Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy defiantly declared Saturday that his countrymen “will not give their land to occupiers,” after President Donald Trump suggested that a peace deal would include some “swapping” of territories with Russia.
“The answer to Ukraine’s territorial question is already in the constitution of Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a message on Telegram early Saturday. “No one will and no one can deviate from it. Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.”
His comments came after Trump announced on Truth Social that a long-awaited meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin had been scheduled for next week in Alaska.
Further details and logistics of the meeting are still unclear and remain very fluid, including whether Zelenskyy will be involved. Trump did not mention the Ukrainian President in the post announcing the meeting with Putin.
Later Friday, at the White House, Trump suggested that there have been talks about Russia and Ukraine potentially “swapping” territory as part of a ceasefire deal. “There’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both and … we’ll be talking about that either later or tomorrow, or whatever.”
A White House official also said Friday that the Russians have provided a list of demands for a potential ceasefire for the war in Ukraine, and the U.S. is trying to get buy-in from Ukrainians and European allies.
But in his message Saturday, Zelenskyy said any decision taken without Ukraine were “decisions against peace,” adding, “They will not achieve anything.”
Russia’s demands have previously included Ukraine ceding all the land that Putin claims to have annexed and accepting permanent neutrality, with a ban on Ukraine ever joining NATO.
Putin claims four Ukrainian regions — Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which he annexed in 2014. Russian forces do not fully control all the territory in each region.
It remains unclear whether Trump’s reference to “swapping” territories means formal cession of land or a withdrawal from areas currently under each side’s control.
Zelenskyy and Ukrainian officials have long said they would not concede any territory that Russia illegally annexed. Ukraine has also insisted that any agreement must include “security guarantees” from its allies so that Moscow is not able to launch future aggression.
Trump’s ultimatums have not prompted the Kremlin to move one inch on its war in Ukraine so far, other than to give the president a meeting. And promises of talks between Trump and Putin have done little to quiet the violence on the ground since their announcement.
Russian drone strikes hit a minibus in a suburb of Kherson, killing two and leaving six injured, the region’s prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
Ukraine’s Air Force Command said Saturday that Russia launched 47 drone strikes overnight in multiple Ukrainian regions, with 31 of them making landfall.
