In an interview with Fox News shortly after a meeting with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in the US state of Alaska, US President Donald Trump said on Friday (15) that he and the Russian leader agreed with an exchange of territories with Ukraine and that this will now be talked to Ukrainian representative Volodymyr Zelensky.
Earlier, Trump and Putin had spoken to the press who had a “very productive meeting,” but without announcing a ceasefire, even what measures were agreed on the war in Ukraine.
Trump was asked by Fox News journalist Sean Hannity about territorial concessions to Russia for the war to be interrupted and on US security guarantees to Ukraine.
“Well, I think these are points that we negotiate and with which we agreed largely,” replied the US president. “In fact, I think we agree on many things. I can say the meeting was warm.”
Trump said the exchange of territories would need to have approval from Ukraine, who recommended that “make a deal.”
“Now it’s really up to President Zelensky to do that,” Trump told Fox News. “They will set a meeting now between President Zelensky, President Putin and I, I think.”
However, a negotiation of territory exchange should be complicated because, in addition to Kiev’s opposition, Russia occupies much more Ukrainian lands than the opposite.
Counting to Crimea, occupied in 2014, and the territories in four Ukrainian provinces attached through fraudulent referendums since the invasion began in 2022 (the entire Lugansk region and most of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizehzia are under Russian control) today occupies 19% of the Ukrainian territory.
Already Ukraine occupies only 10 square kilometers in the Russian region of Kursk, after losing most of the terrain he took in a counterfensive started last year.
