Trump calls for an end to the war in Ukraine with Russia in control of the occupied territory:

President Trump reiterated his call Sunday for an immediate end to the three-and-a-half-year full-scale war in Ukraine, saying the battle lines should be frozen where they currently are, with Russian invading forces occupying most of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected the idea of ​​ceding the Donbass, or any other occupied territory, to Moscow in the years since Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.

“Let it be cut as it is. It’s cut right now. I think 78% of the territory is already taken by Russia. Leave it as it is now,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, apparently referring specifically to the Donbas region. “You can negotiate something later. But I said cut off and stop at the battle line. Go home. Stop fighting, stop killing people.”

He Donbas is a region of cultural and economic importancewhere many people speak Russian and sympathize with Moscow. It is home to much of Ukraine’s heavy industry and mining and accounts for about 16% of the country’s GDP before the war began, according to The News.

His comments came two days after Mr. Trump met in person with Zelenskyy at the White House, a day after he spoke by phone for two hours with Putin.

Zelenskyy on Sunday appeared to reiterate kyiv’s unwillingness to cede any territory for a ceasefire, and said he had urged European leaders to apply “the right kind of pressure” on Russia.

“Almost every day we communicate with the leaders to ensure that we have a common position, all of us in Europe, on how to put pressure on Russia, the right kind of pressure. We will not give gifts to the aggressor and we will not forget anything,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Sunday that Ukraine should not be pressured to make concessions on its territory.

“None of us should put pressure on Zelenskyy when it comes to territorial concessions,” he said in a social media post. “We should all put pressure on Russia to stop its aggression. Appeasement was never a path to a just and lasting peace.”

In another social media post, Zelenskyy called his Friday Oval Office meeting with Trump a “direct conversation.”

The Financial Times reported Sunday that the meeting had at times turned into a shouting match, with Trump “cursing all the time.” Zelenskyy’s delegation had brought maps of the battlefield and Trump tossed them aside, saying he was “sick” of seeing them, according to the Financial Times report, which cited an official familiar with the matter.

Responding to a request for comment on the report of a second heated exchange between the leaders, the White House referred News themezone on Monday to Trump’s comments to reporters on Air Force One, without providing any additional description of the meeting. The Ukrainian president’s office did not immediately respond to News themezone’ request to comment for this story.

Trump said in a post on his own Truth Social media platform that his meeting with the Ukrainian leader was “very interesting and cordial.”

Speaking to reporters on Sunday, in comments that were embargoed until Monday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine shared “President Trump’s positive outlook if it leads to the end of the war. After many rounds of discussion for more than two hours with him and his team, his message, in my opinion, is positive: that we are where we are on the line of contact, as long as all sides understand what is meant.”

“I told him, as I also strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing and come to a DEAL. Enough blood has already been shed, and the lines of ownership are defined by war and guts. They should stop where they are. Let them both claim victory, let history decide,” Trump said on Sunday.

The White House meeting followed that of Trump and Zelenskyy. incredibly tense encounter in front of television cameras in February.

The president had spoken by phone with Putin on Thursday. After that lengthy discussion, the White House said Trump would hold a second bilateral summit with Putin in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, on a date yet to be confirmed to discuss a possible ceasefire agreement. Trump said it would probably happen in a couple of weeks.

It will be their second bilateral meeting this year, following in-person talks in Alaska in August. That diplomatic effort by Trump yielded no tangible results, as Moscow has continued to press its military campaign, seizing more territory on the ground and bombing Ukrainian cities from the air. Putin has also so far rejected Trump’s insistence on holding a three-way meeting with Zelenskyy.

U.S. and Ukrainian officials told News themezone that Zelensky hoped Trump would agree to a deal at Friday’s meeting to supply Tomahawk missiles, but that has yet to materialize. kyiv views long-range guided cruise missiles as vital to giving Ukraine’s armed forces the ability to hit critical military, logistical and energy targets deep inside Russia.

Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on key Russian energy infrastructure in recent months. The General Staff of the Armed Forces, Ukraine’s military headquarters, said in a social media post on Sunday that it had attacked the Orenburg Gas plant in southern Russia, one of the country’s largest natural gas processing plants.

“The Ukrainian Defense Forces are consistently implementing a number of measures to harm critical enterprises involved in ensuring the needs of the Russian Armed Forces,” the General Staff said.

Since August, the Trump administration has implemented a policy of selling weapons to Ukraine through the United States’ European allies in NATO, who foot the bill for the hardware. That agreement was hammered out between Trump and other NATO leaders earlier this summer.

Despite positive signals from the White House in recent months regarding a possible deal to supply Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, Trump demurred on the issue when asked about it by reporters on Friday during his meeting with Zelenskyy.

“One thing I have to say: We want Tomahawks too. We don’t want to give away things that we need to protect our country,” Trump said.

Vice President JD Vance told reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews on Sunday that Trump had not yet made a final decision on whether he would grant Ukraine access to the missiles.

“If he believes it is in the best interest of the United States to sell additional weapons to Europe, he will do so, but at this time he has not made that decision regarding the Tomahawks,” Vance said.

In:

• War
• Ukraine
• donald trump
• Russia
• Vladimir Putin
• Volodymyr Zelensky