WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump pushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to surrender swaths of territory to Russia throughout a tense assembly on Friday that left the Ukrainian delegation disillusioned, in response to two folks briefed on the dialogue.
Trump additionally declined to supply Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine’s use, and mused about giving safety ensures to each Kyiv and Moscow, feedback that the Ukrainian delegation discovered complicated, added the 2 sources, who requested anonymity to debate a non-public dialog.
After his assembly with Zelenskyy, Trump publicly referred to as for a ceasefire on the present frontlines, a place that the Ukrainian president then embraced in feedback to reporters. A 3rd particular person stated Trump got here up with that proposal throughout the assembly after Zelenskyy stated he wouldn’t voluntarily cede any territory to Moscow.
“The meeting ended with (Trump’s) decision to make a ‘deal where we are, on the demarcation line,’” the third supply stated.
Trump underscored that place in remarks to reporters on Sunday.
“We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are, the battle lines,” he stated on Air Pressure One. “The rest is very tough to negotiate if you’re going to say, ‘you take this, we take that.’”
Requested if he had informed Zelenskyy that Ukraine should cede all the Donbas area to Russia, Trump stated no. “Let it be cut the way it is. It’s cut up right now. I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia,” Trump stated in response to a query from a Reuters reporter.
“You leave it the way it is right now. They can…negotiate something later on down the line,” he stated.
General, whereas not a catastrophe for the Ukrainians, the Friday dialogue was a transparent disappointment for Zelenskyy, who had hoped to persuade Trump to produce his authorities with long-range Tomahawk missiles able to hitting deep inside Russia.
Trump has not determined whether or not to make Tomahawks accessible, U.S. Vice President JD Vance informed a bunch of reporters on Sunday evening.
The Ukrainian president’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark. Components of the talks have been first reported by The Monetary Occasions on Sunday.
In current weeks, there had been indications Trump was deprioritizing efforts to drive a deal on Kyiv and Moscow, in favor of throwing his full help behind the Ukrainians.
After assembly with Zelenskyy on the U.N. Basic Meeting in September, as an example, Trump speculated that Ukraine might take again all the territory it had misplaced to Russia, a risk even Kyiv sees as distant.
However the Friday assembly signifies that Trump might as soon as once more be pushing for a deal as shortly as potential, even whether it is on phrases which are unpalatable for Kyiv.
U.S. officers repeatedly introduced up the potential of a territorial swap between Ukraine and Russia — an concept that Trump had embraced earlier within the 12 months — and the U.S. president stated throughout the Friday assembly {that a} fast settlement was important, the sources stated.
The Washington Submit by way of Getty Photographs
SWAYED BY PUTIN?
“It was pretty bad,” one of many sources stated of the assembly. “The message was, ‘Your country will freeze, and your country will be destroyed’” if Ukraine doesn’t make a take care of Russia.
A separate supply denied that Trump stated Ukraine can be “destroyed.”
Each sources stated, nevertheless, that Trump resorted to profanity a number of occasions.
Two sources had the impression that Trump was influenced by a Thursday name with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Throughout that decision, in response to The Washington Submit, Putin proposed a territorial swap during which Ukraine would cede the areas of Donetsk and Luhansk in return for small components of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
One of many sources stated that U.S. officers proposed exactly that swap to Zelenskyy on Friday.
Ukrainians see main strategic worth within the portion of Donetsk and Luhansk that they nonetheless maintain — they consider giving up that territory would make the remainder of Ukraine rather more weak to Russian offensives, stated one of many folks briefed concerning the assembly. That supply argued that giving up western Donetsk and Luhansk would quantity to an act of “suicide.”
Two of the sources stated U.S. Particular Envoy Steve Witkoff was amongst those that most aggressively urged the Ukrainians to conform to Russia’s swap proposal. Witkoff talked about that Donetsk and Luhansk have important Russian-speaking populations, one of many sources stated, some extent he has made publicly earlier than.
On Thursday, earlier than assembly Zelenskyy, Trump stated he would quickly meet Putin in Budapest. A Kremlin aide stated shortly after that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Overseas Minister Sergei Lavrov would communicate within the coming days to organize for the summit.
Within the Friday assembly, U.S. officers stated Rubio deliberate to fulfill with Lavrov on the approaching Thursday, one of many sources stated. The State Division didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
A earlier assembly between Trump and Putin in Alaska in August yielded no breakthroughs.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery in Washington, Tom Balmforth in London and Jeff Mason aboard Air Pressure One; extra reporting by Anusha Shah, Ronald Popeski and Humeyra Pamuk; modifying by Philippa Fletcher, Diane Craft, Sergio Non and Lincoln Feast.)
