UNITED NATIONS, September 22. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump stressed that it is important for Ukraine to try to reach a settlement of the conflict with Russia before winter.

"Before winter. Big thing - before winter," the US president told reporters alongside Vladimir Zelensky in New York. Trump made the remark, interrupting Zelensky, who said: "I hope that we will end this war, and President Trump will help us to end this war. And I think that we need to do it as quick as possible, before winter."

Zelensky earlier acknowledged that the coming winter in Ukraine would be "very difficult." Former Ukrainian Prime Minister (2010-2014) Nikolay Azarov told TASS that the country was unprepared for winter in terms of gas and coal supplies.

According to TASS calculations, by mid-year Ukraine had accumulated only about 7 billion cubic meters of gas in storage, compared with the minimum 13.2 billion cubic meters needed for the winter. Thermal coal reserves stand at 2.2 million metric tons, but are sufficient only for the summer and fall. Ukraine's power system capacity, despite efforts to restore it and create a distributed power generation network, currently stands at about 12 GW, compared with the 18-19 GW required in winter.