Trump reveals letter from Zelensky saying Ukraine ready for new peace talks, minerals deal

China

Trump reveals letter from Zelensky saying Ukraine ready for new peace talks, minerals deal

2025-03-05 16:16 Last Updated At：17:37

U.S. President Donald Trump revealed Tuesday that he had received a letter from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier that day which said that Ukraine is "ready come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer."

During an address at a joint session of the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C., Trump said he appreciated that Zelensky had sent the letter, which comes just days after a fractious meeting between the two presidents at the White House.

Trump also mentioned that the U.S. has had serious discussions with Russia and received strong signals that "they are ready for peace." There has been no response from Russia to these statements.

In a post on the social media platform X on Tuesday, Zelensky stressed nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians and said he stands ready "to work under President Trump's strong leadership" to achieve lasting peace.

Ukraine is ready to sign mineral and security agreements with the U.S. at "any time and in any convenient format," Zelensky said in the post.

The signing of a minerals deal between the two sides had been planned for Friday before the meeting between Trump and Zelensky took a dramatic turn, leading to a rare shouting match erupting in front of the media in the Oval Office.

Following the televised confrontation, Zelensky was asked to leave the White House early, leaving the planned minerals deal unsigned.

Referencing the incident in his X post, the Ukrainian president said it was "regrettable" the meeting "did not go the way it was supposed to" but said it was now "time to make things right," saying he hopes future cooperation and communication can be constructive.

China launches Shenzhou-23 manned spaceship

China's Shenzhou-23 crewed spaceship blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country's northwest on Sunday, sending three astronauts to its orbiting space station.

The spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, lifted off from the launch site at 23:08 Beijing Time (15:08 GMT).

The crew members consist of mission commander Zhu Yangzhu, and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying, who is also the first astronaut from China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

In another notable first, one of the crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.

After entering orbit, the Shenzhou-23 spaceship will perform a fast automated rendezvous and docking with the radial port of the space station core module Tianhe, forming a combination of three modules and three spacecraft.

Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.