U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday (October 17, 2025) called on Kyiv and Moscow to “stop where they are” and end their brutal war following a lengthy White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Mr. Trump’s frustration with the conflict has surfaced repeatedly in the nine months since he returned to office, but with his latest comments, he appeared to be edging back in the direction of pressing Ukraine to give up on retaking land it has lost to Russia.

“Enough blood has been shed, with property lines being defined by War and Guts,” Mr. Trump said in a Truth Social post not long after hosting Mr. Zelenskyy and his team for more than two hours of talks. “They should stop where they are. Let both claim victory; let history decide!”

Later, soon after arriving in Florida, where he is spending the weekend, Mr. Trump urged both sides to “stop the war immediately” and implied that Moscow keep the territory it has taken from Kyiv.

“You go by the battle line wherever it is — otherwise it is too complicated,” Mr. Trump told reporters.

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump had shown growing impatience with Russian President Vladimir Putin and expressed greater openness to helping Ukraine win the war.

Indeed, after meeting with Mr. Zelenskyy in New York on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly last month, Mr. Trump even said he believed the Ukrainians could win back all the territory they had lost to Russia since Putin launched the February 2022 invasion. That was a dramatic shift for Mr. Trump, who had previously insisted that Kyiv would have to concede land lost to Russia to end the war.

Mr Zelenskyy, after Friday’s (October 17, 2025) meeting, said it was time for a ceasefire and negotiations. He sidestepped directly answering a question about Mr. Trump nudging Ukraine to give up land.

“The President is right; we have to stop where we are and then speak,” Mr. Zelenskyy said when asked by reporters about Mr. Trump’s social media post, which he had not seen.

Mr. Trump’s tone on the war shifted after he held a lengthy phone call with Mr. Putin on Thursday (October 16, 2025) and announced that he planned to meet with the Russian leader in Budapest, Hungary, in the coming weeks.

The President also signalled to Mr. Zelenskyy on Friday (October 17, 2025) that he is leaning against selling him long-range Tomahawk missiles, weaponry that the Ukrainians believe could be a game changer in helping prod Mr. Putin to the negotiating table.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday (August 22, 2025) he would make an “important” decision in two weeks on Ukraine peace efforts — specifying that Moscow could face massive sanctions or he might do nothing.

Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he was “not happy” about a Russian strike on Thursday (August 21, 2025) that hit a U.S.-owned factory in Ukraine “and I’m not happy about anything having to do with that war.”

But he said he wanted to see whether Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy would meet first.

“I think I’ll know. I think I’ll know the attitude of Russia and, frankly, of Ukraine. It takes two,” Mr. Trump said when asked what he would do at the end of a two-week timeframe he set for assessing the state of peace talks.

“Then I’m going to make a decision as to what we do and it’s going to be a very important decision,” he said.

“That’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both. Or do we do nothing and say it’s your fight?” he added.

Mr. Trump — who showed off a picture of him and Mr. Putin at their recent Alaska summit, which he said had been sent by the Kremlin leader — has repeatedly announced timescales of around two weeks for decisions on Ukraine and other issues. Many of those deadlines have failed to materialise.

Also read: Takeaways from Trump-Putin meeting: No agreement, no questions but lots of pomp

Russia on Friday (August 22, 2025) ruled out an immediate meeting with Mr. Zelenskyy, despite Mr. Trump saying on Monday (August 18, 2025) after meeting with the Ukrainian and European leaders that he was arranging a summit.

Mr. Trump said Friday  (August 22, 2025) that setting up a Zelenskyy-Putin summit was as hard as mixing “oil and vinegar.”

“We’re going to see if Putin and Zelensky will be working together. You know, it’s like oil and vinegar, a little bit. They don’t get along too well, for obvious reasons,” he told reporters.

Mr. Trump added “we’ll see” if he would need to attend any such meeting.