Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
| Photo Credit: AP

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during the briefing with President of the European Investment Bank Nadia Calvino in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was ready to swap land in negotiations with Russia, which freed an American prisoner in a gesture President Donald Trump described Tuesday as a goodwill gesture on ending the war.

Also Read | Zelenskyy says excluding Ukraine from U.S.-Russia talks about war is ‘very dangerous’

Mr. Zelenskyy, who will meet Friday at the Munich Security Conference with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, a vocal critic of U.S. military support to Ukraine, described himself as ready for serious talks.

“We will swap one territory for another,” he said in an interview with The Guardian.

Mr. Zelenskyy, who in the past has refused to cede any territory invaded by Russia, said he was ready to trade land in Russia’s Kursk region which Ukraine seized in a surprise offensive last year.

Also Read | Kremlin calls Zelenskyy comment on direct talks with Putin ‘empty words’

He acknowledged that Ukraine would not be able to enjoy security guarantees just with European partners.

“Security guarantees without America are not real security guarantees,” he said.

Mr. Trump took office vowing to end the war in Ukraine, possibly by leveraging billions of dollars in US assistance sent under former president Joe Biden, to force Kyiv into territorial concessions.

In the first known visit by a member of the Trump administration to Russia since he returned to the White House last month, envoy Steve Witkoff secured the release of Marc Fogel, an American jailed since 2021 on drug charges.

“We were treated very nicely by Russia,” Mr. Trump told reporters of Fogel’s release. “Actually, I hope that’s the beginning of a relationship where we can end that war.”

The White House described his release as part of an “exchange,” without offering further details.

The U.S. envoy in charge of hostages, Adam Boehler, posted a picture that appeared to show Fogel savouring a stiff drink on a jet home, and Trump was set to welcome him to the White House later Tuesday, it said.

There was no immediate comment from Russia, where state-run news agencies quoted the White House announcement.

Russia’s Supreme Court in December refused to consider an appeal Fogel made against his 14-year sentence.

Witkoff, a property developer and friend of Trump, is officially the Middle East envoy and earlier played a key role in pushing forward a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Trump also announced a visit to Ukraine by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — another official in his cabinet on a mission unrelated to his primary job.

Russian someday

Mr. Trump in a Fox News interview aired Monday (February 10) floated that Ukraine “may be Russian someday,” words quickly welcomed by Moscow.

“The fact that a significant part of Ukraine wants to become Russia, and has already, is a fact,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, referring to Moscow’s 2022 annexation of four Ukrainian regions after referendums widely criticized internationally as fraudulent.

Ukrainians reacted with scorn to Trump’s remarks.

“It is some kind of senile insanity,” Kyiv resident Daniil told AFP.

A Ukrainian soldier on a street in central Kyiv, who only gave the name Mykola, said of Trump: “He can think anything and say anything, but Ukraine will never be Russia.”

Mr. Trump in the past has voiced admiration for Putin and notoriously backed his denial of the US intelligence community’s finding of Russian interference in the Republican’s 2016 election victory.

But Mr. Trump in recent weeks has also called on Russia to compromise, saying that Mr. Putin needs to cut heavy losses.

Both armies are trying to secure an advantage on the battlefield ahead of possible talks. Russia’s defense ministry said Tuesday its troops had captured the small village of Yasenove in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, regional prosecutors said Russian bombing killed a 40-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman.

Latest prisoner release

Joe Biden shut off most contact with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

But intelligence chiefs and others still met quietly in third countries and negotiated swaps that freed the most prominent Americans jailed by Russia — basketball player Britney Griner, journalist Evan Gershkovich and former Marine Paul Whelan.

Fogel, 63, was teaching at the Anglo-American School in Moscow when he was arrested in August 2021 over 21 grams of cannabis and cannabis oil allegedly found with him at the Moscow airport.

Fogel had been living in Russia since 2012. He was reported to have been teaching English to Russians at his penal colony.

The House swiftly approved $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies in a rare Saturday session as Democrats and Republicans banded together after months of hard-right resistance over renewed American support for repelling Russia’s invasion.

With an overwhelming vote, the $61 billion in aid for Ukraine passed in a matter of minutes, a strong showing as American lawmakers race to deliver a fresh round of U.S. support to the war-torn ally. Many Democrats cheered on the House floor and waved blue-and-yellow flags of Ukraine.

Aid to Israel and the other allies also won approval by healthy margins, as did a measure to clamp down on the popular platform TikTok, with unique coalitions forming to push the separate bills forward. The whole package will go to the Senate, which could pass it as soon as Tuesday. President Joe Biden has promised to sign it immediately.

“We did our work here, and I think history will judge it well,” said a weary Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who risked his own job to marshal the package to passage.

