U.S. President Donald Trump’s push for a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine is intensifying. Officials from the U.S., Ukraine and Russia have crisscrossed the globe in recent weeks in a flurry of meetings aimed at negotiating a deal.

Europeans are feeling “genuine fear and distrust regarding the United States,” former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves told NBC News.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine's national security council, issued the call following two days of "constructive discussions" in Florida. They said in a statement that the prospect of ending the war in Ukraine depends on Russia's "readiness" to take "steps towards de-escalation and cessation of killing".

Turkey is telling Russia, Ukraine, and all other parties to keep energy infrastructure out of their conflict and wants energy flows to continue uninterrupted, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said after a series of attacks off Turkey's Black Sea coast.

The European Commission is considering using frozen Russian assets held in Europe to support Ukraine. It plans to unlock $105 billion for the effort through a reparations loan or international borrowing, though favors the former. Russia's Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said that it could be tantamount to an act justifying war.

Russian forces have advanced on several fronts recently. President Vladimir V. Putin signaled after talks with U.S. officials that he was not budging from demands.

Ukraine wants "real peace, not appeasement" with Russia, its foreign minister said on Thursday at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the security and rights body seeking a role for itself in a post-war Ukraine.

Mark Rutte's comments come a day after Putin rejected US proposals for peace in Ukraine after talks with US negotiators in Moscow.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 launched more than a military conflict; it thrust Ukraine’s rich and vibrant culture into focus.