Donald Trump has said that he will discuss “land swapping” with Russian president Vladimir Putin during their high-stakes summit in Alaska on Friday.
The two world leaders will meet in the US state at the end of this week to discuss a potential deal to end to the three-year-old war between Russia and Ukraine.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said there would “be some land swapping going on,” adding that this would involve “some bad stuff” for both countries.
Trump also expressed frustration with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky’s insistence that Kyiv would need to hold a national referendum on any peace deal which grants Russia control over territory it has illegally occupied since the start of its invasion in 2022.
“I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying I have to get constitutional approval,” Trump said. “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.”
Zelensky has remained firm that Ukraine won’t commit to giving up land in order to secure a ceasefire, despite Russia’s control over four of the country’s regions.
Trump caused alarm when he told reporters he was “going to Russia on Friday,” despite the meeting taking place in Alaska, a region which was colonised by Russia until Czar Alexander II sold it to the US in 1867.
The US president has said that the meeting with the Russian leader is “a feel-out meeting”, adding that he was open to meeting with Putin first and then with Zelensky, or meeting both together. However, he did not say he would push for a three-person meeting.
“President Putin invited me to get involved,” he said, adding he felt it was very respectful for Putin to come to Alaska instead of asking Trump to go to Russia.
European Union leaders shared a statement of support for Ukraine on Tuesday, appealing for Trump to defend their security interests during the summit.
The statement from 26 nations welcomed the “efforts of President Trump towards ending Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine” but stressed that “the path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine.”
“A just and lasting peace that brings stability and security must respect international law, including the principles of independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and that international borders must not be changed by force,” they said.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban did not support the statement, later writing on social media: “The statement attempts to set conditions for a meeting to which leaders of the EU were not invited.
“The fact that the EU was left on the sidelines is sad enough as it is. The only thing that could make things worse is if we started providing instructions from the bench”, he added, before concluding: “The only sensible action for EU leaders is to initiate an EU-Russia summit, based on the example of the US-Russia meeting. Let’s give peace a chance!”
