US and Russia plan truce that would cement Putin's gains in Ukraine, Bloomberg reports
U.S. and Russian officials are working towards an agreement for a planned summit meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as early as next week, the report said, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.
A White House official said the Bloomberg story was speculation. A Kremlin spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Addressing reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump suggested an agreement would involve some exchange of land.
"There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both," Trump said.
The president said details on the summit with Putin would be released as soon as Friday.
"I'll be meeting very shortly with President Putin. It would have been sooner, but I guess there are security arrangements that unfortunately people have to make," Trump said.
There was no immediate comment on the report from Ukrainian authorities. However, in a statement published after the report that did not refer to it, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said:
"The United States is determined to achieve a ceasefire, and we must jointly support all constructive steps. A dignified, reliable, and lasting peace can only be the result of our joint efforts," he said.
In his evening address to the nation, Zelenskiy said it was possible to achieve a ceasefire as long as adequate pressure was applied to Russia. He said he had held more than a dozen conversations with leaders of different countries and his team was in constant contact with the United States.
Putin claims four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which he annexed in 2014. His forces do not fully control all the territory in the four regions.
Ukraine has previously signalled a willingness to be flexible in the search for an end to a war that has ravaged its towns and cities and killed large numbers of its soldiers and citizens.
But accepting the loss of around a fifth of Ukraine's territory would be painful and politically challenging for Zelenskiy and his government.
Tyson Barker, the U.S. State Department's former deputy special representative for Ukraine's economic recovery, said the proposal, as outlined by Bloomberg, would be immediately rejected by the Ukrainians.
"The best the Ukrainians can do is remain firm in their objections and their conditions for a negotiated settlement, while demonstrating their gratitude for American support," said Barker, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council.
Under the putative deal, according to Bloomberg, Russia would halt its offensive in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions along current battle lines.
Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has moved to mend relations with Russia and sought to end the war. In his public comments he has veered between admiration and sharp criticism of Putin.
In a sign of his growing frustration with Putin's refusal to halt Russia's military offensive, Trump had threatened to impose new sanctions and tariffs from Friday against Moscow and countries that buy its exports unless the Russian leader agreed to end the 3-1/2 year conflict, the deadliest in Europe since World War Two.
But with the Putin-Trump summit expected in the coming days, possibly in the United Arab Emirates, it is unclear whether those sanctions will take effect or will be delayed or cancelled.
The administration took a step toward punishing Moscow's oil customers on Wednesday, imposing an additional 25% tariff on goods from India over its imports of Russian oil, marking the first financial penalty aimed at Russia in Trump's second term.
Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff held three hours of talks with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday that both sides described as constructive.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, a close ally of Ukraine, said earlier on Friday that a pause in the conflict could be close. He was speaking after talks with Zelenskiy.
"There are certain signals, and we also have an intuition, that perhaps a freeze in the conflict – I don't want to say the end, but a freeze in the conflict – is closer than it is further away," Tusk told a news conference. "There are hopes for this."
Tusk also said Zelenskiy was "very cautious but optimistic" and that Ukraine was keen that Poland and other European countries play a role in planning for a ceasefire and an eventual peace settlement.
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