Donald Trump has refuted claims that he discussed the possibility of handing over eastern Ukraine to Russia during a private meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. This follows reports of a heated exchange at the White House, where Trump allegedly pushed for Russia’s extreme demands.
“No, we haven’t talked about it. We think all they need to do is stop at the front, the front where they are,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday.
According to various reports, during a tense meeting on Friday, Trump advised Zelenskiy to consider ceding the Donbass region. As of August, Russia occupied about 88% of this eastern territory. This situation is quite alarming for Ukraine, which believes that conceding its heavily fortified eastern front could lead to increased Russian aggression throughout the rest of the country.
Before his conversation with Zelenskiy, Trump had also spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday. He referred to their chat as “productive” on his Truth Social platform, and they discussed a potential meeting in Budapest, though an exact date has not been set.
The Financial Times reported that Trump warned Zelenskiy, saying, “[Putin] If that’s what you want, he’ll destroy you.” At one point, he even dismissed a map of the battlefield, expressing confusion over the geographical lines, saying, “This red line, I don’t even know where it is. I’ve never been there.”
Russia currently controls the Donbass region, including Luhansk and Donetsk, as well as portions of Zaporizhzhya and Kherson. Since 2014, Crimea has also been under Russian control.
Following a meeting with Zelenskiy at last month’s United Nations General Assembly, Trump stated that Ukraine was “in a position to fight and win by restoring all of Ukraine to its original state.” However, his tone shifted on Sunday as he called for a swift resolution to the conflict that began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. He remarked that the current situation in Donbas “should be dismantled as it is,” suggesting the countries “can negotiate something later.”
“They should stop at the front, right now,” Trump asserted. “Just go home and stop killing people, and that’s it.”