Biden, in a statement, thanked Johnson, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and the bipartisan coalition of lawmakers “who voted to put our national security first.”

“I urge the Senate to quickly send this package to my desk so that I can sign it into law and we can quickly send weapons and equipment to Ukraine to meet their urgent battlefield needs,” the president said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said he was “grateful” to both parties in the House and “personally Speaker Mike Johnson for the decision that keeps history on the right track,” he said on X, formerly Twitter.

“Thank you, America!” he said.

The scene in Congress was a striking display of action after months of dysfunction and stalemate fueled by Republicans, who hold the majority but are deeply split over foreign aid, particularly for Ukraine. Johnson relied on Democrats to ensure the military and humanitarian funding — the first major package for Ukraine since December 2022 — won approval.

The morning opened with a somber and serious debate and an unusual sense of purpose as Republican and Democratic leaders united to urge quick approval, saying that would ensure the United States supported its allies and remained a leader on the world stage. The House’s visitor galleries were crowded with onlookers.

“The eyes of the world are upon us, and history will judge what we do here and now,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee

Passage through the House cleared away the biggest hurdle to Biden’s funding request, first made in October as Ukraine’s military supplies began to run low.

The GOP-controlled House struggled for months over what to do, first demanding that any assistance for Ukraine be tied to policy changes at the U.S.-Mexico border, only to immediately reject a bipartisan Senate offer along those very lines.

Reaching an endgame has been an excruciating lift for Johnson that has tested both his resolve and his support among Republicans, with a small but growing number now openly urging his removal from the speaker’s office. Yet congressional leaders cast the votes as a turning point in history — an urgent sacrifice as U.S. allies are beleaguered by wars and threats from continental Europe to the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific.

“Sometimes when you are living history, as we are today, you don’t understand the significance of the actions of the votes that we make on this House floor, of the effect that it will have down the road,” said New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “This is a historic moment.”

Opponents, particularly the hard-right Republicans from Johnson’s majority, argued that the U.S. should focus on the home front, addressing domestic border security and the nation’s rising debt load, and they warned against spending more money, which largely flows to American defense manufacturers, to produce weaponry used overseas.

Still, Congress has seen a stream of world leaders visit in recent months, from Zelenskyy to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, all but pleading with lawmakers to approve the aid. Globally, the delay left many questioning America’s commitment to its allies.

At stake has been one of Biden’s top foreign policy priorities — halting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advance in Europe. After engaging in quiet talks with Johnson, the president quickly endorsed Johnson’s plan, paving the way for Democrats to give their rare support to clear the procedural hurdles needed for a final vote.

“We have a responsibility, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans to defend democracy wherever it is at risk,” Jeffries said during the debate.

While aid for Ukraine failed to win a majority of Republicans, several dozen progressive Democrats voted against the bill aiding Israel as they demanded an end to the bombardment of Gaza that has killed thousands of civilians. A group of roughly 20 hard-right Republicans voted against every portion of the aid package, including for allies like Israel and Taiwan that have traditionally enjoyed support from the GOP.

At the same time, Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has loomed large over the fight, weighing in from afar via social media statements and direct phone calls with lawmakers as he tilts the GOP to a more isolationist stance with his “America First” brand of politics.

Ukraine’s defense once enjoyed robust, bipartisan support in Congress, but as the war enters its third year, a majority of Republicans opposed further aid. Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., offered an amendment to zero out the money, but it was rejected.

The ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus has derided the legislation as the “America Last” foreign wars package and urged lawmakers to defy Republican leadership and oppose it because the bills did not include border security measures.

Johnson’s hold on the speaker’s gavel has also grown more tenuous in recent days as three Republicans, led by Greene, supported a “motion to vacate” that can lead to a vote on removing the speaker. Egged on by far-right personalities, she is also being joined by a growing number of lawmakers including Reps. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who is urging Johnson to voluntarily step aside.

The package included several Republican priorities that Democrats endorsed, or at least are willing to accept. Those include proposals that allow the U.S. to seize frozen Russian central bank assets to rebuild Ukraine; impose sanctions on Iran, Russia, China and criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl; and legislation to require the China-based owner of the popular video app TikTok to sell its stake within a year or face a ban in the United States.

Still, the all-out push to get the bills through Congress is a reflection not only of politics, but realities on the ground in Ukraine. Top lawmakers on national security committees, who are privy to classified briefings, have grown gravely concerned about the tide of the war as Russia pummels Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the Senate would begin procedural votes on the package Tuesday, saying, “Our allies across the world have been waiting for this moment.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, as he prepared to overcome objections from his right flank next week, said, “The task before us is urgent. It is once again the Senate’s turn to make history.”