Zelenskyy rejects Trump’s Ukrainian land swap proposal
President Zelensky rejects Trump’s proposal to exchange Ukrainian land with Russia ahead of the Alaska peace talks.
Vice President JD Vance said the negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine is unlikely to satisfy either side, and that the peace deal is likely to make both Moscow and Kiev “unhappy.”
He said the US is aiming for a settlement that both countries can accept.
“No one will be very happy. Perhaps at the end of the day, both Russians and Ukrainians will be dissatisfied with it,” he said of Fox News Sunday Morning Futures and Maria Bartilomo.
President Donald Trump said Friday that he will negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15th.
Trump said Russia and Ukraine are approaching a ceasefire agreement that could end the three and a half year conflict, and could possibly require Ukraine to abandon key territory.
However, Ukrainian President Voldymi Zelenki added on Saturday that Ukraine cannot violate the constitution on territorial issues and that “Ukrainians will not give land to the occupying people.”
In a Fox News interview recorded last week, Vance said the US was working to schedule consultations between Putin, Zelenskyy and Trump, but he didn’t think it would be productive to see Putin with Zelenskyy before speaking to Trump.
“We’re now trying to figure out what’s going on, frankly, when we’re trying to figure out what’s going on about the schedule and stuff, when these three leaders can sit down and discuss the end of this conflict,” he said.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose of Washington, Edited by Deepa Babington and Matthew Lewis)
