Zelensky Is ‘Going To Have To Make A Deal’ With Russia, Trump Urges

President Trump told reporters in passing on the White House lawn Tuesday that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “is going to have to make a deal” with Russia to end the the long-running war.

Last month’s historic Alaska Trump-Putin summit failed to produce or lead to anything substantial, other than perhaps an improvement of bilateral relations. Trump acknowledged in the fresh remarks that the Ukrainian and Russian leaders “hate each other,” and said “it looks like I have to sit in the room with them, because they can’t sit in a room together.”

“There’s great hatred there. But no, that meeting accomplished a lot,” he said in reference to the Alaska summit.

And yet the reality remains that Putin and Zelensky are at this point no closer to actually being in the same room together, much less the same venue, even if other mediators like Trump are there.

Trump also in his comments took the opportunity to apply more pressure on the European Union, saying it must stop all purchases of Russian oil “immediately”.

“They’ve got to stop immediately, not fair to us. They’re purchasing Russian oil, and we have to do this,” he said.

Ukraine’s Zelensky without doubt wants the next round of EU sanctions to hit Moscow, but has also appeared supportive of Trump calling out Europe’s oil and other energy imports.

“I’m sure the US can apply enough sanctions in order to hurt the Russian economy, plus Donald Trump has enough force to make Putin afraid of him,” Zelensky said.

Still, Kiev wants to see more and more robust sanctions leveled from Washington’s direction. “Europe has already introduced 18 sanctions packages against Russia. And all that’s lacking now is a strong sanctions package from the US,” Zelensky has said.

As for Trump admitting that Zelensky must make a deal, the big question remains whether Trump is willing to use the significant leverage the United States has over the Ukrainian leader.

“Zelensky’s gonna have to make a deal!” – Trump pic.twitter.com/Ob2RL0kCF0

— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) September 16, 2025

So far Trump has not been willing. He could simply cut off the weapons and money flows to the Zelensky government if he wanted to – but he’s not even threatening to at this point. Such actions would result in huge pushback from Trump’s own Republicans. So for now, his urging Zelensky to the peace table appears to just be empty words, with no threat of repercussions. Meanwhile:

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CLEARS FIRST UKRAINE ARMS AID PACKAGE PAID FOR BY ALLIES, SOURCES SAY

Currently, there are reports indicating that Trump and Zelensky might meet again next week. At this point, there’s no sign of a Putin-Zelensky meeting being anywhere on the horizon.