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President Trump has denied telling President Volodymyr Zelensky he should surrender Ukraine’s entire Donbas region to Russia to end the war — but said Kyiv should give up the land already taken by Russia.
Trump insisted that the two leaders “never discussed” giving up the entire region during their closed-door meeting last week, after reports claimed his White House meeting with Zelensky on Friday had descended into an explosive “shouting match.”
“We never discussed that,” Trump told reporters on Sunday when pressed on whether pushed for Ukraine to accept President Vladimir Putin’s terms for a cease-fire.
“We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are — the battle lines. The rest is very tough to negotiate if you’re going to say, ‘You take this, we take that’. There are just so many different permutations,” he continued.
“So what I say is they should stop right now at the battle lines. Go home, stop killing people and be done.”
Asked what should happen to the Donbas region, Trump added: “Let it be cut the way it is. It’s cut up right now.
“I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia. You leave it the way it is right now. They can negotiate something later on down the line,” he said.
“But I said cut and stop at the battle line, go home, stop fighting, stop killing people.”
Sources told the Financial Times that Trump had chastised Zelensky during their three-hour sit-down and dismissed maps of the frontline in Ukraine — as he urged his Ukrainian counterpart to give up swaths of territory to Russia.
Trump also declined to provide Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine’s use, the sources said.
“If [Putin] wants it, he will destroy you,” Trump is said to have told Zelensky, according to the sources.
The tense sit-down came a day after Trump held a call with Putin.
Trump, who has also agreed to meet the Russian dictator in Budapest in the coming weeks, has shown growing impatience with Putin of late and expressed a greater openness to helping Ukraine win the war.
English (US)