vladimir Putin has had on Ukraine for quite some time,” Hegseth continued.

Hegseth also said he would not be involved in the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, signaling that he will continue to take more of a back-seat role on Ukraine’s security than his predecessor, former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth holds a press conference during a NATO Defence Ministers meeting at the Alliance's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday reiterated the Trump administration’s calls for NATO allies to drastically increase their defense spending, calling for European countries to take “primary responsibility” for defending the continent.

Since 2014, NATO countries have agreed to commit 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) to defense spending to ensure the alliance’s military readiness.

Speaking at a press conference in Brussels, Hegseth said this is no longer sufficient, echoing earlier remarks by US President Donald Trump.

Trump’s second term has come with fresh demands on the US’ European partners. During meetings at the NATO headquarters in Brussels this week, Hegseth cemented the administration’s demand for NATO members to spend 5% of their GDP on defense.

President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday that Saudi Arabia would likely host his peacemaking summit with Vladimir Putin may have seemed like an unusual choice.

But to Trump and his advisers, the Gulf kingdom made perfect sense.

In the past, American presidents have convened talks with their Russian counterparts in Geneva, Helsinki, Prague, Vienna and Bratislava — all in Europe, where the relationship between Washington and Moscow has deep implications.

A number of other nations have offered their countries as potential venues for an upcoming Trump-Putin summit, including Serbia and Switzerland.

But Russian officials had viewed a meeting in Europe as potentially weighted on the side of Ukraine, given most European nations’ condemnation of Russia’s invasion and support of Kyiv over the course of the three-year conflict, according to people familiar with the matter.

By contrast, Saudi Arabia has maintained a neutral stance, stopping short of criticizing Moscow or joining the West in applying sanctions.

Saudi Arabia is also not a member of the International Criminal Court, which has issued a warrant for Putin, meaning the Russian leader can travel there for talks without risking arrest.

It’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), has cultivated close ties with the president, illustrated last month when he became the first world leader to speak to him on the telephone following his swearing-in.

MBS is also one of a handful of powerful world leaders to have maintained close ties to Putin since the invasion of Ukraine. The two share certain autocratic traits, including lethal crackdown on dissent.

“We know the crown prince, and I think it’d be a very good place to be,” Trump said Wednesday in the Oval Office.

As he looks to bolster his stature as an influential international player, MBS has identified the Ukraine crisis as a potential area of opportunity. He hosted a peace summit in Jeddah last year.

Earlier this week, MBS had played an instrumental role in a swap of US and Russian detainees, reprising a role he played in August last year when he helped to broker the biggest US-Russian prisoner swap since the Cold War.

“He has a very strong friendship with President Trump and behind the scenes he was encouraging and using and looking for the right result and it was helpful, it really was,” Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy who helped secure the swap, told CNN’s Alayna Treene.

United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks with the media as he arrives for a meeting of NATO defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels today.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hedged on comments he made on Wednesday that it’s not realistic for Ukraine to join NATO in a press conference on Thursday, saying “everything is on the table” in negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.

“I want to be clear about something as it pertains to NATO membership not being realistic outcome for negotiations. That’s something that was stated as part of my remarks here, as part of the coordination with how we’re executing these ongoing negotiations, which are led by President Trump,” Hegseth said at NATO Headquarters in Brussels following a meeting of NATO defense ministers.

“All of that said, these negotiations are led by President Trump. Everything is on the table. In his conversations with Vladimir Putin and Zelensky, what he decides to allow or not allow is at the purview of the leader of the free world, of President Trump.”

On Wednesday, in his opening remarks before his first Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting, Hegseth said that the US does “not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”

US President Donald Trump, later said he agreed and stated that he does not “think it’s practical” to have Ukraine join NATO.

NATO general secretary Mark Rutte gives a press conference after the meeting of the Ministers of Defence at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday.

The chief of NATO has said that “several” member states have agreed to invest significantly more in defense spending, as he warned that the military alliance must shift to a “wartime mindset.”

At a meeting on Thursday, NATO members agreed on an updated action plan to rebuild a strong defense industry on both sides of the Atlantic, Secretary General Mark Rutte told a news conference later that day.

He continued: “We need significantly more defense spending, so there is no time to waste.”

Rutte said that defense spending had already increased, with NATO allies in Europe and Canada investing a total of $485 billion in defense in 2024, an increase of 20% compared to the previous year. However, he warned that the alliance needed to do much more, and faster.

