Russia’s illegal seizure of the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 was quick and bloodless, and it sent Moscow’s relations with the West into a downward spiral unseen since the Cold War.

Ahead of his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, US President Donald Trump said that Kyiv can "end the war with Russia almost immediately" but it must abandon dreams of a NATO membership and bringing Crimea back to Ukraine.

Special U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff says Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed to allow the U.S. and Europe to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling NATO's collective defense mandate.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that in two weeks he should know whether progress is possible in his bid to end Russia's invasion of Ukraine and he again raised the prospect of imposing sanctions on Moscow.