US President Donald Trump has signalled that Ukraine might have to give up territory to end the war with Russia as he prepares to meet Vladimir Putin for peace talks.
Announcing the talks with the Russian president, set to take place in Alaska on Friday, Mr Trump said: “There will be some swapping of territories”.
The White House is reportedly trying to sway European leaders to accept an agreement that would include Russia taking the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine and keeping Crimea. In exchange, it would give up the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, areas which Russia is partially occupying, CBS reported.
But in a statement on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the idea, saying that “Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier”.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Mr Putin had already proposed a similar land swap agreement to US envoy Steve Witkoff at a meeting in Moscow.
Ukraine had previously warned that no peace deal is possible if it is forced to give up territory to Russia, after the US said supporting Kyiv to retake occupied land was “unrealistic”.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has previously said that “we must start by recognising that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering”.
The position is markedly different from that of the previous Joe Biden administration, which supported Ukraine in ejecting Russian forces from its land completely.
The hardline stance under the Trump regime has already faced backlash, with accusations that the US is “betraying” Ukraine.
On Saturday, European leaders reaffirmed their backing of Ukraine in a joint statement from the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, Finland and the European Commission.
Insisting that Ukraine be part of any peace talks, they said: “The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine. We remain committed to the principle that international borders must not be changed by force. The current line of contact should be the starting point of negotiations.”
Russia currently occupies around 20 per cent of Ukraine, including parts of four regions of mainland Ukraine, as well as the Crimean peninsula.
Mr Putin first invaded Ukraine in 2014, when he illegally annexed Crimea. It is widely believed he then ordered unmarked soldiers known as “little green men” to fight on behalf of Russia in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
In February 2022, he then ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, reportedly hoping to take the country in just three days.
After being pushed back from Kyiv and northeastern Ukraine, the latest iteration of Mr Putin’s land grab focused on the four regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
In September 2022, he illegally annexed these four regions, none of which are completely controlled by Russian forces.
He has since repeatedly claimed that he will only agree to end his invasion of Ukraine if Kyiv cedes these four regions to him.
Ukraine and the country’s European supporters have suggested this would amount to rewarding Mr Putin for his illegal land grab.
Ceding the Donbas region would mean giving up an area with cities and industrial centres, and Ukraine abandoning its defensive line in northern Donetsk.
