Trump, Putin to meet August 15
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15 in Alaska to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, Trump said on Friday. Trump made the highly anticipated announcement on social media after he said that the parties, including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, were close to a ceasefire deal that could resolve the three-and-a-half-year conflict, one that could require Ukraine to surrender significant territory.
Addressing reporters at the White House earlier on Friday, Trump suggested an agreement would involve some exchange of land. 'There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both,' the Republican president said.
However, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Ukraine will not cede its land, rejecting US suggestions that a deal with Russia could involve swapping territories as Washington and Moscow prepared for talks between their leaders on ending the war.
The Kremlin confirmed the summit in an online statement. The two leaders will 'focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis,' Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said. 'This will evidently be a challenging process, but we will engage in it actively and energetically,' Ushakov said. In a video address to the nation posted on his Telegram channel on Saturday, Zelensky said that any decisions without Ukraine would be decisions against peace.
Details of the potential deal have yet to be announced, but Trump said it would involve 'some swapping of territories to the betterment of both'. It could require Ukraine to surrender significant parts of its territory - an outcome Kyiv and its European allies say would only encourage Russian aggression.
This combination of file photographs shows (from left) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.-- AFP photos
'They will not achieve anything. These are stillborn decisions. They are unworkable decisions. And we all need real and genuine peace,' Zelensky said. 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.
Earlier, Bloomberg News reported that US and Russian officials were working towards an agreement that would lock in Moscow's occupation of territory seized during its military invasion.
A White House official said the Bloomberg story was speculation. A Kremlin spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Reuters was unable to confirm aspects of the Bloomberg report.
Ukraine has previously signaled 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.
Tyson Barker, the US State Department's former deputy special representative for Ukraine's economic recovery, said the peace proposal as outlined in the Bloomberg report would be immediately rejected by the Ukrainians.
'Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier,' Zelensky said in a video address, adding that Ukraine's borders were fixed in the country's constitution.
'No one will deviate from this – and no one will be able to,' he said.
US Vice President JD Vance were meeting Ukrainian and European allies in Britain later to discuss Trump's push for peace, Downing Street said, adding that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had spoken about it with Zelensky.
'They agreed this would be a vital forum to discuss progress towards securing a just and lasting peace,' the Downing Street spokesperson added. Zelensky has made a flurry of calls with Ukraine's allies since Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff's visit to Moscow on Wednesday which Trump described as having achieved 'great progress'. 'Clear steps are needed, as well as maximum coordination between us and our partners,' Zelensky said in a post on X after his call with Starmer.
'We value the determination of the United Kingdom, the United States, and all our partners to end the war.' Ukraine and the European Union have pushed back on proposals that they view as ceding too much to Putin, whose troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, citing what Moscow called threats to Russia's security from a Ukrainian pivot towards the West. Kyiv and its Western allies say the invasion is an imperial-style land grab. — Reuters
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