Donald Trump has suggested the best way to end the war in Ukraine would be to “cut up” the country’s Donbas region in a way that would leave most of it under Russian control, after reportedly pushing Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a White House meeting to give up swaths of territory.
“Let it be cut the way it is,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday. “It’s cut up right now,” he said, adding that you can “leave it the way it is right now”.
“They can negotiate something later on down the line,” he said. But for now, both sides of the conflict should “stop at the battle line – go home, stop fighting, stop killing people”.
Trump’s comments came after a tense meeting with the Ukrainian president at the White House on Friday, and will be seen as an abrupt turn around from his stance in September, when he said that he thought Ukraine could take back all its territory and even “go further” into Russian lands. He also described Russia as a “paper tiger”.
Zelenskyy had flown to Washington hoping to capitalise on Trump’s growing frustration with Vladimir Putin after the US president’s summit in Alaska failed to produce a breakthrough in the war.
But the Ukrainian leader left empty-handed, failing to secure long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles after weeks of lobbying. The missiles would be the longest-range weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal and would allow it to strike targets deep inside Russia, including Moscow, with precision.
Trump appeared far more upbeat about the prospects of a deal since a lengthy call on Thursday with Putin, in which they agreed to meet soon in Budapest.
After meeting Zelenskyy at the White House, Trump said on social media the talks were “very interesting, and cordial, but I told him, as I likewise strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing, and make a DEAL”.
Behind the scenes, Trump had pushed Zelenskyy to give up swaths of territory to Russia, according to two people briefed on the discussion, as reported by Reuters.
The sources described the meeting as tense, with the Ukrainian delegation leaving frustrated.
The two sources had the impression that Trump was influenced by the Thursday call with Putin during which, according to the Washington Post, Putin proposed a territorial swap in which Ukraine would cede the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in return for Russia pulling out of small parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.
The sources said US special envoy Steve Witkoff was among those who most aggressively urged the Ukrainians to agree to a proposal to “swap” territory, according to Reuters.
Asked in a Fox News interview conducted on Thursday whether Putin would be open to ending the war “without taking significant property from Ukraine”, Trump responded: “Well, he’s going to take something.
“They fought and he has a lot of property. He’s won certain property,” Trump said. “We’re the only nation that goes in, wins a war and then leaves.”
The interview was aired on Sunday but conducted before Trump spoke to Putin on Thursday and met with Zelenskyy on Friday.
Then on Sunday evening, while flying from Florida to Washington, Trump reiterated his stance that Ukraine would need to give up territory by having the fighting “stop at the lines where they are”.
“The rest is very tough to negotiate if you’re going to say, ‘You take this, we take that,’” he said. “You know, there are so many different permutations.”
Asked if he had told Zelenskyy that Ukraine must cede all of the Donbas region to Russia, Trump said no.
Zelenskyy has called on decisive steps from European and American allies, saying that it was time for another meeting between the Europe-led “coalition of the willing”.
“Ukraine will never grant terrorists any bounty for their crimes, and we count on our partners to uphold this very position,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media on Sunday.
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