US President Donald Trump urged Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to cede territory in exchange for peace during a tense meeting on Friday, sources have said.
The Ukrainian delegation present was left disappointed by the suggestion, according to two people briefed on the conversation.
Mr Trump is also said to have turned down Kyiv’s request for Washington to provide access to Tomahawk missiles to carry out strikes inside Russian territory.
However, Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Sunday that the President has not made a decision on whether to make Tomahawk missiles available.
Donald Trump urged Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to cede territory in exchange for peace during a tense meeting
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GETTY
Shortly after the meeting concluded, Mr Trump called for a ceasefire on the frontlines.
Mr Trump is said to have been told by Mr Zelensky that he would not agree to voluntarily hand Ukrainian territory over to Russia.
Another source familiar with the discussion said: “The meeting ended with (Mr Trump’s) decision to make a ‘deal where we are, on the demarcation line’.”
It is said that US officials suggested the idea of land swap deals to take place between Russia and Ukraine, with Mr Trump believed to have said that an agreement must be signed quickly.
Shortly after the meeting concluded, Mr Trump called for a ceasefire on the frontlines
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GETTY
One of the sources described the meeting as being “pretty bad”.
They added that “the message was, ‘Your country will freeze, and your country will be destroyed'” if Kyiv does not reach a peace agreement with Moscow.
However, a different source refuted the claim that Mr Trump said that Ukraine would be “destroyed”.
According to the two sources, the President appeared swayed by a conversation he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
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The Russian leader proposed a swap during the call, which would see Ukraine hand over Donetsk and Luhansk in exchange for small areas of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
Sources close to the meeting said US officials proposed the exact same deal to the Ukrainian delegation.
Mr Trump confirmed he would be meeting with Mr Putin in Budapest in the near future.
A spokesman for the Kremlin said that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will begin talks in the coming days to schedule a meeting.
Mr Trump confirmed he would be meeting with Mr Putin in Budapest in the near future
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REUTERSIf it goes ahead, the meeting would be the second between the American and Russian leaders in a matter of months, after the pair met in Alaska in August.
The calls for land swaps indicate a change in rhetoric for the US President, who said just weeks ago that Ukraine could regain all territory it had lost in the war.
Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social last month: “I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form.
“With time, patience, and the financial support of Europe and, in particular, Nato, the original borders from where this war started, is very much an option.”
