Ukraine must accept new borders to achieve peace, says Trump — follow live
'We, the leaders of the European Union, welcome the efforts of President Trump towards ending Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and achieving a just and lasting peace and security for Ukraine,' a statement said.
'A just and lasting peace that brings stability and security must respect international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and that international borders must not be changed by force.'
The European preference (option one) is for a ceasefire on the basis of the present 680-mile long front line, whereas other possibilities include Russia extending gains in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions (option two), or even Zaporizhzhia and Kherson (option three). Trump's insistence that any peace deal would involve 'some swapping of territories' could mean a trade whereby Putin gets the whole of the Donbas in exchange for returning parts of Kherson to Ukraine (option four). The European preference
Putin's price for a ceasefire
Concessions from Kyiv
The 'land-swapping' proposal
Citing reports from Ukraine's intelligence and military command, President Zelensky warned that Vladimir Putin was making preparations for new offensive operations in Ukraine.
'So far, there is no indication whatsoever that the Russians have received signals to prepare for a post-war situation,' Zelensky said in his nightly address. 'On the contrary, they are redeploying their troops and forces in ways that suggest preparations for new offensive operations.'
Putin is 'definitely not preparing for a ceasefire or an end to the war', he added.
'Putin is determined only to present a meeting with America as his personal victory and then continue acting exactly as before, applying the same pressure on Ukraine as before,' Zelensky said in his nightly address.
Downing Street has warned President Trump not to trust President Putin to stick to a Ukraine ceasefire deal, as western leaders scramble to help Kyiv prepare for a peace summit on Friday.
Putin cannot be trusted 'as far as you could throw him', No 10 said on Monday, as Britain pushed for guarantees to ensure that any pause in the fighting agreed at the meeting between the two presidents is not used by Russia simply as a breathing space to prepare for a new offensive.
European leaders urged Trump over the weekend to allow Ukraine to take part in the talks, nervous at what he might cede to Putin at the summit.
Trump confirmed that Zelensky would not attend his meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday. He said he would instead call the Ukrainian president once the summit was over. He speculated that Zelensky could meet Putin afterwards. 'I'll be there if they need,' he added.
Trump said he would only call Zelensky if Putin proposed a 'fair deal'.
President Trump criticised President Zelensky for refusing to cede territory and repeated that there needed to be some 'land swapping' to end the war.
In some of his harshest remarks about Zelensky in the past several months, Trump said he 'very severely' disagreed with his handling of the war, saying 'it never should have happened'.
'I was a little bothered by the fact Zelensky was saying 'I have to get constitutional approval',' he said. 'He's got approval to go into war and kill everybody? But he needs approval to do a land swap?'
European countries have said any ceasefire should be agreed on the basis of the present 680-mile long front line and are urging Trump not to accept a peace settlement that would award Putin more land.
President Trump has said Ukraine must accept the redrawing of its borders to achieve peace and that he would 'try to get back' some of the country's 'oceanfront property' from Russia during talks with President Putin in Alaska on Friday.
In a press conference lasting longer than an hour, Trump confirmed that Zelensky would not attend his meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday.
Speaking about conditions for a ceasefire, Trump said: 'There will be some land-swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody.
'We're going to change the lines, the battle lines. Russia has occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They've occupied some very prime territory. We're going to try and get some of that territory back for Ukraine. They have taken largely — in real estate we call it oceanfront property. That's always the most valuable property.'
Trump appeared to be referring to the territory on the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, a stretch of coastline that includes the city of Mariupol. Mariupol was reduced to rubble in one of the most brutal battles of the war when more than 8,000 people died during a Russian siege.
