President Donald Trump’s working lunch together with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday turned acrimonious when the US chief insisted Ukraine make territorial concessions to Russia to finish the battle, based on European officers briefed on the meeting.
Trump, who would later endorse a freeze in current battle lines as a part of a peace settlement, grew pissed off and raised his voice a number of occasions, the officers mentioned.
The episode was the newest chapter within the fraught relationship between the 2 males, and amounted to a different shift in Trump’s method to how the battle shall be settled. Last month, after meeting Zelensky in New York, Trump claimed Ukraine may have the ability to regain all its territory misplaced to Russia. But now Trump is getting ready for one other high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, this time in Budapest.
It was after a name with the Russian chief on the eve of the Zelensky meeting that Trump once more insisted Kyiv should quit swaths of land for the battle to finish.
Zelensky emerged from that meeting to transient European leaders on a name wherein he sounded pessimistic about Trump’s place, the European officers mentioned.
A Ukrainian supply individually referred to as the White House meeting “tense,” however mentioned there was “no shouting,” downplaying stories of a risky encounter between the 2 leaders. Overall, the supply referred to as the meeting constructive, since Trump finally declared {that a} ceasefire be alongside the present frontline. Zelensky later endorsed the concept in remarks to reporters.
Asked in regards to the European characterization of the meeting, the White House pointed to Trump’s Air Force One feedback on Sunday. “We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are, the battle lines,” he mentioned. “The rest is very tough to negotiate if you’re going to say, ‘You take this, we take that.’”
For Trump, ending the Russia-Ukraine battle is now a high precedence after he brokered a truce between Israel and Hamas to finish the battle in Gaza. He emphasised the necessity to finish the battle rapidly in Friday’s talks, the European officers mentioned.
In his cellphone name with Trump a day earlier, Putin proposed a plan the place Ukraine would give up the japanese Donbas area in alternate for some Russian-held components of the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia areas, the European official mentioned.
The proposal, which the officers characterised as a barely much less sweeping demand than what Putin raised throughout his August summit with Trump in Alaska, would nonetheless quantity to a significant lack of territory for Ukraine.
Trump later arrived on the place of ending the battle alongside the present battle traces.
Trump on Sunday denied he’d requested Zelensky to concede all the Donbas area, which Ukraine views as strategically necessary.
“It’s cut up right now, I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia,” he mentioned on Air Force One. “They should stop right now at the battle lines. … Go home, stop killing people and be done.”
Several folks acquainted had beforehand advised NCS that final week’s Trump-Zelensky meeting was tense, frank and, at occasions, “uncomfortable” with the 2 leaders break up over the way forward for the battle.
Trump made clear to Zelensky in a “direct and honest” dialog that — for now — the Ukrainian chief wouldn’t obtain the long-range missiles that can reach far into Russia that he was in search of. One US official mentioned Trump was beneath the impression that Ukraine is in search of to escalate and delay the battle and is anxious about potential losses throughout an upcoming harsh winter.
According to the European officers, Zelensky and his delegation got here to the White House with maps exhibiting present battle traces, hoping to persuade the US president to take care of and develop American assist. Trump appeared uninterested within the arguments, and forcefully insisted Ukraine comply with land concessions for the battle to finish, they mentioned.
In an interview taped final week, Trump mentioned for the battle to finish, Putin was “going to take something, he’s won certain property.”
Trump has advised these round him that his demand for a ceasefire alongside present battle traces was because of the “realities of where the conflict stands,” arguing there was an excessive amount of devastation and an excessive amount of killing, based on one US official.
“Both sides need to make a deal,” one other US official mentioned arguing the circumstances are solely going to worsen.
Zelensky solid the meeting as a “pointed conversation” in a submit to social media however mentioned its final result “can really help bring this war closer to an end.”
NCS’s Kaitlan Collins, Kristen Holmes and Victoria Butenko contributed to this report.