Trump denies urging Zelenskyy to give up Donbas

Trump denied that he had urged Zelenskyy to cede Donbas. Photo: Office of the President

US President Donald Trump has said he supports the idea of ending the war between Russia and Ukraine on the current front lines, but denied that he had called on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to cede the entire territory of Donetsk region.

The American leader told journalists on board the presidential plane, Reuters reports.

«We believe that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are now, the front lines. The rest is very difficult to discuss if you're going to say: «You take this, we take that»,» Donald Trump said.

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In his opinion, Donetsk region should remain «divided as it is», because «78% of the territory is already controlled by Russia».

At the same time, Reuters notes that the ceasefire proposal came after Zelenskyy refused to make any territorial concessions to Moscow.

During his meeting with the Ukrainian delegation, Trump, according to two of the agency's sources, called on Kyiv «to give up part of the territory» and discussed the possibility of security guarantees for both Ukraine and Russia, which, according to the interlocutors, caused concern on the Ukrainian side.

«It was pretty bad. The message was this: «Your country will freeze, and your country will be destroyed if you don't make a deal with Russia»,» one of the sources told Reuters.

Earlier, the Financial Times and The Washington Post had already written about similar proposals by Trump. The FT sources claimed that during the discussion, the US president «rejected the frontline maps» and insisted that Zelensky «give Putin the entire Donbas», repeating the theses voiced by the Russian president the day before.

As a reminder, Donald Trump said that he intends to end Russia's war against Ukraine as soon as possible and is convinced that this «is already quite close». He also assured that he would not allow the war in Ukraine to escalate to the level of a global conflict.