• Read in full: Trump to 'get back Ukraine's oceanfront property' from Russia
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Good to have it confirmed that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will be taking about Ukraine behind its back on Friday in Alaska, as the US president rambled through a press conference on Monday in which he explained that Putin 'wasn't going to mess with me' and that Ukraine was going to have to accept new borders. And listen – you'll agree that territorial pronouncements mean so much more coming from a guy whose staff once shamelessly redrew a hurricane impact map to stop him looking stoopid. It's a true honour for the Ukrainians to see their country effectively carved up by someone who would prefer to post-rationalise any old crap with a Sharpie than admit he doesn't have the first clue about it and cares even less. Leave it to the tasteful visionary behind the Gaza Riviera to categorise what he's doing as trying to get back some of Ukraine's 'oceanfront property'. 'In real estate we call it oceanfront property,' Trump said on Monday, demystifying this term of high art for non-developers who haven't contrived to bankrupt several Atlantic City casinos. 'That's always the most valuable property.' Thanks, Mister Mogul! It is assumed that the stretch of high-end primo coastline Trump was referring to included Mariupol, the utterly ruined port in which many thousands of civilians perished during the Russian siege. In international law we call it a possible war crime; in real estate we call it … what? Strategic pre-construction? Spa-chitecture? Certainly, how we put things is a matter of concern to this supremely sensitive president, who can find words very hurty, particularly when allied to optional concepts such as truth or the law. 'I was a little bothered by the fact Zelensky was saying, 'I have to get constitutional approval,'' he whined on Monday of the Ukrainian leader's desire to put any peace deal to the Ukrainian people via a referendum. 'He's got approval to go into war and kill everybody?' Again, whether Ukraine 'go[ing] into war' is a fair categorisation of its being invaded by Russia is not something that bothers the Sharpie king of the White House. As for the precise nature of the forthcoming cartography, Trump spent quite a lot of time talking suspiciously nebulously about 'land swapping'. Can you swap things on behalf of someone who doesn't want to swap them, and without them being present at the table? If so, I would like someone to swap me one of Trump's second-tier golf courses, and would expect him to be very relaxed about it. He'll just have to take my word that it's in the wider interests of everybody. In terms of what he deems to be the interests of interested parties, there has been some strong suggestion in recent days that the Trump administration thinks it would be a win for Ukraine to abandon the bits of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are not even occupied by Russia, with only a ceasefire and the promise of some future better deal to show for it. Which would certainly be the absolute wrongest reading of a land deal since the New York Tribune called the Alaska purchase a folly and a waste of money. In fact, it would explain Putin's willingness to travel to that very territory to hold Friday's peace talks instead of doing it on neutral turf – you can probably afford to concede on the meeting location if everything else is likely to be such a complete gift to you. The Russian president might even bring along another hideously flattering portrait of Trump as an ice-breaking present, having already commissioned one as a personal gift earlier this year, which was passed on to Trump via his special envoy Steve Witkoff. Witkoff said it was a 'beautiful portrait' and that the president was 'clearly touched by it'. And so to the buildup to Friday. We'll have to see how excited Trump gets about the chance to join some sort of German-organised conference call with European leaders on Wednesday. For the US president, the negotiating table is a place that seats only two people, one of which should always be him. For Putin, many fear through bitter experience, the negotiating table is a place where you simply obfuscate and buy time to regroup before renewing aggression. Rather like Holly Golightly at the window of Tiffany's, nothing very bad can happen to Putin in Alaska. Merely turning up avoids the threatened sanctions. If, as seems likely, Trump decides he should be appeased with some land, any Ukrainian refusal to rubber-stamp this would leave him frustrated with and lashing out at Zelenskyy, not Putin. (Give the orange guy his peace deal and then his peace prize, dammit! He's getting bored out here.) And if a ceasefire is somehow agreed, it would surely, on the form book, be regarded by Putin merely as a strategic buying of time. The Russian leader is obsessed with Ukraine in a way the Trump administration seems incapable of, or indifferent to, grasping. Look, maybe geopolitics really will turn out to be just a simpler version of commercial real estate. Maybe someone who has lost almost as many fortunes as he has gained in that particular trade really will turn out to be a maverick master whose refresh-the-parts traditional diplomacy can't reach. Maybe! But the sheer lack of jeopardy for Putin in Alaska feels far more significant than the mood music. The best-case scenario is that Europe and Ukraine prepare themselves for the artlessness of the deal. The worst-case scenario is a darker pathway altogether – and one we seem increasingly likely to stumble on to. Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
