WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenski, of “endangering” a peace deal that was supposed to end the Ukrainian war. The same day, the Financial Times reported: Russia is ready to give in to its demand for full control over the four regions it does not fully occupy – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia – if the US makes broader concessions, such as approving the annexation of Crimea and vetoing Kiev’s entry into NATO.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea, however, has repeatedly made clear that it is a “red line”: for example, Zelenski declared on Tuesday that Ukraine will not accept the “occupation of Crimea”. Trump condemned these statements by the Ukrainian president of his social network Truth Social, which were "painful" for the peace negotiations being held with Russia: "Control over the crime has been lost for a long time and is by no means a matter for discussion."

However, the negotiations are “on the right track” for Trump, with whom Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has agreed. He reports with Lavrov that Moscow is "almost ready" to conclude a peace agreement: "We are ready for this agreement that Trump mentioned, but there are still some points that need to be determined. That's what we're doing."

In order to resolve the conflict, representatives of the United States, Ukraine, France, Germany and the United Kingdom were due to meet in London on Wednesday. The day before the meeting, however, Washington announced that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would not travel to the English capital. Instead, Keith Kellogg was the White House's representative for the war in Ukraine, along with Andriy Yermak, Zelenski's chief of staff, and French and German advisors.According to The Washington Post, the US proposed a roadmap for a possible ceasefire at this meeting, which would include the recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and the freezing of the current front line.

The Turn to Rebuke Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin was scolded on Thursday. On the same day, Moscow carried out the most violent air attack in Kiev since last summer, in which 12 people were killed and 90 wounded by missiles and drones launched by the Russian army. Trump’s reaction immediately came: In the same social network that confronted Zelenski, "Vladimir, stop!" He wrote the message.

Trump apparently wants to agree on a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia by April 30, when he will serve 100 days as a White House tenant in his second term: "I have my own deadline," he told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. During the U.S. presidential election campaign in January, he said on several occasions that he would end the war in Ukraine "24 hours after he came to the presidency."

Ukrainian journalist killed in Russian captivity shows signs of torture

Two or three days ago it came to light that journalist Ekaterina Barabash, who was serving her house arrest, had fled. He was arrested in February on charges of spreading “false information” against the Russian military and sentenced to ten years for certain social media posts. On Thursday, Kiev reported that the body of a journalist who died in Russian captivity has been identified. Viktoria Roshchyna died at the age of 27 in September last year after months of captivity, and according to medical studies, the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office has stated in a statement that she has signs of torture.