{"id":336370,"date":"2025-08-11T18:20:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T18:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/336370\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T18:20:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T18:20:11","slug":"trump-confirms-he-and-putin-will-discuss-land-swapping-at-ukraine-war-summit-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/336370\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump confirms he and Putin will discuss \u2018land swapping\u2019 at Ukraine war summit | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has confirmed that he and Vladimir Putin will discuss \u201cland swapping\u201d when they meet on Friday in Alaska for a high-stakes summit<\/a> on the Ukraine war. But the US president expressed frustration with Volodymyr Zelenskyy for putting conditions on such a potential agreement.<\/p>\n

During a news conference at the White House on Monday, Trump said he was frustrated with Zelenskyy\u2019s insistence that Ukraine<\/a> would need to hold a national referendum on any peace deal that stipulated recognising Russian control over territory that it has occupied during the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a little bothered by the fact that Zelenskyy was saying I have to get constitutional approval,\u201d Trump said. \u201cHe has approval to go to war and kill everybody but he needs approval to do a land swap. Because there will be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia<\/a> and through conversations with everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

European diplomats have been taken aback by the lack of clarity on the US side about the territories Putin is demanding from Ukraine and the terms of a ceasefire. The discrepancies within the US reporting back on what Russia is seeking has alarmed European diplomats and only added to a fear that Trump, inflating his personal relationship with Putin, could make damaging concessions.<\/p>\n

Describing his vision for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, Trump said an agreement would include \u201cgood stuff, not bad stuff, also some bad stuff for both\u201d. \u201cWe\u2019re going to change the lines, the battle lines,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Trump, increasingly impatient<\/a> with Putin in recent months, has long said he does not see a ceasefire occurring until he meets the Russian leader in person.<\/p>\n

The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, on Monday invited Trump to join emergency virtual talks with EU leaders and Zelenskyy on Wednesday, as European demands grow for the US president to agree red lines before Friday\u2019s summit with Putin.<\/p>\n

Neither Zelenskyy nor European leaders have been invited to Trump\u2019s meeting with the Russian president.<\/p>\n

Trump said on Monday that he would seek to arrange direct talks between Putin and Zelenskyy, a proposal that the Russian president has rejected so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next meeting will be with Zelenskyy and Putin, or Zelenskyy and Putin and me. I\u2019ll be there if they need, but I want to have a meeting set up between the two leaders,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

He said a deal may not be possible and that he saw the upcoming summit as a \u201cfeel-out meeting\u201d, and that he would update Zelenskyy and European leaders if Putin proposed a \u201cfair deal\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll call him after and I may say \u2018lots of luck, keep fighting,\u2019 or I may say \u2018we can make a deal\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Merz\u2019s office said in a statement that the virtual talks would focus on \u201cfurther options for action to put pressure on Russia\u201d and \u201cpreparations for possible peace negotiations and related issues of territorial claims and security\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is not clear whether or not Trump has accepted the invitation to the call.<\/p>\n

EU foreign ministers were meeting in an emergency session to underscore the demand. The UK has also been pressing for wider consultations after Trump unilaterally announced last week that he was going ahead with his first meeting with Putin since Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

European leaders<\/a> say Russia represents an existential threat to the continent and that they should not be excluded from the process. Issues such as the terms of a ceasefire, further sanction pressure on Russia, any proposed territorial swaps and security guarantees for Ukraine would be discussed with the US president in the virtual meeting.<\/p>\n

There is concern that an unpredictable Trump will be lured into making fatal concessions to Putin, and the meeting would be a chance for him to map out his strategy.<\/p>\n

The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk<\/a>, said he was optimistic that the US president would formally consult European leaders before his meeting, and said the summit between Trump and Putin filled him with hope and fear.<\/p>\n

Brussels\u2019 top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said: \u201cPresident Trump is right to say that Russia must end its war against Ukraine. The United States has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously.\u201d But she added: \u201cAny agreement between the United States and Russia must include Ukraine and the EU because it is a security issue for Ukraine and for the whole of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rados\u0142aw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, also asserted Europe\u2019s relevance, saying: \u201cEurope is paying for Ukraine to defend itself and we are sustaining the Ukrainian state. This is a matter of existential European security interests. We appreciate President Trump\u2019s efforts but we will be taking our own decisions here in Europe. To get to a fair peace, Russia has to limit its war aims.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House is insisting that the Alaska<\/a> meeting is to gauge whether Putin is willing to make concessions for peace, including on accepting western security guarantees for Ukraine, an acceptance that would acknowledge the long-term legitimacy of the Kyiv government led by Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n

Merz spoke with Trump on Sunday night to underline that he would prefer the US to impose further economic sanctions on Moscow before the talks. He also said he assumed Zelenskyy would be involved in any talks, but for Moscow it would be a concession for a Russian delegation to hold talks with the Ukrainian president since its invasion is predicated on not recognising the legitimacy of the government.<\/p>\n

A joint statement on Saturday from the leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain, Finland and the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, urged Trump to put more pressure on Russia and stressed: \u201cThe path in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin will go into Friday\u2019s talks believing he is making progress on the battlefield, Trump is desperate for a settlement and the Ukrainian people are also increasingly willing to make concessions for peace. But the Russian president also knows that if he makes no substantive offer, Trump will be under real political pressure to go ahead with long-promised broader economic sanctions against Russia.<\/p>\n

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator behind a congressional plan to impose secondary sanctions on countries that trade with Russia, expressed confidence that Trump would protect Ukraine\u2019s interests at the summit. He was involved in the weekend diplomacy and is trusted as an intermediary with Trump by Ukrainian officials.<\/p>\n

He said if Putin did not offer concessions, he expected Trump to make countries importing Russian oil pay a heavy price, adding that this applied not just to India but also to China and Brazil. India is already due to face 50% tariffs later this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking on NBC, Graham said: \u201cMilitarily, we need to keep Ukraine strong, keep flowing them strong and modern weapons, and security guarantees with European forces on the ground as tripwires to prevent a third [Russian] invasion. We want to end this with the sovereign, independent, self-governing Ukraine, and a situation where Putin cannot do this the third time without being crushed.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI want to be honest with you, Ukraine is not going to evict every Russian, and Russia is not going to Kyiv, so there will be some land swaps at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s leadership has long said that de facto it will not recover all the territory it has lost in successive Russian invasions, but with European support it is fiercely resisting a Russian demand that it should hand over territory in the Donetsk region it has not yet ceded on the battlefield, especially if there are no security guarantees for Ukraine or compensating land swaps by Russia.<\/p>\n

Europeans are insisting that no limitations can be imposed on Ukraine developing its own military capabilities or the support it receives from third countries, including some inside Nato.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has confirmed that he and Vladimir Putin will discuss \u201cland swapping\u201d when they meet on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-336370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336370","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=336370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}