Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) said President Donald Trump is seeking to “balance” the two sides in the Russia-Ukraine war, previewing some of the “difficult” assurances the president faces in ending the conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, saying on X that “a lot can be decided” before the start of next year. Turner said Trump is facing a peace process in which Ukraine wants assurances that Russia will not reinvade Ukraine, something he said would be hard to accomplish.
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“Clearly, Trump is on the side of peace, and he’s trying to balance these two forces, which is very, very difficult to bring these two parties together. But in balancing it, we have to understand that Russia’s goal is to take from someone else something that’s theirs, and Ukraine has to have a sense of security assurances that Russia’s not coming back,” Turner said on ABC News’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos when asked which side the president was on in the war.
Turner also said the United States must be on the side of “sovereignty” in ending this conflict, assessing how Ukraine stands for “democracy, liberty,” whereas Russia is siding with “authoritarianism and aggression.”
The Ohio Republican added that the war was started by Russia and that Trump and the U.S. are getting closer to ending this conflict. He also said the U.S.’s allies in Europe appear to be working on these security assurances to deter Russia from invading Ukraine again in the future.
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Zelensky announced on Saturday, a day prior to his meeting with Trump, that Ukraine had inked new aid from Canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney emphasized that this new assistance comes at a “crucial juncture” for Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president has also said he has reason to believe Russia is planning to interfere with Ukraine’s possible referendum on Trump’s plan for peace. Zelensky made the assertion based on an intelligence report he received from Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service.
