Germany's Merz weighs in on Ukrainian territorial concessions
The comment came shortly after Monday's White House meeting featuring US President Donald Trump, Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky, and his key Western European backers, including Merz. The meeting was held two days after a successful summit in Alaska between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.
'The Russian demand that Kiev should give up the free parts of the Donbass is, just to make the scale of it clear, comparable in scale to a proposal that the US should give up Florida,' the German chancellor told journalists on Monday, stressing that 'no territorial concessions should be made.'
Merz admitted, however, that such decisions 'Ukraine must make on its own in the course of negotiations,' adding that 'a sovereign state cannot just decide something like that so easily.'
Zelensky had previously refused outright to discuss any territorial concessions, stating that 'the Constitution of Ukraine does not allow the surrender of territories or the trading of land.' He, however, acknowledged that the land swaps were on the latest talks agenda at the White House.
Following the summit in Anchorage, President Putin reiterated that the key to the settlement of the conflict is the elimination of its root causes for lasting peace. According to Moscow, Ukraine should renounce its ambitions for NATO membership, demilitarize, and recognize the current territorial realities, including the status of Crimea as well as of the People Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, and Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, which voted to become parts of Russia in 2022.
Trump has urged Ukraine to drop its NATO membership aspirations and relinquish claims to Crimea as preconditions for starting peace talks with Russia. The US president has asserted that accepting these terms could bring an almost immediate end to the conflict, aligning closely with Moscow's position on territorial reality.
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