Zelensky Urges Trump To Visit Ukraine Before Pressing Negotiations, Says Vance 'Justifying' Putin's Actions

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is urging for President Donald Trump to visit Ukraine and see the war's devastation first-hand before pressing for peace negotiations with Russia.

"We want you to come," the Ukrainian president pleaded in reference to Trump while speaking with CBS’ "60 Minutes" on Sunday. Zelensky hit out at what he strongly hinted was Trump's lack of understanding of the conflict and Russian brutality.

"You think you understand what’s going on here. Okay, we respect your position. You understand. But, please, before any kind of decisions, any kind of forms of negotiations, come to see people, civilians, warriors, hospitals, churches, children destroyed or dead," he said.

"Come, look, and then let’s — let’s move with a plan how to finish the war," he added. He further suggested that with such a trip, Trump will finally grasp Putin's true nature.

"You will understand with whom you have a deal. You will understand what Putin did," the Ukrainian leader said. This comes as the US and Russia are seeking diplomatic normalization through a series of bilateral meetings which have cut out any Ukrainian or EU representation.

"We will not prepare anything. It will not be theater, with preparing actors in the streets and the [city] center. We don’t do this. We don’t need it," he continued. "You can go exactly where you want, in any city which been under attacks, just to come and to understand.”

The CBS interview aired the same day that Russian ballistic missiles pummeled the Ukrainian city of Sumy, resulting in a mass casualty event which was quickly condemned by the United States and European Union. Ukrainian emergency authorities said the Sumy attack killed at least 34 people and wounded more than a hundred.

Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, retired lieutenant general Keith Kellogg, reacted by saying it "crosses any line of decency". He suggested the strikes intentionally targeted civilians. "As a former military leader, I understand targeting and this is wrong," Kellogg posted on X. He said there are "scores of civilian dead and wounded."

However, Trump's reaction was one in which the Russians were less singled out and condemned, instead the US president highlighted that this "horrible war" shows the urgency of ending the war before more people die...

But the White House has strongly complained over the past months that Zelensky has appeared unwilling to genuinely engage in peace talks with Moscow, also at a moment more hawkish European allies are seeking to fill the gap of waning Washington support. Zelensky knows he'll have to make serious concessions for peace.

It is especially the tense February meeting in the Oval Office which still stings and looms large. Zelensky in the CBS interview took the opportunity to once again slam Vice President J.D. Vance.

"It’s a shift in tone, a shift in reality, really yes, a shift in reality, and I don’t want to engage in the altered reality that is being presented to me," Zelensky said.

"First and foremost, we did not launch an attack [to start the war]. It seems to me that the Vice President is somehow justifying Putin’s actions. I tried to explain, 'You can’t look for something in the middle. There is an aggressor and there is a victim. The Russians are the aggressor, and we are the victim'."

Below: RT's Editor-in-Chief responded sarcastically to Zelensky once again complaining that Russian 'propaganda' is winning in America...

Meanwhile, Trump has since made clear on where he stands concerning 60 Minutes' repeat efforts to make him look bad.

"Almost every week, 60 Minutes … mentions the name ‘TRUMP’ in a derogatory and defamatory way, but this Weekend’s ‘BROADCAST’ tops them all," the president complained on Truth Social, in apparent reference to both the Ukraine report and another on Greenland. "CBS is out of control, at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price for this. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"