To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
President Donald Trump has been deemed ‘very weak and vulnerable’ after saying that Russia has ‘the cards’ in peace negotiations around Ukraine.
Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he believes Russia wants to see the end of the war with Ukraine, a day after US and Russian officials met in Saudi Arabia without inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
‘I really do. I think they have the cards a little but, because they’ve taken a lot of territory,’ said Trump of Russians on Wednesday.
‘They have the cards.’

On Thursday, former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev gave his take on the meeting in Riyadh – and it did not cast Trump and the US as dominant in the conversation.
Bondarev said that ‘experienced’ Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov acted as the chief negotiators and ‘are undoubtedly loyal to President (Vladimir) Putin so he expects no surprises from them’.
‘I think that they also quite sure that they can squeeze Trump into very, very large, huge concessions, even without him knowing that those are concessions,’ opined Bondaraev.
‘And I think this Trump’s behavior tells them that he’s very, very much interested to make this deal as soon as possible.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web
browser that
supports HTML5
video
‘That’s again, puts him in a very weak and vulnerable position because he thus makes himself dependent on the goodwill from Moscow and Moscow can exploit it.’
Bondarev, who resigned as a Russian diplomat in May 2022 in protest of the invasion of Ukraine, added that the US has ‘already sacrificed a lot without getting anything form Putin’.
‘If they are not put on paper, they mean nothing. And Trump is already giving Putin quite a lot. So I don’t find it very, very promising,’ he said.
‘I don’t find it how it could strengthen the negotiation position of the United States.’

Also on Thursday, a planned news conference with Zelensky and Trump’s Ukraine envoy was abruptly canceled amid rising tensions between the two nations.
The US initiated the cancelation, according to Ukrainian presidential spokesman Serhii Nikiforov.
Trump and Zelensky have traded barbs since the US president on social media called his Ukrainian counterpart a ‘modestly successful comedian’ who ‘has done a terrible job’ leading his country.
Zelensky shot back that Trump ‘lives in a disinformation space’ governed by Russia.

Trump has continued to lash out at Zelensky, calling him a ‘dictator’ twice in the same day.
Putin on Wednesday said he ‘would be glad to meet Donald’, after Trump said he would probably be open to meeting him this month.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a summit between Putin and Trump could possibly happen this month or later.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.