Trump calls Oleshky ceasefire a stepping stone to a bigger peace deal

Donald Trump looked past the guns on Thursday, telling reporters in the Oval Office that the ceasefire in Ukraine's Oleshky is a launching pad for something larger. He called it a stepping stone to a broader peace deal and said he believes the two sides are getting close to ending the war. The US president gave his wife, Melania Trump, the credit for convening Russian and Ukrainian officials, telling the room she did a great job.

Trump also dropped a detail that raised eyebrows in Washington: he met with Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin's special envoy for foreign investment and economic cooperation and the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, while Dmitriev was in the US capital. Trump would not say what the two discussed. What he would say is that a big agreement is coming, and it will involve more than Ukraine — a hint that it could pull in all of Europe.

That tease lands against a backdrop of steady fighting and steady aid. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that Spain will hand Kyiv a fresh €437 million military assistance package, following a call with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. Zelensky said the pair went over the package's contents and Ukraine's most urgent defense needs, and he briefed Sanchez on Russian strikes on critical infrastructure.

Zelensky also pointed to the toll on Ukraine's rail network, saying Russia has damaged more locomotives this year than in all previous years of the war combined, along with strains on the power grid. The numbers underline why Kyiv keeps pressing allies for hardware even as talk of a negotiated end gets louder.

The Oleshky remarks came during a wide-ranging Oval Office session. Trump said he is sure Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa will keep his border policies in place, warned he would step in himself if she doesn't, and told reporters he has a lot of things cooking over the next week or two. He also called the recent midterm elections crooked, and spoke by phone with Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi about de-escalating Middle East tensions.

Trump's account of the Oleshky ceasefire and the Dmitriev meeting comes via Breaking The News, with no further details released on what a broader deal would actually contain. So far, the only concrete figure on the table is Spain's €437 million for Kyiv.