Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Last week, Donald Trump reportedly urged Volodymyr Zelenskiy to give up certain territories to Russia.
A meeting, that should have been a possible gamechanger for Ukraine, allegedly ended up putting pressure on the war-torn country to give up some of it’s territory.
Friday last week, US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy met in Washington, but the day before, Thursday, Donald Trump had a phone call with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin.
The phone call was initiated by the Kremlin, and analysts suggest that it was Putin’s way of swaying Trump before the potentially pivotal meeting with Zelenskiy, as Friday’s meeting was about the possible supply of US Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine, among other topics.
Trump puts the pressure on Zelenskiy
According to Reuters, the meeting between Trump and Zelenskiy lasted for more than two hours, and Trump reportedly tried to pressure Zelenskiy into conceding territory to Russia in order to get a ceasefire.
“You stop at the battle line, and both sides should go home, go to their families,” Trump told reporters on his way to his home in West Palm Beach, Florida, Reuters reports. “Stop the killing. And that should be it. Stop right now at the battle line. I told that to President Zelenskiy. I told it to President Putin.”
Sources told the news outlet, that Trump suggested that Ukraine and Russia called a ceasefire with the current front line as the new borders, meaning Ukraine would have to concede nearly 20 % of it’s territory to Russia.
Oligarch: Putin ready to make a deal, but not for free
According to Express US, the exiled Russian oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now living in London, said in an interview, that he has the impression that Putin is signalling to Trump, that Russia is ready to make a deal on Ukraine.
However, in return, Putin wants the rest of the Donbas-region in Eastern Ukraine – a heavily contested area, that Russia still has not fully occupied.
During the phonecall Thursday, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin agreed to meet in person in Hungary. The preparations are still ongoing, and no date has been set yet.
It will mark the first time, Putin visits an EU-nation since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine in February of 2022.
This article is made and published by Jens Asbjørn Bogen, which may have used AI in the preparation
