Donetsk region<\/a>, a third of which Kyiv still holds.<\/p>\nBut European leaders and Ukraine have responded with a counterproposal of their own, forwarded in a meeting with top US officials in Britain on Saturday. The European plan rejected Russia\u2019s proposal\u00a0to trade Donetsk for a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
It also included demands that a ceasefire take place before any other steps are taken and insisted that territory can only be exchanged in a reciprocal manner.<\/p>\n
Finally, the proposal stipulates that any territorial concessions made by Kyiv must be safeguarded by security guarantees, including potential NATO membership for Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Ukraine, too, has long argued that a halt in fighting must precede any longer-term peace agreement. Russia on the other hand, has insisted on a larger peace settlement as a condition for a ceasefire.<\/p>\n
What else has Zelenskyy said?<\/p>\n
Last weekend, Zelenskyy said that Kyiv \u201cwill not give Russia any awards for what it has done,\u201d and that \u201cUkrainians will not give their land to the occupier\u201d.<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy also pointed out that he doesn\u2019t have the authority to sign off on land swaps. He said that changing Ukraine\u2019s 1991 borders runs counter to the country\u2019s constitution.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Zelenskyy said in a video message posted to his social media account on Monday night that \u201che [Putin] is definitely not preparing for a ceasefire or an end to the war\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no indication whatsoever that the Russians have received signals to prepare for a post-war situation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the contrary, they are redeploying their troops and forces in ways that suggest preparations for new offensive operations. If someone is preparing for peace, this is not what he does,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
What else has Trump said?<\/p>\n
On Monday, Trump criticised Zelenskyy over the Ukrainian leader\u2019s resistance to ceding territory to Russia, saying he disagrees \u201cvery, very severely\u201d with Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI get along with Zelenskyy, but, you know, I disagree with what he\u2019s done. Very, very severely disagree. This is a war that should have never happened,\u201d Trump told reporters at the White House.<\/p>\n
Trump went on to say that \u201cI was a little bothered by the fact that Zelenskyy was saying, \u2018Well, I have to get constitutional approval.\u2019 I mean, he\u2019s got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap \u2013 because there\u2019ll be some land swapping going on,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
He added that the land swap will be \u201cfor the good of Ukraine,\u201d before adding that a possible deal will also involve \u201csome bad stuff for both\u201d Kyiv and Moscow.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, it\u2019s good and there\u2019s bad, but it\u2019s very complex, because you have lines that are very uneven, and there\u2019ll be some swapping. There\u2019ll be some changes in land,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have a meeting with Vladimir Putin, and at the end of that meeting, probably in the first two minutes, I\u2019ll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, I\u2019m going to put the two of them in a room. I\u2019ll be there, or I won\u2019t be there, and I think it\u2019ll get solved,\u201d Trump added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European leaders are scrambling to convince United States President Donald Trump to use his upcoming summit with his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[6178,32,299,12,285,332,7661,657,49,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-340982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-conflict","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-russia","14":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","15":"tag-ukraine","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115021149970857249","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340982","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=340982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}