US President Donald Trump hinted at the possibility of providing "security guarantees" to both Kyiv and Moscow during a meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. This was reported by Reuters.
The publication's sources reported that during the meeting with Zelensky, Trump refused to provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles, but considered the possibility of providing "security guarantees" to both sides, which confused the Ukrainian delegation.
After meeting with Zelensky, Trump publicly called for a ceasefire on the current front lines, and the Ukrainian president supported that position in his comments to reporters. The source said the US president made the proposal during the meeting after Zelensky said he would not cede any territory to Moscow.
"The meeting ended with (Trump's) decision to make a deal where we are, on the contact line," — a third source said.
The publication notes that the head of the White House emphasized this position in comments to reporters on Sunday aboard Air Force One.
"We believe they should just stop where they are, on the front lines," he said and added: "The rest is very difficult to discuss."
As Reuters notes, in recent weeks there have been signs that the US president is abandoning attempts to force Kyiv and Moscow to sign an agreement, instead providing full support to the Ukrainians.
For example, after meeting with Zelensky at the UN General Assembly in September, Trump suggested that Ukraine could regain all of its lost territories.
But, the publication writes, Friday's meeting indicates that Trump may again insist on concluding an agreement as soon as possible, even if its terms are unacceptable to Kyiv.
American officials have repeatedly raised the possibility of a land swap between Ukraine and Russia — an idea Trump supported earlier this year — and the US president said during a meeting on Friday that a quick deal was extremely important, the sources said.
"That was pretty bad," one of the sources said about the meeting.
"The message was: 'Your country will freeze, and your country will be destroyed,'" if Ukraine does not conclude an agreement with Russia.
Another source denied that Trump said Ukraine would be "destroyed."
However, both sources said that Trump used foul language several times.
Two sources said Trump was influenced by a conversation with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on Thursday, during which Putin proposed a territorial swap in which Ukraine would give up Donetsk and Luhansk regions in exchange for small parts of Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, according to The Washington Post.
One source reported that American officials made just such an exchange offer to Zelensky on Friday.
The Ukrainians see great strategic value in the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions they control, and believe that giving up these territories would make the rest of Ukraine much more vulnerable to Russian offensive operations, said one of the sources familiar with the meeting.
This source claimed that giving up the western part of Donetsk and Luhansk would be tantamount to “suicide.”
Instead, two sources reported that US President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, was among those most aggressively urging Ukrainians to accept Russia's offer of a swap.
Witkoff noted that Donetsk and Luhansk “have a significant Russian-speaking population,” one source said, and he has expressed this view publicly before.
