President Donald Trump said Sunday that he wants an agreement to end the Russia-Ukraine War in “two weeks or less,” but then said that a little more time could be acceptable.
Trump’s deadline comes a day after meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the city of Vatican while they were in Rome for Pope Francis’s funeral.
“I think the meeting went well, we will see what happens in the next few days. We will probably learn a lot,” Trump told journalists at Tarmac’s municipal airport in Morristown in New Jersey before returning to Washington.
Trump said he was “very disappointed” that Russia continued to carry out the missile and drone attacks in Ukraine days after implanted the Russian president Vladimir Putin to stop the attacks while the negotiations continued.
President Donald Trump arrives at Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, NJ, April 26, 2025, returning from a trip to attend the funeral of Pope Francis in the Vatican.
EVAN VUCCI/AP
When asked what he and Zelenskyy talked about, Trump said Zelenskyy emphasized his need for more weapons.
“He told me that he needs more weapons and that we are going to see what happens, I want to see what, with respect to Russia, with Russia, I was surprised and disappointed when they made the bombardment,” Trump said.
When asked what Putin wants, Trump replied: “I want him to stop shooting, he feels and signs a deal. We have the limits of an agreement that I believe and I want him to sign it and end him and return to life.”
Trump also said that Ukraine claiming his territory in Crimea that Russia occupied in 2014 would be difficult to blame former President Barack Obama for allowing Russia to take the region. When asked if he thought Ukraine would resign Crimea, Trump said “I think so.”
On early Sunday, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said that Russia and Ukraine are closer to an agreement after Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy, but that there is still no agreement.
He said that the United States must now weigh if it is time for the United States to mediate in conversations.
“Well, I think they are closer in general than at any time in the last three years, but it is not yet there,” Rubio told “Meet The Press” of NBC.
“We cannot continue, as I said, to spend time and resources to this effort if it will not be completed. Therefore, the last week has really tried to discover how close these sides are really and are close enough for this to deserve a continuous investment of our time as a mediator in this regard.”
The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, meets President Donald Trump outside Pope Francis’s funeral in the Basilica of San Pedro in the Vatican, on April 26, 2025.
@ERMAKA2022/AFP through Getty Images
Trump and Zelenskyy met in the city of the Vatican on Saturday, while both were in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis. The White House communications director Steven Cheung said the two had a “very productive session.” Zelenskyy described the meeting as “good” in a publication about X and said: “Waiting for results in everything we cover. Protecting the life of our people.
After his meeting, Trump criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin about the continuous Moscow bombings of Ukrainian cities, which continued during the night until Sunday morning with more drones attacks against six Ukrainian regions. The Russian Ministry of Defense said its forces knocked down eight Ukrainian drones during the night until Sunday morning.
Rubio was asked why US noodles that Putin does not invade Ukraine again or another European country, since he has never recognized the right of Ukraine to exist.
“Well, I don’t think peace agreements are based on trust. I think that peace agreements must be built on verification. They must be built on facts, they must be built on the action, which must be built on realities,” Rubio said. “So this is not a problem of, well, trustworthy. It is a problem of building in this kind of thing, verification, security, guarantees, things that have been discussed in the past,” said Rubio.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio attends a meeting of the eradicator Task Force of Anti-Cristiano, in the Washington Department of Justice, on April 22, 2025.
Ken Cedeno/Reuters
Rubio said that the United States has made “real progess, but those last two steps of this trip would always be the most difficult, and it must happen soon.”
Rubio would not explain the timeline of an agreement, but instead he would emphasize that this is a “critical week” for the United States
“This week will be a really important week in which we have to determine if this is an effort in which we want to continue involved, or if it is time to focus on other problems that are equally, if not more important, in some cases, but we want to see what happens, there are reasons to be optimistic, but there are reasons to be realistic, of course, of course, so,” he said. “We are close, but we are not close enough.”
When asked if he supported the negotiations, the senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, told the “state of the CNN union that he fears that Trump collapses for Putin and” sells “to Zelenskyy.
“Well, look, my great fear, Dana, is that Trump will simply become Putin,” Schumer told Dana Bash from CNN. “Those have been the general indications all the time. And, of course, the conclusion is very simple, that if we fall for Putin, if Trump Cueva a Putin, there are three, it is bad in three very bad ways:” Leaving Ukraine would be a “moral tragedy, he said, and” tear “all alliances with the plenty of European.
“But, thirdly, and perhaps the worst of all, it is a sign that the United States is weak. He sends a signal to each dictator in China, in North Korea, in Iran, that, if you stand up and intimidated Trump, you will get out of the pipe,” he said.
The National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, told “Sunday Morning Futures” of Fox News than more sanctions against Russia could come when the United States tries to force him to reach an agreement.
“[Trump] I talked about the potential action on banking, potential action in the oil and gas sector. But it is determined to use carrots and sticks to take both sides to the table, ”he said.
