American conservatives are starting to criticize President Donald Trump for his negotiations with Russia over Ukraine, calling Vladimir Putin a ‘war criminal’ who should be imprisoned for life. The talks between Russian and American officials aim to resolve the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which has caused significant destruction and casualties in the city of Odesa.

The meeting between the two sides took place in Saudi Arabia, where concerns were raised about Trump’s preemptive concessions to Putin. European allies fear that Trump’s willingness to make significant compromises could result in the withdrawal of US troops from Baltic countries, potentially exposing Europe to Russian aggression.

This shift in sentiment among right-wing circles in the US reflects growing unease about the potential implications of the Ukraine deal negotiated by Trump. Critics believe that Putin’s actions in Ukraine warrant severe consequences, rather than diplomatic negotiations that could undermine Western security interests.

Ukrainian army officials told the Sun that Trump and Putin’s friendly negotiations aren’t doing anything to deter them: ‘We will fight until the last death. We have nothing to lose. We are not going anywhere.’ 

Trump’s allies in the Republican Party have now begun turning on him. Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker told CNN when asked whether Putin can be trusted during negotiations: ‘No. Putin is a war criminal who should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed.’ 

He added that the Russians will try to do ‘anything to their advantage’. A congressional official backed Wicker’s comments, telling NBC: ‘We have zero intelligence that Putin is interested in a real peace deal right now.’

A second Western source told the broadcaster that the mass of Russian casualties is not slowing Putin’s momentum: ‘[Putin] thinks he’s winning.’

But Trump has long been convinced that Putin is keen to end the war. 

He told reporters on Sunday: ‘I think he wants to stop the fighting.’

When asked whether he believes Putin wants to control the whole of Ukraine, he said: ‘No, I think he wants to stop. That was my question to him, because if he’s going to go on, that would have been a big problem for us, and that would have caused me a big problem because you just can’t let that happen. 

‘I think he wants to end it. And they want to end it fast.’

Trump revealed that he was behind a push to require Ukraine to hold new elections before any peace plan can go through.

‘You have leadership now that’s allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened, even without the United States,’ Trump said from his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida Tuesday – even as he said ‘I like him personally’ when speaking about Zelensky.

‘You should have ended it – three years, you should have never started it,’ he said, appearing to blame Zelensky for Russia’s 2022 invasion. 

Speaking to reporters, Trump was asked if he would accept Russia’s push for new elections in Ukraine – amid fears that the Kremlin would install a pro-Moscow puppet regime. Trump indicated that he himself was for the idea.

‘We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law, essentially martial law in Ukraine, where the leader in Ukraine – I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4 per cent approval rating, and where a country has been blown to smithereens.’

Then Trump described some of the massive destruction in Ukraine, suggesting Moscow could have imposed even more if it wished.

‘You got most of the cities are laying on their sides. The buildings are collapsed. It looks like a massive demolition site. The whole – I mean, so many of the cities, I mean, they haven’t done it in Kyiv because, I guess they don’t want to shoot too many rockets in there. 

‘They’ve done it 20% but they haven’t done it 100%. If they wanted to do it 100% it would probably happen very quickly, but you have cities that are absolutely decimated. 

‘And, yeah, I would say that, you know, they want a seat at the table, you could say the people have to, wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have to say, like, you know, it’s been a long time since we’ve had an election?

‘That’s not a Russia thing. That’s something coming from me and coming from many other countries also,’ Trump said.  

Trump also commented on the potential for European troops taking a peacekeeping role in the event of a ceasefire. ‘If they want to do that, that’s great. I’m all for it. If they want to do that, I think that’s that’d be fine.’ 

As for U.S. forces, ‘we won’t have to put any over there, because, you know, we’re very far away,’ Trump said.

That came after Lavrov blasted British PM Keir Starmer’s peacekeeping plans, saying NATO nations can’t patrol Russia’s border with Ukraine ‘under some other flag’.

‘Any appearance by armed forces under some other flag does not change anything. It is of course completely unacceptable,’ Lavrov said.

Trump dismissed complaints by Ukrainian leaders about being left out of talks about their fate. It was a sharp turnaround from the Biden Administration’s mantra of ‘no Ukraine without Ukraine’, while shipping billions in military aid. 

‘And I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well. But today I heard, oh, well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it – three years, you should have never started it. You could have made a deal,’ Trump complained.

‘I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed, and no city would have been demolished, and not one dome would have been knocked down. But they chose not to do it that way.’