{"id":133585,"date":"2025-10-20T09:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T09:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/133585\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T09:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T09:08:08","slug":"trump-urged-zelenskiy-to-accept-putins-terms-during-white-house-meeting-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/133585\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump urged Zelenskiy to accept Putin\u2019s terms during White House meeting \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> urged Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> to accept Russia\u2019s terms for ending its war in a volatile White House meeting on Friday, warning that Vladimir Putin had said he would \u201cdestroy\u201d Ukraine <\/a>if it did not agree.<\/p>\n

The meeting between the US and Ukrainian presidents<\/a> descended many times into a \u201cshouting match\u201d, with Mr Trump \u201ccursing all the time\u201d, people familiar with the matter said.<\/p>\n

They added that the US president tossed aside maps of the frontline in Ukraine, insisted Mr Zelenskiy surrender the entire Donbas region to Mr Putin, and repeatedly echoed talking points the Russian leader had made in their call a day earlier.<\/p>\n

Though Mr Trump later endorsed a freeze of the current front lines, the acrimonious meeting appeared to reflect the US president\u2019s shifting position on the war and his willingness to endorse Mr Putin\u2019s maximalist demands.<\/p>\n

\"UkrainianUkrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy
\nduring a meeting with US president Donald Trump at the White House on Friday last. Photograph: Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

The meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Zelenskiy came amid a fresh push by the US president to end Russia\u2019s war following the ceasefire secured between Israel and Hamas.<\/p>\n

Zelenskiy and his team went to the White House hoping to persuade Trump to supply them with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, but the US president ultimately declined to do so.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Moscow\u2019s unrestrained delight after Zelenskiy appears to leave Washington empty-handed Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The tense meeting mirrored a similarly fractious encounter at the White House in February, in which Mr Trump and vice-president JD Vance lambasted Mr Zelenskiy for what they characterised as a lack of gratitude towards the US.<\/p>\n

During Friday\u2019s meeting, Mr Trump appeared to have adopted many of Mr Putin\u2019s talking points verbatim, even when they contradicted his own recent statements about Russia\u2019s weaknesses, said European officials briefed on the meeting.<\/p>\n

According to a European official with knowledge of the meeting, Trump said to Mr Zelenskiy that Mr Putin had told him the conflict was a \u201cspecial operation, not even a war\u201d, adding that the Ukrainian leader needed to cut a deal or face destruction.<\/p>\n

The official said that Mr Trump told Mr Zelenskiy he was losing the war, warning: \u201cIf [Putin] wants it, he will destroy you.\u201d<\/p>\n

At one point in the meeting, the US president threw Ukraine\u2019s maps of the battlefield to one side, the official familiar with the encounter said. According to the official, Mr Trump said he was \u201csick\u201d of seeing the map of the frontline of Ukraine again and again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis red line, I don\u2019t even know where this is. I\u2019ve never been there,\u201d Mr Trump said, according to the official.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump also said that Russia\u2019s economy is \u201cdoing great\u201d, the official said, in a sharp contrast to his recent public remarks in which he urged Mr Putin to negotiate because his \u201ceconomy is going to collapse\u201d.<\/p>\n

The White House and the Ukrainian president\u2019s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump told Fox News on Sunday that he was confident about securing an end to the conflict, and added that Putin is \u201cgoing to take something, he\u2019s won certain property\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Putin made a new offer to Trump on Thursday under which Ukraine would surrender the parts of the eastern Donbas region under its control in exchange for some small areas of the two southern frontline regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.<\/p>\n

The Russian proposal marks a small concession from that made during Mr Putin\u2019s last meeting with Mr Trump in Alaska in August, where he said he would agree to freeze the line of contact elsewhere on the frontline if Ukraine surrendered the Donbas.<\/p>\n

\"USUS president Donald Trump takes a question from a reporter during a meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy last Friday. Photograph: Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

That meeting also ended acrimoniously after Mr Putin rejected Mr Trump\u2019s push for an immediate ceasefire and digressed at length about medieval Ukrainian history, prompting the US to explore ramped-up support for Kyiv, including by supplying Tomahawk missiles.<\/p>\n

But ceding the remainder of the Donbas still under Ukrainian control would be a non-starter for Ukraine, as it would hand Moscow territory it has only partially occupied for more than a decade and failed to seize since Mr Putin ordered the invasion in 2022.<\/p>\n

Russian forces have struggled to retain the territory in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia that Mr Putin offered in exchange, and have made virtually no progress on the battlefield there since 2022, the year the war began.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo give [the Donbas] to Russia without a fight is unacceptable for Ukrainian society, and Putin knows that,\u201d said Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Ukrainian parliament\u2019s foreign affairs committee. <\/p>\n

He said that Mr Putin might be pushing the idea \u201cwith a purpose to cause division within Ukraine and undermine our unity\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Merezhko added: \u201cIt\u2019s not about getting more territory for Russia; it\u2019s about how to destroy us from within.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Trump\u2019s belligerent repetition of Putin\u2019s rhetoric on Friday dashed hopes among many of Ukraine\u2019s European allies that he could be convinced to increase support to Kyiv.<\/p>\n

That hope had risen after Trump in recent weeks expressed frustration and impatience with the Russian president\u2019s refusal to engage in bilateral peace negotiations with Mr Zelenskiy.<\/p>\n

Three other European officials briefed on the White House discussions confirmed that Mr Trump had spent much of the meeting lecturing Mr Zelenskiy, repeating Mr Putin\u2019s arguments about the conflict and urging him to accept the Russian proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cZelenskiy was very negative\u201d following the meeting, according to one of the officials, adding that European leaders were \u201cnot optimistic but pragmatic with planning next steps\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Sunday, Zelenskiy said \u201cdecisive steps are needed from the United States, Europe, the G20 and G7 countries\u201d to end the war.<\/p>\n

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump urged Volodymyr Zelenskiy to accept Russia\u2019s terms for ending its war in a volatile White House…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,356,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,2264,2263,2267],"class_list":{"0":"post-133585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-ukraine-crisis","25":"tag-vladimir-putin","26":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}