President Trump said on Monday that there will be “land swapping” between Russia and Ukraine as part of a potential peace deal and pushed back on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s public rejection of ceding any territory to Moscow.
“I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying, ‘Well, I have to get constitutional approval.’ I mean, he’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap — because there’ll be some land swapping going on,” Trump told reporters.
The president is gearing up for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska this Friday and said that after the talks, he will relay Moscow’s “parameters” to end the war to Ukraine and the US’s European allies. “If it’s a fair deal, I will reveal it to the European Union leaders and to the NATO leaders and also to President Zelensky,” he said. “I may say, ‘lots of luck, keep fighting,’ or I may say we can make a deal.”
According to reports from The Wall Street Journal, Putin has conveyed to the US that he would end the war if Ukraine withdrew its forces from the territory it still controls in Donetsk in the eastern Donbas region. The reports suggest Moscow would be willing to accept freezing the lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, a potential climbdown from Moscow’s earlier demand for a full Ukrainian withdrawal from both oblasts.
While Zelenksy has publicly rejected the idea of ceding any territory, The Telegraph reported on Monday that he’s willing to give up the land that is already controlled by Russia, but that he wouldn’t give up any territory Ukrainian forces still hold as part of a European-backed plan.
“The plan can only be related to the current positions held by the militaries,” a Western official familiar with the plan told The Telegraph.
European leaders have also been pushing for Zelensky to be part of the Trump-Putin summit, but Trump has made clear that won’t happen. Trump said on Monday that he hopes Zelensky and Putin will meet following the Alaska summit and said he could potentially join the meeting.
