President Donald Trump is ramping up efforts to bring the Russia-Ukraine war to a halt, dispatching a U.S. delegation for talks with both Russian and Ukrainian officials this week in Riyadh. The Trump team is pushing for a Black Sea maritime ceasefire and a broader truce, despite skepticism from legacy NATO holdouts and hawkish Washington insiders clinging to Cold War-era policies.
The U.S. delegation, led by National Security Council senior director Andrew Peek and senior State Department official Michael Anton, met with Ukraine’s team on Sunday and is scheduled to meet with Russian officials on Monday. Their goal: lock down a ceasefire in the Black Sea to reopen global shipping lanes and de-escalate a war that has killed or wounded hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, and devastated an entire continent. While European leaders wring their hands, Trump is doing what they won’t—forcing both sides to the table.
National security adviser Mike Waltz confirmed the three parties are all operating under one roof in Riyadh and are discussing everything from the Black Sea shipping lanes to border lines and peacekeeping arrangements. They’re also exploring confidence-building measures, including the return of Ukrainian children taken by Russian forces. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said talks also focused on defending energy infrastructure—something Trump has already brokered a 30-day ceasefire for, despite continued reports of violations.
Trump’s bold diplomacy has rattled European allies still married to a decades-old foreign policy of endless NATO entanglements. But Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, who met personally with Vladimir Putin in March, dismissed those concerns. “I feel that he wants peace,” Witkoff told Fox News, noting that this is not some reboot of World War II. The goal isn’t to defend Europe from imaginary threats—it’s to stop a very real war that Biden allowed to spiral into chaos.
Trump reversed course on Biden’s reckless Ukraine strategy, cutting off the blank-check military aid and demanding Kyiv come to the table. Putin, for his part, has agreed in principle to a U.S.-proposed truce. He’s already ordered Russian forces to stop striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure, while talks continue on expanding that truce across all fronts.
The Trump administration is targeting April 20 as a soft deadline for a full ceasefire deal. That’s a bold goal given the level of mistrust still on the battlefield, but under Trump’s leadership, it’s finally within reach. Ukraine and Russia are still reporting strikes, and Russia continues its slow crawl in the east—but now, for the first time in three years, there’s serious movement toward peace.
Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine—and unlike the last administration, he’s doing something about it. No more virtue-signaling photo ops, no more trillion-dollar aid packages with no accountability, and no more endless European dependence on American blood and treasure. This is America First foreign policy in action: strength, diplomacy, and results.