Speaking on US President Donald Trump’s comments on starting talks to end the war in Ukraine, Rutte said that NATO allies had “taken note” of Trump’s initiative, and “discussed the importance of our continued support to Ukraine, which is crucial so that this brutal war of aggression can come to a just and lasting end.”

Trump said Wednesday he had held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which they agreed to “immediately” start negotiations to end the war.

Trump’s second term has placed fresh demands on America’s European partners, and US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week cemented the administration’s demand for NATO members to spend 5% of their GDP on defense.

Residents of Kyiv have reacted with concern, anger and defiance after US President Donald Trump spoke warmly about his phone call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and indicated his desire to end the war quickly – potentially by ceding some Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine to Moscow.

“For Ukrainians, this is a negative sign. And I think that no one will just let it go,” Oleksandr Sokhatskyi, a financial consultant in Kyiv, told CNN on Thursday of the prospect of Russia being awarded Ukrainian land. “Or maybe (the United States and Russia) are just testing whether we will swallow it and continue to be silent, or whether we will express our opinion in some negative way.”

Some Ukrainains who spoke with CNN expressed hope that a positive peace deal could be agreed – but few expected that to be the case. And several said they felt Putin was influencing Trump to dance to his tune as the US president seeks to end the conflict quickly.

Yuliya Kazdobina, an employee at a Ukrainian think tank, believes that Russia is not interested in ending the war and will not make any concessions despite the talks.

“Trump said the war would be over in 24 hours and it’s been a while. I don’t see any prospect (of ending the war) anytime soon,” said 70-year-old Liudmyla Bilozerova.

“I would like to believe that everything will work out. Ukraine wants peace. This is the most important thing,” added Viktor, a pensioner. “It’s bad that they bypass Ukraine, negotiate with Putin, and the EU isn’t invited to the talks.”

“The surrender of territory is the most sensitive issue,” Viktor said, stressing that Ukrainians want to return to the borders the country enjoyed after its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 until 2014, when Russia seized Crimea. “We cannot understand what they (Putin and Trump) are talking about behind our backs.”

For Viktor, a pensioner, the most important thing is that Trump and Putin are talking behind Ukrainians' backs about ceding Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia, but he hopes for a just peace

Trump’s phone call with Putin raised concern across Europe that he would rush to reach a deal that is unpalatable to Kyiv. Asked if he views Ukraine as an equal member of the peace process on Wednesday, Trump said: “Um, that’s an interesting question.”

Earlier Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Secretary of Defense, told NATO defense ministers it was unrealistic for Ukraine to join NATO, or for it to reclaim all of the territory Russia has annexed since it first invaded the country’s east in 2014.

“We know that Russia is very duplicitous, and they can play nice. But when it comes to actually making concessions and making peace, they actually never (do),” Yuliya Kazdobina, who works for the Kyiv-based foreign policy think tank Ukrainian Prism, told CNN. “No matter how much we want peace, I don’t think it’s possible, because Russia has not changed its mind and it’s not going to change its position.”

“Given how many victims this war has already brought, and to end it on someone else’s conditions… then why did these (Ukrainian troops) die and why did they defend these territories?” said Sokhatskyi. “We should not give up our territories. Because it (would mean) that we forget about those guys who died. And then for what did they die?”

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'This is how you should communicate with Russia': Russian FM praises Putin-Trump phone call

01:15 - Source: CNN

At a news conference in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he was surprised at the global reaction to news of the call between the presidents of the United States and Russia on the subject of Ukraine.

Watch Lavrov’s response to a question from CNN’s Frederik Pleitgen about whether he is hopeful about US-Russian relations.

The European Union will support Ukraine if it resists a peace deal it doesn’t agree with, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said, warning that any “quick fix” to end the war would be a “dirty deal.”

Europe and Ukraine need to be involved in any peace agreement if it is going to work, Kaja Kallas told journalists at NATO’s headquarters on Thursday, saying a deal should not be formed “behind our backs.”

She added that “appeasement also always fails” and so “Ukraine will continue to resist, and Europe will continue to back Ukraine.”

Her words come after US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which they agreed to “immediately” start negotiations to end the war.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to the press during a media briefing on the territory of Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant, Ukraine, on Thursday.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine will not accept a peace deal struck between the United States and Russia without Kyiv’s involvement.

“As an independent country we simply cannot accept any agreements without us. And I articulate this very clearly to our partners. We will not accept any bilateral negotiations on Ukraine without us,” Zelensky said Thursday during a visit to a nuclear power plant in western Ukraine.

His comments came a day after US President Donald Trump spoke on the phone with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, before he also held a call with Zelensky.

