Latest news with #territorialswapping
Irish Times
a day ago
- Business
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on the Trump/Putin meeting: Ukraine must be at the table
The symbolism of the planned Trump-Putin meeting this week in Alaska is striking. Alaska, after all, was bought from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867, much as Donald Trump hopes to buy Greenland. Nothing wrong with trading land ,Trump appears to be telling Russia's president, whether you own it or not. If the price is right. The US president has set the scene for his encounter with Vladimir Putin with the promise that land concessions of forcibly conquered land are on the cards . 'We're going to get some back, and we're going to get some switched,' Trump said on Friday. 'There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both.' The owner of that land, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has not been invited . But a deal without Ukraine being present would not be a deal at all. Calls from EU countries over the weekend for the Ukrainian president to be present should be heeded. While Trump appeared to have patched up his relationship with Zelenskiy after the Oval Office blow-up, his resulting public coolness towards Putin over the latter's stonewalling over a ceasefire has all but dissolved in his enthusiasm to set up a meeting entirely on the Russian's terms, and without any previously demanded ceasefire commitment. Talk of deadlines and secondary sanctions against those buying Russian oil are now, apparently, on hold. And for what? READ MORE Bringing Putin in from diplomatic isolation is in itself a win for the Russian president. An agreement to the permanent consolidation of territorial gains, whether formally or informally acknowledged, would represent an explicit concession of Russia's war aims, a massive reward for an illegal war. Also on Putin's agenda, a Nato commitment not to take in Ukraine is already US policy, and both the ending of US engagement in Ukraine and the splitting of the Europeans off from the US appear feasible objectives for Moscow. At the same time, tensions between Washington and Kyiv have reappeared. Zelenskiy's rapid repudiation of 'constitutionally prohibited' territorial concessions is certain to anger Trump, whose promise that the meeting will be followed by one including Zelenskiy has also been repudiated by Moscow. Putin has made clear all along that he is not interested in a preliminary ceasefire to allow comprehensive peace talks to be arranged. He wants a deal now that will effectively disarm Kyiv and put as much distance between it and allies safely confined to their own territories. No question of international peacekeeping or monitoring. In effect, permanent vulnerability. The prize this week for Putin would be a deal with Trump that Ukraine cannot accept, with the US then walking away and washing its hands of the conflict. Trump's promise of land for peace appears to make that a possible outcome .But a deal without Ukraine being present is not a deal at all.
Russia Today
2 days ago
- Politics
- Russia Today
Ukrainian FM rejects Trump's peace suggestion
Kiev will not agree to make any concessions to Moscow, Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga has stated. His remark came shortly after US President Donald Trump suggested on Friday that any potential peace agreement between the conflicting nations would likely involve 'some swapping of territories.' Moscow insists that the Lugansk People's Republic, the Donetsk People's Republic, and Zaporozhye and Kherson regions became part of Russia following referendums held in 2022. Crimea voted to join in 2014. In a post on X on Sunday, Sibiga wrote: 'No rewards or gifts to the aggressor to appease him,' adding that 'every concession invites further aggression.' His comment echoed a string of posts published on X by Vladimir Zelensky the previous day, in which he vowed not to 'allow this second attempt to partition Ukraine' and the 'legalization of the occupation of our land.' According to Zelensky, the first 'partition' took place following the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, when Crimeans overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in a referendum that the new Ukrainian leadership and the West have dismissed as a sham. Weeks later, an uprising happened in predominantly Russian-speaking Donetsk Region and Lugansk Region. Citing the threat of forced Ukrainization, the secessionists established their own independent republics with the intention of eventually following Crimea's example. A bloody military conflict followed, but Kiev failed to completely regain control of either territory by force. The Ukrainian officials' statements came after Trump announced earlier this week that he would be meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska on August 15, and that the two would try to find a way out of the conflict. Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Russian president met in Moscow on Wednesday. According to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, Washington had made an 'acceptable' offer, but he declined to provide further details. Moscow has long accused Zelensky of denying reality and unnecessarily prolonging a conflict he cannot win.
Russia Today
2 days ago
- Politics
- Russia Today
Ukrainian foreign minister rejects Trump's peace suggestion
Kiev will not agree to make any concessions to Moscow, Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga has stated. His remark came shortly after US President Donald Trump suggested on Friday that any potential peace agreement between the conflicting nations would likely involve 'some swapping of territories.' Moscow insists that the Lugansk People's Republic, the Donetsk People's Republic, and Zaporozhye and Kherson regions became part of Russia following referendums held in 2022. Crimea voted to join in 2014. In a post on X on Sunday, Sibiga wrote: 'No rewards or gifts to the aggressor to appease him,' adding that 'every concession invites further aggression.' His comment echoed a string of posts published on X by Vladimir Zelensky the previous day, in which he vowed not to 'allow this second attempt to partition Ukraine' and the 'legalization of the occupation of our land.' According to Zelensky, the first 'partition' took place following the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, when Crimeans overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in a referendum that the new Ukrainian leadership and the West have dismissed as a sham. Weeks later, an uprising happened in predominantly Russian-speaking Donetsk Region and Lugansk Region. Citing the threat of forced Ukrainization, the secessionists established their own independent republics with the intention of eventually following Crimea's example. A bloody military conflict followed, but Kiev failed to completely regain control of either territory by force. The Ukrainian officials' statements came after Trump announced earlier this week that he would be meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska on August 15, and that the two would try to find a way out of the conflict. Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the Russian president met in Moscow on Wednesday. According to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, Washington had made an 'acceptable' offer, but he declined to provide further details. Moscow has long accused Zelensky of denying reality and unnecessarily prolonging a conflict he cannot win.
