President Trump has said Volodymyr Zelenskyy is prepared to give up Ukraine's claim to Crimea as part of a ceasefire deal to end his country's war with Russia.

Russian authorities said Monday that Moscow is ready to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine but insisted that recognition of its claims over five Ukrainian regions, including the Crimean peninsula, was "imperative" to ending the war.

Donald Trump announced that Russia and Ukraine are close to reaching an agreement. The parties "should now meet, at very high levels, to 'finish it off'," Trump wrote. On Friday in Moscow, Vladimir Putin met with the U.