Zelensky said that the fact that Trump spoke to Putin first was “not pleasant.”

He added that talks with Russia should take place only after “a plan to stop Putin has been worked out.”

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky attends a meeting in Kyiv on January 14.

For three years he was in the center of the room, but now he may be unsure if he is even in the right one.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been a totemic figure of the West’s unified stance against a marauding, autocratic Russia. A Churchillian presence forcing Europe into a moral stance against a Kremlin head who had so successfully sought to divide and bribe them for years.

Yet Zelensky cut a reduced figure on stage alongside US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent on Wednesday in Kyiv. He had hoped to meet US President Donald Trump in person to discuss a wide-ranging vision of peace, after the US president suggested Friday they might meet imminently, and his team immediately set about trying to schedule it. Instead he was presented with what Zelensky called “serious people” – and a largely financial deal handed over by Bessent, the US billionaire turned money-man, which he didn’t sign.

It was during Bessent’s brief visit that news broke Trump had been busy elsewhere: holding perhaps his second phone call in recent days with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump had said Saturday they had spoken earlier, but the Kremlin declined to confirm it.

It’s been 48 hours of fever dreams, night sweats and tremors for Zelensky. European leaders used to travel a day by rickety train for a photo op alongside him. Now he is second on Trump’s call sheet after Putin, a man under International Criminal Court indictment for alleged war crimes against Ukraine, who poisons his own people.

Read more on how Zelensky has been cut to a reduced figure here.

Ukrainian forces fire a D-20 howitzer toward Russian troops near the frontline town of Pokrovsk, Ukraine, on February 6.

The flurry of diplomatic activity around peace talks in the Ukrainian conflict came as Russian forces continued to inch forward on several parts of the frontlines, while continuing to take heavy losses.

Ukrainian forces are under pressure along a stretch of the frontlines running through Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. Two areas have seen intensive fighting in recent days. Near the town of Lyman in the north, Russian forces have made limited advances. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian military reported repelling a Russian mechanized assault in the area.

Further south, Russian troops continue to tighten the screw around the hub of Pokrovsk, which has been under pressure since late last summer. According to Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War, Russian assaults towards Pokrovsk are coming from both the east and south simultaneously. However, analysts say the Ukrainians made a successful counter-attack south of the town this week.

Ukraine’s General Staff said Wednesday that there were 74 Russian attacks, many of them in the Pokrovsk direction.

The Ukrainians are still holding some of the territory they seized last summer in the Russian region of Kursk, with both sides making tactical assaults in an effort to hold or retrieve ground.

At a briefing in Brussels on Thursday, a NATO official said that the fighting was “difficult on both sides, a lot of loss of life on both sides. That’s why the US is pushing as President Trump has said to end that bloodshed.”

Away from the frontlines, Russia continues daily missile and drone attacks against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. The Ukrainian military says 140 drones were launched on Wednesday night, but 137 were either shot down or failed to reach their target.

For its part the Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday that 83 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted and destroyed overnight, nearly half of them over Bryansk region.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks during a press conference in Moscow, Russia, on Wednesday.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov praised US President Donald Trump as “well-mannered,” saying his call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin exposed the failures of the Biden administration and Europe on Ukraine.

In response to a question from CNN, Lavrov said he was surprised at the worldwide reaction to a conversation between what he called “two polite, educated individuals.”

“This shows to what extent the staff of the Biden administration, led by their president, and their European satellites have abandoned dialogue and diplomacy as a method of communication with the outside world, opting instead for threats,” he said.

Although he said that there are “many” disagreements between the two, he added: “This is how you should communicate with Russia.”

Nearly a century of American interventionist policy in Europe appeared to collapse in a few dramatic hours on Wednesday, as dueling developments on either side of the Atlantic rocked NATO and pushed Russia’s war in Ukraine towards a critical and uncertain juncture.

First Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of Defense, told NATO leaders at a meeting in Brussels that the United States would recede from its post-World War II role as a guarantor of the continent’s security, shifting the onus in supporting Kyiv onto Europe’s capitals and announcing a refocus in the White House towards China and domestic matters.

Then President Donald Trump emerged from an unexpected, 90-minute phone conversation with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a mollifying mood, insisting there was an urgency to end the conflict and dismissing some of Kyiv’s key demands.

Here’s what you need to know about the state of the conflict and why the comments from Trump and Hegseth matter.

After US President Donald Trump signaled key concessions to Moscow in a call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and said Ukraine’s NATO membership was “unlikely,” defense ministers spoke to reporters before a NATO meeting in Brussels today.

Here’s what they said: