Donald Trump announced he will meet with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15, just hours after saying a peace deal in Ukraine could include "some territory swaps."
"You're looking at territories that have been fought over for three and a half years, a lot of Russians have died. A lot of Ukrainians have been killed," Trump said Friday at the White House.
"It's very complex. We're going to take some territory, there's going to be some exchanges. There's going to be some territory exchanges, for the betterment of both sides."
But on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected the possibility of releasing parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are not under the control of Russian forces.
"Ukrainians will not give up their land to the invaders," Zelenskyy said in a speech on Telegram.
“The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question is already in the Constitution of Ukraine. No one will deviate from this — and no one will be able to.”
Zelenskyy also warned that any meeting between Trump and Putin that bypasses Kiev risks undermining Ukraine's diplomatic principle of "nothing for Ukraine without Ukraine."
"Every decision against us, every decision against Ukraine, is at the same time a decision against peace. They will achieve nothing," Zelenskyy said.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign policy adviser, said: "In the coming days, Moscow and Washington will devote themselves to intensively developing the practical and political parameters of the summit in Alaska." He added that this would be a "challenging process."
Western and Ukrainian officials suggested that the discussion of territorial concessions resembles plans that Putin presented at a meeting in Moscow last week with Trump's special representative, Steve Witkoff.
Trump briefed European leaders about the meeting with Witkoff in a call on Wednesday, which Zelenskyy also participated in.
Senior Ukrainian officials who participated in talks with the United States and European allies said Putin had suggested during the meeting with Witkoff that Ukraine give up large swaths of its territory. Another Western official said there were extensive discussions about land swaps.
Putin's proposals were almost identical to the maximum demands he had made in 2022, according to Ukrainian officials.
The Russian leader proposed freezing the front line in southeastern Ukraine in exchange for Kiev giving up the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, including territories not currently under Russian control.
Russia controls almost all of the Luhansk region and much of the Donetsk region, but has struggled to take key Ukrainian strongholds there, despite a summer offensive.
The southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, where Russian forces are blocked on the southeast side of the Dnipro River, will be part of the discussions, as well as small areas in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions that are controlled by the Russian military. Moscow could withdraw forces from these areas.
A recent Gallup poll showed that Ukrainians' support for fighting until victory has fallen to an all-time low, with 69 percent favoring a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible — a near-complete reversal from public opinion in 2022.
But polls also show that most Ukrainians are unwilling to formally accept the surrender of territory in exchange for peace.
Putin also demanded that Ukraine's NATO membership be taken off the table, although EU membership would still be allowed, officials said. The Ukrainian military would be limited in size and Russia would demand that Western allies not supply Kiev with long-range weapons.
Refusing NATO membership would be resisted by Ukraine and its European allies, officials said.
“It looks like Munich in 1938, when the great powers decide the fate of the victim of aggression,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Ukrainian parliament and a deputy from Zelenskyy’s party.
He called Putin's offer to end the war "extremely worrying" and said Zelenskyy's reconciliation "could cause a social explosion in Ukraine."
Trump's comments that land could be swapped came ahead of a planned meeting in the United Kingdom between British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and US Vice President JD Vance to discuss Ukraine.
A person familiar with the matter said Witkoff could attend the meeting at Lammy's official residence in southern England. Another said Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy's powerful chief of staff, could also attend.
Trump launched a new round of diplomacy last month when he expressed anger at Russia's continued attacks on Ukraine and gave Putin a 10-day ultimatum to agree to a ceasefire or face economic sanctions from the US.
