Trump promised peace in Ukraine within a day. Here's what actually happened
Donald Trump often promised to get a deal to end the fighting in Ukraine in one day, but more than four months since his second-term inauguration that goal looks as far away as ever.
Russia proposed another attempt at peace negotiations with Ukraine on Monday in Istanbul, but both sides remain firmly entrenched in their positions on territorial disputes and sovereignty that have thus far made substantial progress unlikely.
Meanwhile, Trump, who has been eager to bring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin to the table, has been showing signs of frustration over the process, suggesting that he is prepared to "just back away" and allow the fighting to continue if the two leaders can't make progress soon.
Seth Jones, president of the defense and security department of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), describes the U.S. role so far in the negotiations as "relatively weak" and cautions that if the administration were to walk away from the talks "it would fundamentally shift the balance of power in the war to the Russian side."
