Outgoing US Senator Dick Durbin has criticised President Donald Trump for letting Vladimir Putin "play him like a fool" and urged the incoming Congress to maintain support for Ukraine.
In a speech, Durbin called on Washington to continue backing Ukraine, stressing the need to replenish the country's air defence systems and ensure previously committed financial assistance is delivered. He also accused the president of seeking to accommodate Putin and pressuring Ukraine into negotiating a settlement on terms favourable to Russia.
Senator's criticism
Durbin said: "The president has rolled out the red carpet for Putin on American soil, he held endless phone calls that led to nowhere.
"Trump publicly scolded Ukraine for fighting for its life and its existence and most recently...eased Russian oil sanctions.
"Attempts to pacify Putin are both fantasy and folly by an American president who seems forever enamoured by this autocratic Russian leader, who is endlessly playing Trump for a fool."
Upcoming meetings
The criticism comes as US envoys are due to hold separate meetings with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, following two days of negotiations in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are set to travel first to Moscow for talks with the Russian president before heading to Dublin, where Zelensky will be attending a series of European meetings. The pair are expected to brief the Ukrainian leader on the latest developments from the discussions.
Negotiation details
The talks in Abu Dhabi resulted in an agreement on what Kushner described as the largest prisoner swap of the conflict so far, although neither side disclosed how many detainees would be involved. The negotiations, the first since diplomatic efforts were interrupted in February by the US military campaign in Iran, also exposed significant disagreements over the extent of Europe's involvement in any future peace process.
Kushner said the meeting with Putin would "go over what was discussed today and try to make more progress on some of the issues that we discussed because we see some openings and some opportunities". With Zelensky, the pair will "further explore some of the ideas that we came up with here today".
Ukraine's delegation chief, Rustem Umerov, said there was "still a lot of difficult work ahead, but there are opportunities to continue the negotiation process". Russia's delegation chief, Vladimir Medinsky, told reporters the "discussion will certainly continue", but questioned including Europe in the talks.
He said: "We don't really understand what there is to talk about with them. We have not received a single peace initiative, not one concrete proposal from the European countries."
