Zelenskyy says Trump-Putin summit will achieve nothing, vows Ukraine will not give up land
In a statement posted to Telegram, Zelenskyy said Ukraine's territorial integrity, enshrined in its constitution, must be non-negotiable and emphasized that lasting peace must include Ukraine's voice at the table.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine "will not give Russia any awards for what it has done" and that "Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier."
Touching on Ukrainian anxieties that a direct meeting between Mr. Trump and Putin could marginalize Kyiv and European interests, Zelenskyy said: "Any decisions that are without Ukraine are at the same time decisions against peace. They will not bring anything. These are dead decisions. They will never work."
Mr. Trump and Putin are planning to meet in Alaska on Friday, August 15 – a summit that is seen as a potential breakthrough.
A senior White House official told CBS News that planning for the summit is fluid and it is still possible that Zelenskyy could end up being involved in some way.
The White House said earlier this week that Mr. Trump is open to meeting with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, but Mr. Trump suggested Friday he may start by meeting just Putin. He told reporters he plans to "start off with Russia." Mr. Trump also said he believes "we have a shot at" organizing a trilateral meeting with the Ukrainian and Russian leaders.
In his comments to reporters, Mr. Trump also suggested that any agreement would likely involve "some swapping of territories," but he gave no details.
His announcement that he planned to host one of America's adversaries on U.S. soil broke with expectations that they'd meet in a third country. The gesture gives Putin validation after the U.S. and its allies had long sought to make him a pariah over his war against Ukraine.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance met with European national security advisers on Saturday in the United Kingdom to discuss the Russia-Ukraine war, sources told CBS News. The meeting took place at the Chevening House in Kent, where Vance is vacationing with his family.
The meeting, said to be at the request of the U.S., included discussions on the next steps in Mr. Trump's push for peace in Ukraine.
"Today's hours-long meetings produced significant progress toward President Trump's goal of bringing an end to the war in Ukraine, ahead of President Trump and President Putin's upcoming meeting in Alaska," a U.S. official told CBS News.
Ukrainian officials had previously told the Associated Press privately that Kyiv would be amenable to a peace deal that would de facto recognize Ukraine's inability to regain lost territories militarily.
The summit would be the first face-to-face meeting between Putin and an American leader since former President Joe Biden met with his Russian counterpart in Switzerland in June 2021, eight months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
"It seems entirely logical for our delegation to fly across the Bering Strait simply, and for such an important and anticipated summit of the leaders of the two countries to be held in Alaska," Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Saturday in a statement posted to the Kremlin's news channel.
Such a summit may prove pivotal in a war that began more than three years ago when Russia invaded its western neighbor and has led to tens of thousands of deaths, although there's no guarantee it will stop the fighting since Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on their conditions for peace.
Two people died and 16 were wounded Saturday when a Russian drone hit a minibus in the suburbs of the Ukrainian city of Kherson, regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said. Two others died after a Russian drone struck their car in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to regional Gov. Ivan Fedorov.
Ukraine's air force said Saturday it intercepted 16 of the 47 Russian drones launched overnight, while 31 drones hit targets across 15 different locations. It also said it shot down one of the two missiles Russia deployed.
Meanwhile, Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 97 Ukrainian drones over Russia and the Black Sea overnight into Saturday, and 21 more on Saturday morning.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
14 minutes ago
- New York Post
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to visit White House on Monday after Trump called for his ouster: report
Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is set to visit the White House on Monday after President Trump called for his removal last week, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report. Intel and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Tan is expected to have a extensive conversation with Trump while looking to explain his personal and professional background, the report said, adding that he could propose ways Intel and the US government could work together. Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is reportedly expected to have a extensive conversation with President Trump on Monday. REUTERS Tan hopes to win Trump's approval by showing his commitment to the US and guaranteeing the importance of keeping Intel's manufacturing capabilities as a national security issue, the report added. Last week, Trump demanded the immediate resignation of Tan, calling him 'highly conflicted' due to his ties to Chinese firms and raising doubts about plans to turn around the struggling American chip icon. Tan said he shared the president's commitment to advancing US national and economic security. Trump's intervention marked a rare instance of a US president publicly calling for a CEO's ouster and sparked debate among investors. Reuters reported exclusively in April that Tan invested at least $200 million in hundreds of Chinese advanced manufacturing and chip firms, some of which were linked to the Chinese military. President Trump has demanded Tan resign as Intel CEO, calling him 'highly conflicted' due to his ties to companies in China. AP Tan, a Malaysian-born Chinese American business executive, was also the CEO of Cadence Design from 2008 through December 2021, during which the chip design software maker sold products to a Chinese military university believed to be involved in simulating nuclear explosions. Last month, Cadence agreed to plead guilty and pay more than $140 million to resolve the US charges over the sales, which Reuters first reported.
