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US President Donald Trump said he would try to get “some territory back for Ukraine” during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.
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“Russia’s occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They occupied prime territory. We’re going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine,” Trump told a news conference at the White House on Tuesday, describing the meeting as a “feel-out” session aimed at urging Putin to end the war.
He warned there could be “some swapping, changes in land” between Russia and Ukraine, though Kyiv has never claimed Russian territories. Trump said he would speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy first “out of respect” if Putin offered a “fair deal.”
“I’ll call him first… I’ll call him after, and I may say, ‘lots of luck, keep fighting,’ or I may say, ‘we can make a deal’,” he said. Trump added that while he and Zelenskyy “get along,” he “very severely disagrees with what [the Ukrainian president] has done.”
However, he voiced irritation with Zelenskyy for insisting on a national referendum before agreeing to any peace deal that recognises Russian control over occupied territory.
“I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelenskyy was saying I have to get constitutional approval,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “He has approval to go to war and kill everybody but he needs approval to do a land swap. Because there will be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody.”
Kaja Kallas, vice-president of the European Commission, warned Putin wants to “go for the old fashioned way of…let’s divide the territories and spheres of influence,” stressing any deal must have Ukraine’s approval. “If Ukraine is not part of the deal, any deal will just not be implemented,” she said.
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Zelenskyy said agreements without Kyiv’s input would amount to “dead decisions,” citing intelligence reports that Russia was not preparing to end the war.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney agreed a peace deal “must be built with Ukraine – not imposed upon it,” according to 10, Downing Street.
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