Sarah Rainsford
Eastern Europe Correspondent

On social media, there is a generally scathing response from Ukrainians to Donald Trump’s call to Vladimir Putin to end the war.

Trump’s words were re-posted, in translation, by one popular account on X inviting comments.

Most mocked the president’s ignorance of world history and inability to count. Many suggested that more sanctions were a weak reply to Russian aggression. But the biggest question for most is what Putin is actually open to discussing with Ukraine at any peace talks.

It’s Trump’s position then, that matters. After 11 years of war with Russia, and a history of poor peace deals, Ukrainians aren’t inclined to be hopeful.

There’s also the fact that Russian state media and officials keep referring to Ukraine as “the country currently known as Ukraine”. Just before launching a full-scale invasion, Vladimir Putin wrote a whole essay denying Ukraine’s very existence as a state.

In Moscow, some see signs the Kremlin may be readying Russians to accept less than the victory once envisaged, which included tanks rolling all the way west to Odesa. TV editor Margarita Simonyan, who is stridently pro-Putin, has begun talking of “realistic” conditions for ending the war, which she suggests could include halting the fighting along the current frontline.

That would mean the four Ukrainian regions that Vladimir Putin illegally pronounced as Russian territory more than two years ago, like Zaporizhzhia, were still partially controlled by Kyiv.

Russian hardliners, the so-called Z bloggers, are furious at such defeatism.