US vice president JD Vance earlier laid out the US vision for a peace deal where Russia would get to keep already occupied swathes of Ukraine, which include Crimea.

“Inflammatory” Zelenskyy has “no cards” and “can have peace or he can fight for another three years before losing the whole country,” Trump wrote.

He has put no equivalent visible pressure on Russia, while dangling a lifting of massive US economic sanctions against Russia if the fighting stops.

Freezing the frontlines

Vance did not explain what territory Russia — which seized Crimea in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion targeting the rest of the country in 2022 — would have to give up.

A Russian drone strike on a bus transporting workers in the south-eastern city of Marganets killed nine people and wounded at least 30 more, the Dnipropetrovsk regional governor said on Wednesday.

In Russia, one person was reported wounded by shelling in the Belgorod region.