President Donald Trump, as he often vowed to do on the campaign trail, has prioritized ongoing efforts to forge peace and negotiate an end to the deadly and destructive years-long war between Russia and Ukraine.

On Friday, Trump claimed that Russia and Ukraine were "very close to a deal" after the latest round of productive talks with U.S. officials on an immediate ceasefire and broader peace agreement, Breitbart reported.

That report of apparent progress in the peace talks comes about one week after Trump and other top U.S. officials made it clear that the U.S. was willing to walk away from the negotiations if either Russia or Ukraine continued to make reaching a potential deal more difficult.

Trump says Russia-Ukraine peace deal is "very close"

President Trump traveled to the Vatican in Italy on Friday to attend the funeral of Pope Francis and, upon his arrival, posted on Truth Social, "Just landed in Rome. A good day in talks and meetings with Russia and Ukraine."

"They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to 'finish it off,'" he continued.

"Most of the major points are agreed to. Stop the bloodshed, NOW," Trump added. "We will be wherever is necessary to help facilitate the END to this cruel and senseless war!"

Criticism for both warring sides amid peace talks

Interestingly enough, just days before his optimistic message about the proximity of a peace deal, President Trump had separately lambasted both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for engaging in actions and rhetoric that were not conducive to successful negotiations.

On Wednesday, Trump called out Zelenskyy for his "inflammatory statements" about the Russian occupation of Crimea, which occurred more than a decade ago, that, in his view, were "very harmful to the Peace Negotiations."

Less than 24 hours later, on Thursday, however, Trump also took Putin to task over the "very bad timing" of unnecessary "Russian strikes on KYIV," and further urged the Russian leader to "STOP" the fighting that is estimated to result in upwards of 5,000 combined casualties per week for both sides.

Yet, in a Friday afternoon post, in which he chided Zelenskyy for having still not signed the "very important Rare Earths Deal," Trump asserted, "Work on the overall Peace Deal between Russia and Ukraine is going smoothly. SUCCESS seems to be in the future!"

U.S. willing to walk away if negotiations prove fruitless

The positive tone of Friday's missives from President Trump was a stark change from the pessimistic assumption held by many just one week earlier that the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, at least as it pertained to U.S. involvement in those negotiations, were on the verge of collapse.

Reuters reported last Friday that Trump told reporters the U.S. was willing to walk away from the discussions if there were no imminent signs of progress, and said, "Now if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we're just going to say, 'you're foolish, you're fools, you're horrible people, and we're going to just take a pass.' But hopefully we won't have to do that."

That matched what Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said hours earlier following peace talks in Paris, France, in which he cautioned the media, "We're not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end. So we need to determine very quickly now, and I'm talking about a matter of days, whether or not this is doable in the next few weeks."

Rubio added at that time, "If it's not possible, if we're so far apart that this is not going to happen, then I think the president is probably at a point where he's going to say, 'well, we're done.'"