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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has reiterated his opposition to any concessions of land to Russia, as President Putin and President Trump are set to meet in Alaska next week.
While addressing reporters at the White House on Friday, President Trump said there will be “some swapping of territories for the betterment of both.” He had just announced that Russia and Ukraine were close to agreeing a ceasefire deal that could resolve the three-and-a-half-year war between them
On Saturday morning, however, President Zelensky said Ukraine would not violate its constitution and cede land to Russia.
“Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupiers,” Zelensky said.
In a video posted to his Telegram channel on Saturday, Zelensky said any decisions made without Ukraine would be unworkable.
“They will not achieve anything. These are stillborn decisions. They are unworkable decisions. And we all need real and genuine peace,” Zelensky said.
President Putin claims four Ukrainian regions—Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson—as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. At present, his forces do not fully control all territory in the four regions he claims.
Bloomberg reported that US and Russian officials were working towards a deal to formalise Russia’s occupation of territory seized since the beginning of the war in 2022, but the White House has said the story is speculation, while the Kremlin refused to comment.
Although Ukraine has indicated a willingness to be flexible with regard to bringing an end to the conflict, ceding territory has remained a red line.
President Trump’s meeting with President Putin is due to take place in Alaska next Friday. It will be the first time a high-level diplomatic meeting has taken place there since senior officials from the Biden administration met Chinese counterparts in Anchorage in March 2021.
News of the diplomatic meeting between Trump and Putin throws into doubt Trump’s plan to level punishing tariffs on Russia and countries that buy its exports, including India, a measure that was announced as President Trump’s frustration at his inability to bring the war to a close has grown.
