{"id":330116,"date":"2025-08-09T08:42:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T08:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/330116\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T08:42:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T08:42:13","slug":"zelenskyy-rejects-trumps-proposal-that-ukraine-could-swap-territories-with-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/330116\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelenskyy rejects Trump&#8217;s proposal that Ukraine could swap territories with Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"anchor-6b466f\" class=\"body-graf\">Ukraine\u2019s President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/world\/volodymyr-zelenskyy-become-global-phenomenon-rcna24355\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> defiantly declared Saturday that his countrymen \u201cwill not give their land to occupiers,\u201d after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">President Donald Trump<\/a> suggested that a peace deal would include some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/white-house\/trump-putin-summit-tentatively-set-white-house-ukraine-ceasefire-rcna223897\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201cswapping\u201d of territories with Russia<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-cffc09\" class=\"body-graf\">\u201cThe answer to Ukraine\u2019s territorial question is already in the constitution of Ukraine,\u201d Zelenskyy said in a message on Telegram early Saturday. \u201cNo one will and no one can deviate from it. Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-88e7a1\" class=\"body-graf\">His comments came after Trump announced on <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/114995403653615328\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Truth Socia<\/a>l that a long-awaited meeting with Russian President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/vladimir-putin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vladimir Putin<\/a> had been scheduled for next week in Alaska. <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-6656c3\" class=\"body-graf\">Further details and logistics of the meeting are still unclear and remain very fluid, including whether Zelenskyy will be involved. Trump did not mention the Ukrainian President in the post announcing the meeting with Putin.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-f60f79\" class=\"body-graf\">Later Friday, at the White House, Trump suggested that there have been talks about Russia and Ukraine potentially \u201cswapping\u201d territory as part of a ceasefire deal. \u201cThere\u2019ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both and &#8230; we\u2019ll be talking about that either later or tomorrow, or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-c65c7f\" class=\"body-graf\">A White House official also said Friday that the Russians have provided a list of demands for a potential ceasefire for the war in Ukraine, and the U.S. is trying to get buy-in from Ukrainians and European allies.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-1fa367\" class=\"body-graf\">But in his message Saturday, Zelenskyy said any decision taken without Ukraine were \u201cdecisions against peace,\u201d adding, \u201cThey will not achieve anything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-3440e8\" class=\"body-graf\">Russia&#8217;s demands have previously included Ukraine ceding all the land that Putin claims to have annexed and accepting permanent neutrality, with a ban on Ukraine ever joining NATO.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-488979\" class=\"body-graf\">Putin claims four Ukrainian regions \u2014 Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson \u2014 as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which he annexed in 2014. Russian forces do not fully control all the territory in each region.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-8fe3b9\" class=\"body-graf\">It remains unclear whether Trump\u2019s reference to \u201cswapping\u201d territories means formal cession of land or a withdrawal from areas currently under each side\u2019s control.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-e59b17\" class=\"body-graf\">Zelenskyy and Ukrainian officials have long said they would not concede any territory that Russia illegally annexed. Ukraine has also insisted that any agreement must include \u201csecurity guarantees\u201d from its allies so that Moscow is not able to launch future aggression.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-d3cf7f\" class=\"body-graf\">Trump\u2019s ultimatums have not prompted the Kremlin to move one inch on its war in Ukraine so far, other than to give the president a meeting. And promises of talks between Trump and Putin have done little to quiet the violence on the ground since their announcement.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-d3ac00\" class=\"body-graf\">Russian drone strikes hit a minibus in a suburb of Kherson, killing two and leaving six injured, the region\u2019s prosecutor\u2019s office said Saturday.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-98dd33\" class=\"endmark body-graf\">Ukraine\u2019s Air Force Command said Saturday that Russia launched 47 drone strikes overnight in multiple Ukrainian regions, with 31 of them making landfall.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/250519-freddie-clayton-byline-mb-1805.jpg\" alt=\"\" height=\"48\" width=\"48\"\/>Freddie Clayton<\/p>\n<p class=\"byline-bio expanded-byline__bio\">Freddie Clayton is a freelance journalist based in London.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Gabe Gutierrez contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy defiantly declared Saturday that his countrymen \u201cwill not give their land to occupiers,\u201d after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-330116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114997922652266378","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}