Wall Street Journal
15 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Oil Falls Amid Easing Supply-Disruption Concerns
2338 GMT — Oil falls in the early Asian session amid easing concerns about supply disruptions. U.S. President Trump said Friday he would meet with Russian President Putin in Alaska on Aug. 15 after Putin presented the Trump administration with a proposal for a cease-fire in Ukraine. Geopolitical risks have eased, ANZ Research analysts say in a research report, citing the news. Also, U.S. tariffs have officially commenced, raising worries over weaker economic activity and hence, demand for crude oil, the analysts add. Front-month WTI crude oil futures are down 0.4% at $63.64/bbl; front-month Brent crude oil futures are 0.3% lower at $66.37/bbl. (
Forbes
15 minutes ago
- Forbes
The Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Deal And The New Trump Corridor
The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a Trump-brokered peace deal in the White House ending decades of tensions and conflict - if it holds. The deal includes the creation of a highly profitable strategic trade corridor that passes through both countries, incentivizing them to stay on course. That route, now known as the Zangezur Corridor ( previously discussed by this column multiple times), will be developed by American companies and rebranded Trump Route For International Peace and Prosperity (Tripp). It will include rail lines, communication lines, oil and gas is the route so important that age-old adversaries have potentially buried the hatchet in order to make it happen? The corridor would forge a pathway from the Stans in Central Asia down through the Caucasus to Turkey and beyond to the world, effectively revitalizing the old Silk Road. Which means it would bypass both Russia and Iran, countries which have hitherto colluded to keep Central Asia's trade access westward bottled up except via their territory. Russia, in particular, is the loser here having dominated the terrain for over two centuries, imposing a choke hold and Moscow-centric dependency on its backyard from Turkmenistan to Kyrgyzstan. Those economies now stand to be liberated geopolitically from effective control by understand the geopolitical implications full well. It looks, at first glance, as if their historic adversaries - namely the Turkic world - are empowered and physically reconnected through this plan. So why has Armenia consented? Answer: because Armenians now distrust Moscow as security guarantor and have found a new one instead. As this column has pointed out numerous times, Moscow repeatedly failed to defend its allies in recent years (think Syria and Iran) since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Armenians were astonished that Moscow allowed the Azeris to retake Nagorno Karabakh in 2023, then cynically turned around and offered to partner versions of the Zangezur that would include bringing in US participation, Armenia gets a new guarantor of its security, one that can keep the pan-Turkic threat in check, and achieves payback for Moscow's betrayal. For President Trump, the additional benefits include new leverage for his upcoming Ukraine peace talks with Putin, added leverage against Iran and - what nobody has mentioned - the replacement of China's trade route (Belt and Road Initiative) from linking via Iran at its final critical outlet stage. In the first instance, can offer to re-include Russia as a participant in the Zangezur - or not depending on Putin's intransigence. In the second case, Iran is faced with the threat of its northern Turkic neighbor Azerbaijan getting richer and acting as a magnet to the Iranian province of Azerbaijan to break off and join its Turkic cousins. With regard to China, a new trade outlet for Central Asia makes the hitherto landlocked regional Stans less dependent on neighboring Chinese trade and economic factor that goes unmentioned in the global coverage about TRIPP is the fate of Tbilisi. Currently, Georgia benefits substantially from acting as a trade route, not least for the oil pipeline that goes from Baku via Tbilisi to Ceyhan in Turkey. The Zangezur Corridor would render all that superfluous - thereby delivering a blow to Georgia's economy. And to its regime, universally acknowledged as directed behind-the-scenes by the country's richest man, Bidzina Ivanishvili, a pro-Russian influence on the country. His main rival and former President, now in prison, the pro-American Mikheil Saakashvili has gone public pointing out the potential geopolitical and economic disaster for Georgia in contrast to the Western-aligned era of his tenure as leader. 'Yes we are ending up in complete geopolitical isolation alongside Iran and Russia…This is where breaking our strategic alliance with America and Europe has brought us,' he says, while warning of 'accelerated emigration and deepening poverty'for his country. In short, the destabilizing of the pro-Moscow Georgian state would be yet another blow to Russia's strategic influence in its the outlook for TRIPP and the peace deal is not all smooth sailing either. Most recently, a top Iranian minister openly threatened repercussions against it saying 'this corridor will not become a passage owned by Trump but rather a graveyard for Trump's mercenaries'. Considering the amount of new infrastructure envisaged by the deal, maximal vulnerability to sabotage must also be considered. Which brings up the question of how participating US companies will defend the security of the route against the countries it geostrategically challenges. The Zangezur is essentially the equivalent of a Panama or Suez Canal both of which needed Western military support for decades during and after completion. Protecting such an endeavor would certainly require boots on the ground - which rather contradicts President Trump's America First pledges to avoid foreign military entanglements.
